Neil Armstrong taking his historic “one small step”. to the Moon in 1969. Just three years later, the last Apollo astronauts left the Moon. Since then, hundreds of astronauts have been launched into space especially for International Space Station orbiting the Earth. In fact, no one takes risks going more than a few hundred kilometers from the Earth.
However, the US-led Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon within this decade, with Artemis 1 which is returning to Earth and around the Moon as part of its first test flight.
The most notable difference between the Apollo era and the mid-1920s is the tremendous increase in computing power and robotics. Furthermore, superpower rivalry can no longer justify the massive spending on space missions, as was the case during the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. In our latest book, “The end of the astronauts,” Me and Donald Goldsmith he argued that these changes weakened space design.
Using the Artemis mission Space launch system NASA’s newest, most powerful rocket ever, similar in design to the Saturn V rocket that sent a number of Apollo astronauts to the Moon. Like its predecessor, the Artemis booster combines liquid hydrogen and oxygen to create a massive amount of lift before it crashes into the ocean, never to be used again. Thus, each launch is estimated to cost between US$2 billion (IDR 19 billion) and US$4 billion (IDR 76 billion).
This distinguishes Artemis from its competitors, namely the mission”Spaceship” courtesy of SpaceX who allowed the company to recover and return to first stage use.
Advantages of robotics
Advances in robotic exploration are demonstrated by a series of Mars rovers, where Perseverance, NASA’s newest seeker, can guide itself through rocky terrain with only limited guidance from Earth. Improvements in sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) will further enable robots to identify sites of particular interest and then collect samples to return to Earth.
In the next decade or two, robotic exploration of the Martian surface could be almost completely autonomous, with minimal human assistance. Similarly, engineering projects – such as astronomers’ dreams of building large radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon, free from Earth interference – no longer require human intervention. This type of project can be completely built by robots.
Unlike astronauts who need adequate housing when assigned for construction purposes, robots can settle permanently in their workplaces. Furthermore, the use of robots could also reduce costs and improve safety if mining for rare materials from lunar soil and asteroids becomes economically feasible.
The robots can also explore Jupiter, Saturn and their various moons for a small additional cost as the challenges facing a robot on a multi-year journey are less than a six-month journey to Mars. Different months it can actually sustain life in the ocean floor.
Sending humans to the area is not a good idea because humans can contaminate it with microbes from Earth.
Manage your risk
The Apollo astronauts were heroes. They dare to take high risks and push technology to the limit. By comparison, short trips to the Moon in the 1920s, even though the Artemis program cost $90 billion, will seem like routine projects.
Generating public excitement on the Apollo scale required something more ambitious, like a landing on Mars. But such a mission, including supplies and rockets for the round trip, could cost NASA up to a trillion dollars. Expenditures of this magnitude are questionable in the midst of the climate crisis and poverty on Earth. The high price is the result “culture of safety” (“safety culture”) developed by NASA in recent years in response to public attitudes.
NASA
This reflects the trauma and resulting program delays Spaceship disaster in 1986 and 2003, which killed seven civilians aboard each. However, the shuttle, which has made a total of 135 launches, has a failure rate of less than two percent. It’s unrealistic to expect such a low failure rate for a return trip to Mars, considering the mission will last a full two years.
Astronauts also require more “upkeep” than robots: their travel and surface operations require air, water, food, living space, and protection from harmful radiation, especially solar storms.
Already large enough for a trip to the Moon, the cost difference between human and robotic travel will grow much more for long-term travel. In addition to posing a much greater risk to astronauts, travel to Mars, which is hundreds of times farther from the Moon, also makes emergency support much less likely. Even astronaut enthusiasts have come to terms with the fact that the first manned trip to Mars will still have to wait nearly two decades in the future.
There are sure to be thrill-seekers and adventurers willing to take much higher risks. In the past, several people also enrolled for one-way itineraries.
This marked a key difference between the Apollo era and today: the emergence of a strong private space technology sector, which now includes human spaceflight. Private sector companies are now in competition with NASA, with low-cost, high-risk trips to Mars, funded by billionaires and private sponsors, and able to be manned by willing volunteers. In the end, audiences were able to cheer on these brave adventurers without paying them.
Given that human spaceflight beyond low orbit is likely to be entirely transferred to privately funded missions prepared to accept high risks, it is questionable whether NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis project is a good way to use government money. In the end it’s more likely that Artemis is NASA’s last mission, not the start of a new Apollo era.
Zalfa Imani Trijatna of the University of Indonesia translated this article from English.
