NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 6

[sdsds]

I am more optimistic now than when the plan or record included Ares I and Ares V. NASA now has access to a system that reliably delivers crew to LEO. NASA now has a launcher that can lift an Earth-orbit departure stage. And compared with the Altair dream, NASA now has access to two credible human landing systems under active development. What's not to like?

[TheRadicalModerate]

Put more simply, how about we land people on the moon just once before coming up with grandiose plans for what comes after? Turns out we can't even get there on schedule.

Meanwhile, China is testing a basic, no-frills lunar lander, because they're planning to get there this decade, and we're planning to burn taxpayer money.

Putting assets on the Moon to claim use of certain chunks of real estate doesn't require a human mission.  It just requires something that actually works, and continues to work.

If you're planning to mine and use water, you'd probably want to site your system in a place that's close to a PSR, has access to the PSR, and has a viable power and thermal situation (i.e., lots of solar peak power, with either a battery farm or a nuke for getting through the lunar nights¹ in at least a low-power mode).  If you want to add habs and other equipment for human missions, that'd be great.  But it's not necessary.

What probably is necessary are the human-class delivery landers (HDL).  If Artemis fails, those will likely fail with it.  You're not going to deliver a nuke--or even a high-scale solar mast--on a CLPS lander.


In re. "grandiose plans":  The reason Artemis is going to fail with the plan of record is because the transportation expense consumes all of the available budget, leaving almost nothing for any kind of plan for what to do on the surface, grandiose or not.  That will continue to be the case until SLS/Orion is canceled and replaced with something affordable, or, more likely, the whole program is canceled.

That's why I'm depressed.

____________
¹If you're sited your equipment near a peak of not-quite-eternal light, lunar nights should be infrequent, but in most spots they'll still occur from time to time.  It's OK to make your base hibernate during those nights, but even hibernation will require enough power to keep everything from freezing.

It's possible to have solar masts that are so tall that they stay in sunlight all the time.  Even then, power requirements for nighttime ops will vary wildly from those of daytime ops.  Whether there's enough juice to maintain normal operations at night is an interesting question.  It also bears directly on the question of whether you need a nuke or not.

[VSECOTSPE]

So the way to access a PSR is going to be down some kind of route from the crater rim to floor.  That's a route that can be extremely narrow, providing natural chokepoints to prevent others from accessing the crater.

Given the sheer amount of lunar real estate involved, I’m skeptical there’s a uniquely valuable piece of it that can only be accessed via a singular chokepoint.  And even if there was, we’re certainly not doing the work necessary to identify it.

But setting all that aside, blocking a chokepoint to a high value piece of real estate doesn’t make sense if we also want to access that piece of real estate.  If we plunk a reactor down at a chokepoint to a unique PSR and we also want to research or mine that PSR, then our rovers or robots or whatever will be regularly traipsing back and forth right past that reactor to get to and from that PSR.  That sets a precedent that it is perfectly safe to routinely operate in and around that reactor.  That doesn’t establish a exclusion zone.  It just proves that one isn’t necessary.

This makes sense only if we’re trying to block China from using resources that we don’t plan to have the capability to use ourselves.  When comparing Orion/SLS to where Long March 9/10 may be headed, that may actually be true.  But the solution there isn’t one or more billion-dollar reactors to block China from resources that we don’t have the mission rate to utilize.  It’s helping get Starship, New Glenn, and Vulcan Heavy across the finish line and getting off Orion/SLS ASAP.

Another objection:  Keep-out zones for terrestrial nukes are predicated on protecting people and property from big radiation accidents.  Keep-out zones on the Moon are largely going to be predicated on protecting the asset from debris.  It's sorta the reverse of the terrestrial situation.

Sure, but putting a reactor that’s ostensibly sensitive to dust and debris at a travel chokepoint where rovers and robots and the like will be kicking up dust and debris still doesn’t make sense.

You'll notice my posting on this thread has reduced markedly.  That's because I'm too depressed about what's going on to muster up much enthusiasm. 

I feel your pain.

FWIW...

[VSECOTSPE]

A lot of the assumptions in your post are incorrect. First, Duffy didn't say that the U.S.'s motivation was trying to get an exclusion zone. It's the opposite, he is saying that China could try to make the argument that it has exclusion zones where it puts its reactors. The argument is that if China is building nuclear reactors, the United States needs to be doing it also.

Where does Duffy articulate that argument?

Duffy’s argument from his own mouth is:

There’s a certain part of the Moon that everyone knows is the best.  We have ice there, we have sunlight there.  We want to get there first and claim that for America.

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/08/nx-s1-5493500/nasa-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon-explainer

You’re putting the old Scott Pace argument — that to make the rules on a frontier, you have to be there — in Duffy’s mouth.  And there’s ostensibly supposed to some of that in the unpublished reactor directive.  But AFAIK, Duffy has not articulated that argument himself.

Duffy’s argument is that there is some specific, special piece of lunar real estate onto which we must plop a nuclear exclusion zone.  I think even a rudimentary examination of the geography and numbers involved like I did upthread shows that not to be true.  There’s lots of potentially valuable PELs and PSRs separated by large distances that no single reactor exclusion zone or even a reasonable number of reactor exclusion zones could cover.  And even if it was true that one reactor exclusion zone could cover a singularly important piece of lunar real estate, Duffy/NASA are not pursuing or putting in place the things that must be done to know where that reactor exclusion zone should be located to claim that singular piece of lunar real estate.

Secondly, it is also incorrect that this Directive comes from nowhere.

I did not write that.  Now you’re putting words in my mouth and Duffy’s.

Lal recently issued a report that promotes almost the same plan.

The most important part of Lal’s report is this:

Capabilities Without Customers Cannot Survive. The most consistent failure across
U.S. space nuclear history is the absence of durable mission pull. Instead of building
systems to meet urgent operational needs, we have pursued abstract capability, building
reactors in search of a mission. Programs like SP-100 were conceived without a
committed specific user, making them easy targets when budgets tightened. Today’s
initiatives, as exemplified by DRACO, remain at risk unless they are anchored to clearly
defined, time-bound mission requirements. Only if there are sustained needs will the
initiatives succeed. The lesson here is that mission pull must ultimately be there. Without
real customers, civil, defense, or commercial, nuclear systems will never move beyond
R&D. This applies equally to architecture: if a reactor has no customer, or a demo has
no follow-on, it will not survive. Space nuclear must begin with a user and work
backward, not begin with a capability and hope to find one.

See p. 6-7 here:  https://inl.gov/content/uploads/2023/07/strategic-options-space-nuclear-leadership.pdf

It’s literally the first bullet in Lal’s lessons learned and recommended approach.  Having written about space reactor program failures and having worked space reactor programs, I wholeheartedly agree with Lal on this.  Lack of clear applications and committed customers is the leading cause of death for every US space nuclear reactor or propulsion project since the beginning of the technology.

Among other things, Duffy/NASA are not following this most important lesson/recommendation.  Other than some still vaguely defined and far-off base, there’s no clear application or customer for this reactor, which, based on decades of space reactor program history, guarantees its cancellation in a couple/few years.  I know I’m a broken record, but aside from planting a flag with an Orion crew every couple years, what is it Artemis/NASA is trying to get done and achieve on the Moon?  We can imagine some applications and customers — lunar water ice ISRU demo, partial gravity biolab, decoding solar system formation from lunar mantle stratigraphy, various observatories, bazillionaire hotels — but what is Duffy/Artemis/NASA’s actual plan, does a 100kW reactor make sense in that plan, and where are the other elements necessary to see that plan thru?

Build-it-and-they-will-come worked for Kevin Costner in the movies, but it does not work in the real world of space reactors.

Thirdly, it is also incorrect to say that the Directive isn't official. It's been signed by Duffy and Duffy has talked about it to the press on a number of occasions. Cowing didn't say that it wasn't official, he is just saying that it hasn't been published on NASA's website which is true.

Transparency and just plain old communicating to the troops in the implementing organizations is part of making a directive official.  A NASA Administrator can sign whatever he wants, but if no one else can read the document, the signature is meaningless.

Maybe too many NASA website managers took the early retirement options, and the remaining ones are just slow getting this document online.  But Cowing indicates that it’s being held up and maybe revisited or quashed because the relevant AAs and Center Directors were not consulted, which is a heckuva way to run a space program.

In terms of going around NASA's leadership. I am not sure what that means, Duffy is the NASA Administrator, he is the leader, so nobody is going around the NASA Administrator.

In a normal administration, before the NASA Administrator (or any other department or agency head) signs off on something, the relevant deputies, associate administrators, center directors, etc. are given a chance to review the document, provide feedback, and, if necessary, lodge objections.  They, in turn, often have the stakeholders and experts in their sub-organizations review the same.  Among other reasons, this is important because: 1) no one is an expert in everything (especially not an acting administrator with a day job and no prior space sector experience), 2) many of these people will be responsible for implementing whatever is in the document and you want to know whether they think it’s implementable, and 3) when given the chance, bad actors who’ve been told “no” before will make end-runs around the leadership to get a naive administrator or department head to sign off on their pet issue or project.

Cowing indicates that this process broke down or was ignored for this reactor (and CLD changes).  On something as sensitive as a nuclear power source, that’s pretty bad.  I don’t know that Cowing’s sources are correct, but the lack of critical thinking evinced so far on this reactor is consistent with what he’s written.

We’ll see what field center this reactor ends up at, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Duffy or Hughes did this on behalf of (or were strong-armed into doing this by) the Alabama appropriators in Congress that have been directing big nuclear earmarks MSFC’s way for many years now.  In that case, instead of someone end-running NASA’s leadership from below, Duffy or Hughes just acted without consulting them.

In terms of this being part of Artemis, that is actually a good thing, this is the only way that this nuclear reactor is going to get built.

An imaginary Artemis could be a good customer for a reactor, but unless something changes radically, the Artemis we have is so poorly defined and will slip so much that it’s not a good customer.  What’s going to happen is Artemis III will slip to 2028+, at or after the end of Trump II.  And the next Administration, even a Vance White House, is going to take stock of where Artemis is at, see that they’re stuck with at least Artemis IV and V thru 2032-2034 or so thanks to Cruz’s old reconciliation maneuvers, and wonder why the heck they’re spending so much to get reactor on the Moon by 2030 that Artemis cannot use for many years to come.  And then they’ll kill it, like what happened to NERVA and Kilopower and DRACO, which also had poorly defined and slipping customers that eventually disappeared on those space nuclear programs, too.

The plan for Artemis is to build a lunar base, not to be a repeat of Apollo.

There are repeated aspirations but no concrete plans for a lunar base.  Melroy’s “plan” was engineering taxonomy, not priority-setting.  The President’s FY26 Budget had a wedge for commercial Moon/Mars, but that was mostly in the outyears, that budget continued to mostly invest in Orion/SLS thru Artemis III, and Congress has focused that wedge on a big Mars lander and likely redirected the rest to their priorities, which include Orion/SLS thru the early to mid-2030s for Artemis IV and V thanks to Cruz and reconciliation.

Aside from Gateway and this nonsensical reactor, in terms of actual surface missions planned and funded into the 2030s, Artemis is Apollo only slower.  Maybe there was a brief opportunity for something different when Musk and Isaacman were involved.  But that moment has passed, Congress has reasserted its parochial priorities, and that mostly means an Orion/SLS mission once every couple-ish years as far as the budget outyears will allow.

FWIW...

[VSECOTSPE]

NASA now has a launcher that can lift an Earth-orbit departure stage. And compared with the Altair dream, NASA now has access to two credible human landing systems under active development. What's not to like?

The impedance matching problem between Orion/SLS on one hand and the HLS landers on the other.  Orion will deliver four crew to lunar orbit once every year or two.  Lunar Starship, if it works, for example, will be capable of delivering scores of crew multiple times a year.  It’s a goofy and unproductive architecture because the crew transport function is funneled through the tiny, Apollo-era straw of Orion/SLS.

Orion/SLS LoC figures, extremely low flight rate, and Michoud work quality/hiring issues also pose major and unnecessary flight safety threats/challenges.  Orion/SLS consumes most of the budget as far as the eye can see, leaving little for actual lunar activities.  And SLS utterly lacks the launch rate necessary to support human Mars missions.

Artemis in general is just poorly/absently planned.  Again, I’m a broken record on this, but what is it Artemis is trying to get done on the Moon and how does that flow down to the capabilities and systems it needs?  Not every i or t needs dotting or crossing.  But what are the, say, five top priorities for Artemis to achieve?  If Artemis or NASA can’t even articulate and defend that, then it’s not a program.  It’s just a collection of make-work activities.

FWIW...

[sdsds]

[...]  Again, I’m a broken record on this, but what is it Artemis is trying to get done on the Moon and how does that flow down to the capabilities and systems it needs?

Again, I'm a broken record on this, and you already know the answer without hearing it from me, but:
https://www.nasa.gov/moontomarsarchitecture-architecturedefinitiondocuments/

[VSECOTSPE]

Again, I'm a broken record on this, and you already know the answer without hearing it from me, but:
https://www.nasa.gov/moontomarsarchitecture-architecturedefinitiondocuments/

Again, that’s Melroy’s old engineering taxonomy and gap analysis.  It’s a Biden era product.  Who knows if it will be carried forward during Trump II.

Even if it is carried forward, it’s not a plan.  A plan sets goals.  Melroy’s team did not set goals.  They just created huge Excel spreadsheets of engineering categories.  The top 12 are transportation, infrastructure support, habitation, human systems, logistics, power, mobility, comms & PNT, data management, autonomous systems, ISRU, and utilization.  The level below that is stuff like contingency, recovery, astronaut ground training, mating, waste, ingress/egress, cargo repositioning, etc.  These aren’t program goals.  They’re just lists of engineering topics that need to be thought through.

An actual lunar R&D plan would set goals in scientific research, engineering demonstrations, and economic development. 

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we want to learn?  I’d vote for things we can only learn in the lunar environment, like the impact of partial gravity on the development of biological organisms and what ancient lunar terrains tell us about solar system formation and early development.

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we need to demonstrate?  I’d vote for the things we should prove before risking astronauts’ lives on irretrievable Mars missions, namely an HLV launch rate commensurate with the rate needed to manned Mars missions, and manned surface and in-space mission durations commensurate with Martian conjunction and opposition missions.

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we need to prove out or disprove?  I’d vote for propellant production for lunar ascent and be neutral on the source.

You’d no doubt vote for different goals, which is fine.  The point is not to argue specific goals, but to have some program goals at all.  Engineering categories like infrastructure, logistics, and power are not goals.  They’re just labels we bin capabilities into, capabilities that should flow down from a discrete number of program goals and that are missing from Artemis.

Hope that’s clear.  FWIW...

[Vultur]

I think the real goals of Artemis are fundamentally political ones. Both internally (justifying continual expenditure on SLS and Orion) and externally (demonstrating that we can go to the Moon).

I don't really think Artemis as preparation for Mars fundamentally makes much sense. There's no funding for human Mars missions and no real prospect of it. So the only way the US will have human Mars missions will be through Starship, and I don't think Artemis is terribly relevant for developing that, except that it adds some more money for Starship development.

[thespacecow]

Cautiously optimistic:
1. Duffy's actions so far have been pretty good as far as HSF is concerned, wonder if he had a talk with Isaacman when they were flying MiG-29
2. Congress left funding wedge for commercial Moon/Mars transportation

Now just need Starship to perform and we'll be back on track.

It's a pity that SLS/Orion is not getting cancelled, but at this stage they're totally irrelevant. The only benefit of cancelling them is saving a few billion dollars per year for taxpayers, but taxpayers don't seem to be interested in saving money anyways, so 🤷‍♂️

[sdsds]

[...] I’d vote for things we can only learn in the lunar environment, like the impact of partial gravity on the development of biological organisms and what ancient lunar terrains tell us about solar system formation and early development.
[...] I’d vote for the things we should prove before risking astronauts’ lives on irretrievable Mars missions, namely an HLV launch rate commensurate with the rate needed to manned Mars missions, and manned surface and in-space mission durations commensurate with Martian conjunction and opposition missions.
[...] I’d vote for propellant production for lunar ascent and be neutral on the source.

You’d no doubt vote for different goals, which is fine.  The point is not to argue specific goals, but to have some program goals at all.  Engineering categories like infrastructure, logistics, and power are not goals.  They’re just labels we bin capabilities into, capabilities that should flow down from a discrete number of program goals and that are missing from Artemis.

Hope that’s clear.  FWIW...

Ah yes, thanks! That's the level of goal that seems to be missing; something between vague notions like 'enhance national prestige' or 'develop advanced spaceflight technology' on the one side and the Moon to Mars 'spreadsheet' on the other.

(By the way I like your set of goals well enough. In my more cynical moments I'd settle for something like, 'Conclusively demonstrate that the lunar surface is a useless dead end.' )

[TheRadicalModerate]

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we want to learn [demonstrate | prove/disprove]? 

In my current Eeyore-like state of abject pessimism, I'd assert that developing a goal-based program is impossible (p=0.00).  I'd also assert that a rational architecture is unlikely (p<0.25).  So the best we can do is kinda think like a NASA guerrilla:  If I were a mid-level manager who had goals in mind, what components and (gasp!) systems would I want, so that my goals were easily achievable in the unlikely event that somebody woke up and smelled the coffee?

The modest good news is that we're not incredibly far off that when the question is framed that way:

1) Develop the cheapest system capable of landing crews and heavy cargo on the lunar poles.  SLS/Orion is still (literally) the law of the land, but that law now contains an escape clause, allowing commercial replacement when a system can provide the same capabilities as our least favorite system.  (I'd also note that somebody pegged those capabilities at the Arty 3 level, rather than the Block 1B level, which implies that they were serious, and not just looking for a way to obfuscate the issue.)

2) Come up with a list of surface components that will be needed no matter what the mission is, as long as it has something to do with people on the surface:
a) Suits
b) Rovers
c) Habs
d) Power supplies
e) Comms and PNT

All of these are in process in one form or another.  One can argue (and we have) over whether solar masts and batteries are the only thing needed, or whether a nuke would come in handy.  One can also argue that these would be better purpose-built for a specific mission.  But the generic versions are probably good enough to start with.

Later, when our NASA guerrillas are promoted to upper management under an administration that isn't quite so recto-cranially inverted, maybe we can do better.  Meanwhile, we're back to where we were four years ago:  undermining SLS/Orion to the greatest extent possible, and hoping that the commercial alternatives become obvious before Congress decides to give all of Artemis up as a bad job.  The good news is that SLS/Orion is considerably less secure than it was four years ago, even though we didn't quite get it killed outright.

That's me being optimistic.


Note that I didn't say anything about Mars above.  Truth in advertising:  I care much, much less about Mars than I do about a sustainable lunar program, and I think that anybody who thinks that there's going to be a human mission to the martian surface before 2035 is going to be sorely disappointed.

That makes chucking a billion a year at Mars a serious threat to Artemis (the lunar part, not the M2M part).  If I were the NASA middle-management guerrilla, I'd be doing everything possible to ensure that all of the ESDMD Mars money¹ was dual-use for as long as possible.  No clue how to do that.


__________
¹Even with a probable CR, note that I'm assuming that the administration is largely going to have its way with the NASA budget, and nobody's gonna stop them.  If a clean CR manages to fend off all the administrative sabotage, that's slightly better, especially if the CR manages to keep the "SLS/Orion can be phased out when something better/cheaper comes along" weasel words.

[Vultur]

(By the way I like your set of goals well enough. In my more cynical moments I'd settle for something like, 'Conclusively demonstrate that the lunar surface is a useless dead end.' )

Useless to whom? I'd argue that (beyond safety and money reasons, which were obviously also very relevant) part of why we abandoned going to the Moon was because no one else was remotely close to going. As long as another competitor nation has a plausible lunar program, the lunar surface is likely to be politically useful even if it has no economic relevance.

I do not think the Moon makes sense as a stepping stone to Mars, especially not today (if Starship works, we'll probably have Mars missions before we can learn much from Artemis human surface missions; if Starship fails, Artemis will be massively delayed).

[thespacecow]

https://x.com/SecDuffyNASA/status/1961051155682795610

In 2027, we WILL return American astronauts to the Moon.
 
We won yesterday's space race. We'll win today's space race against China, and we'll always win tomorrow's space race.
 
@SpaceX's Starship test flight success moves us one step closer toward achieving that goal.

[yg1968]

Again, I'm a broken record on this, and you already know the answer without hearing it from me, but:
https://www.nasa.gov/moontomarsarchitecture-architecturedefinitiondocuments/

Again, that’s Melroy’s old engineering taxonomy and gap analysis.  It’s a Biden era product.  Who knows if it will be carried forward during Trump II.

Even if it is carried forward, it’s not a plan.  A plan sets goals.  Melroy’s team did not set goals.  They just created huge Excel spreadsheets of engineering categories.  The top 12 are transportation, infrastructure support, habitation, human systems, logistics, power, mobility, comms & PNT, data management, autonomous systems, ISRU, and utilization.  The level below that is stuff like contingency, recovery, astronaut ground training, mating, waste, ingress/egress, cargo repositioning, etc.  These aren’t program goals.  They’re just lists of engineering topics that need to be thought through.

An actual lunar R&D plan would set goals in scientific research, engineering demonstrations, and economic development. 

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we want to learn?  I’d vote for things we can only learn in the lunar environment, like the impact of partial gravity on the development of biological organisms and what ancient lunar terrains tell us about solar system formation and early development.

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we need to demonstrate?  I’d vote for the things we should prove before risking astronauts’ lives on irretrievable Mars missions, namely an HLV launch rate commensurate with the rate needed to manned Mars missions, and manned surface and in-space mission durations commensurate with Martian conjunction and opposition missions.

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we need to prove out or disprove?  I’d vote for propellant production for lunar ascent and be neutral on the source.

You’d no doubt vote for different goals, which is fine.  The point is not to argue specific goals, but to have some program goals at all.  Engineering categories like infrastructure, logistics, and power are not goals.  They’re just labels we bin capabilities into, capabilities that should flow down from a discrete number of program goals and that are missing from Artemis.

Hope that’s clear.  FWIW...

I can't say that I agree with your goals. First of all, you say: what do we want to learn before Artemis ends? The fact that you talk about an end to Artemis is a problem. If the Moon is stepping stone to something else (Mars, for example), the Moon then becomes an expensive distraction to that other goal as Musk has recently argued. You have to start by saying, we are going to the Moon to stay and go from there in establishing your other goals. I prefer Melroy's goals to yours because at least hers are based on that premise.

My own view is that NASA needs to go to the Moon to explore the Moon and build a scientific base there in order to stay on the Moon permanently. NASA also wants to enable private industry on the Moon: tourism, ressource extractions for use on the Moon, etc. You can attach a bunch of scientific and R&D objectives to these other goals but the science and the R&D aren't what are driving this, being on the Moon on a permament basis is the real driver. You can also call this trying to establish a Moon village as ESA called it a few years ago.

[VSECOTSPE]

I can't say that I agree with your goals. First of all, you say: what do we want to learn before Artemis ends? The fact that you talk about an end to Artemis is a problem. If the Moon is stepping stone to something else (Mars, for example), the Moon then becomes a distraction as Musk has recently argued. You have to start by saying, we are going to the Moon to stay and go from there in establishing your other goals.

Stay forever to do what?  Specifically?  What things are we going to get done spending gazillions of taxpayers dollars to keep some astronauts rotating through a lunar outpost from now until the heat death of the universe (or the Sun enters its red giant phase or whatever)?

This is the old permanent presence argument in different clothing.  It’s meaningless.  Goals come first.  Then things like program duration, timing, flight rate, crew size, mission duration, payloads, ground ops, etc, flow from that. 

Now, if your goal is something like “demonstrate the technologies and operations necessary to incentivize and establish an independent, ongoing, privately financed human lunar presence”, then we have something to discuss.

But vague, poorly defined notions about “going back to stay” and “permanent presence” without any idea what that is for or what it really means is just blather that maybe makes for a quick political turn of phrase and not much else.

I prefer Melroy's goals to yours because at least hers are based on that premise.

You can prefer whatever you like, but her “objectives” were not goals.  They’re just categories in an engineering taxonomy, the real purpose of which was gap analysis, not goal-setting.  And even if her team’s “objectives” were goals, there were literally dozens and dozens of them (buried in hundreds of pages of bureaucratese to boot), which makes them meaningless for the purposes of program prioritization and planning.

Goals require prioritization.  Some things have to be more important than other things.  I challenge anyone to articulate what the top couple or few or handful of goals were in Melroy’s documents.  If Melroy were participating here, I’d challenge her to do the same.  If you/she/me can’t name a handful of priorities from her documents, then they’re not setting goals.  They’re just listing things to get around to someday.

My own view is that NASA needs to go to the Moon to explore the Moon and build a scientific base there in order to stay on the Moon permanently.

That’s a world better that Melroy’s “objectives”, but it’s still bass ackwards.  We don’t do scientific research just to “stay” somewhere “permanently”.  We do research to answer questions, and once they’re answered, we move onto the next questions.

“Permanence” as a goal alone is just foolhardy endeavor to begin with.  The US economy could crater over the next few years or we could get into a debilitating conflict with China over Taiwan or Covid Mk II could kill tens of millions and any national lunar effort will be put on the back burner or terminated regardless of how many times the word “permanent” appears in a lunar policy goal document.

If you aspire to permanence, then what you want are a few, driving, concrete, challenging goals that will take some decades to achieve and that are worthwhile enough to enough customers to weather some of the ups and downs that any program encounters internally and externally.  There are no guarantees, but that is more of an insurance policy than the word “permanent” is.

[quote)
NASA also wants to enable private industry on the Moon: tourism, ressource extractions for use on the Moon, etc.
[/quote]

If by “NASA” you mean thousands of civil servants, there’s never been and probably never will be a coherent expression of what they want.

If by “NASA” you mean its leadership and political stakeholders, they by and large don’t talk about that stuff.  You won’t find “tourism” in any of their speeches or bills or policy documents.  Not even in Melroy’s multi-hundred page tome (or if it is in there, it’s buried on page umpteen-hundred).  There’s generic stuff about resources on the periphery of Artemis (like the Artemis Accords) but there’s no clear, concrete, central “resource extraction” goal driving the program in any legislation, policy, or budget.

In my rhetorical sample goals upthread, I went farther on resource extraction than what you’ll find in all those documents.  I wrote:

For the tens of billions being spent, before Artemis ends, what do we need to prove out or disprove?  I’d vote for propellant production for lunar ascent and be neutral on the source.

I’m not saying my goals are the end-all/be-all.  But if you want to see lunar ISRU (or whatever), then you have to move beyond meaningless words like “permanent” and say so concretely. 

We can’t be so afraid of a program ending that it never gets anything done.  That’s the recipe for never getting started in the first place.

You can attach a bunch of scientific objectives to these other goals but the science isn't what is driving this,

I never argued that science should be the or only driver.  (See my resource goal above.  See your own complaints about Mars being in my lunar goals.)  But there are things that we can only investigate (or only reasonably investigate) on the Moon, and it’s boneheaded that they’re not driving some significant portion of Artemis planning.  That’s like driving to the Grand Canyon and never actually looking at the stratigraphy.

Moreover, a lot of science is on the critical path to other engineering and economic goals.  We have no coherent plan to find and characterize the putative lunar water ice.  That’s step one in fulfilling almost any “resource extraction” goal.   We have no coherent plan to site our putative 100kW reactor, and the science missions that could have helped gather that data have almost all failed with no plan to otherwise obtain that data.

Science is central to all this, and sometimes it has to come first, even when your goal is technological or economic in nature.

being on the Moon on a permament basis is the real driver.

Apologize for using this word, but real-world evidence shows that is baloney.  Between the FY26 budget and reconciliation legislation, Artemis is getting slaved farther and farther into the future (now thru Artemis V) to a crew transport system in Orion/SLS that is utterly incapable of sustaining a permanent (however that’s defined) human lunar presence.  The harsh reality is that no matter how many times the word “permanent” shows up in legislation or policy, Congress is investing more and more in the opposite because the opposite is what funds jobs and votes in their districts and states.  And since the latter part of Bush II, no White House has cared enough to change that.

A way out of that is to get down to a handful of brass tacks about what it is we actually want to get done on the Moon and show that Orion/SLS is woefully short of supporting that.  That doesn’t mean it has to be science goals, but the kind of ambitious yet concrete goal setting I’m talking about has worked for the science side of NASA for decades.  For example, the ambitious yet concrete goal of obtaining the first light from the first stars and galaxies drove intelligent design trade offs and sustained a $10B+ investment over many years in JWST, despite some pretty bad overruns.  That kind of clarity of purpose is utterly lacking in Artemis.

Doesn’t have to be science.  But Artemis needs more than “permanent” to justify and plan the program.

And the harsh reality is that Artemis isn’t even being driven by any permanent presence goal.  The program is actually being driven by an Apollo throwback to beating China to the Moon before their putative and very temporary (like six hours on the surface) 2030 mission because that’s what sells more parochial spending on Orion/SLS.  Even with Duffy’s latest reactor spasm, there’s no coherent planning or procurements or steps towards any kind program that would lead to something approximating a permanent presence.

You and I can argue over words and goals all day long here, but the actual program is light-years from working on either permanence or concrete, driving goals.  The program is so fubar that it’s all angels on a pin.

You can also call this trying to establish a Moon village as ESA called it a few years ago.

Yeah, that really went far...

FWIW.

[yg1968]

We don’t do scientific research just to “stay” somewhere “permanently”.  We do research to answer questions, and once they’re answered, we move onto the next questions.

I agree with a lot of the rest of your post but not this part. You are right that Artemis needs to be modified (SLS and Orion need to be replaced by commercial initiatives, etc.). However, I still believe that you need as the end goal that you are going to the Moon to stay. I don't think that any NASA Administrator should accept any human exploration plan that doesn't have that as one of its goals.

The Moon is a destination in of itself, it's not a stepping stone to something else, it's the end goal. Mars and LEO are also destinations in space that humans want to get to. The reasons for going to the Moon are the same reasons that we go to space in general or to any of these other destinations. We go because we want to explore and live and work there (the final frontier, etc). Saying that we should stop going to the Moon once that we have accomplished certain goals is like saying we should stop going to space once that we have met certain goals. I don't agree with either of these.

If by “NASA” you mean its leadership and political stakeholders, they by and large don’t talk about that stuff.

It's not very detailed but the good stuff in the Architecture document is in this part (the sustained lunar evolution segment):

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57221.msg2477294#msg2477294

[sdsds]

Isn't it obvious that as the flagship program of the agency the goals of Artemis are the goals of NASA?
1 - Enhance national prestige for its own sake, and also to encourage other nations to partner with us rather than with a competitor.
2 - Advance the nation's (not just the government's) technical capabilities.
3 - Learn some science stuff.

Specifically regarding the lunar component of Artemis the goals should be:
1 - Learn enough about the Moon to know whether we should stay.
2 - Learn enough about our capabilities to know what we should develop next.

(And simply echoing others but putting it in a different light: with SLS/Orion NASA has already accomplished the last of these, i.e. we should develop a new paradigm for BLEO spaceflight that includes LEO rendezvous for propellant transfer.)

[VSECOTSPE]

I agree with a lot of the rest of your post but not this part. You are right that Artemis needs to be modified (SLS and Orion need to be replaced by commercial initiatives, etc.). However, I still believe that you need as the end goal that you are going to the Moon to stay. I don't think that any NASA Administrator should accept any human exploration plan that doesn't have that as one of its goals.

What does “going to the Moon to stay” mean?  A long-term government research outpost with rotating crews like the Antarctic?  A private lunar ice mining enterprise akin to oil rigs that supports missions deeper into the solar system?  The ultimate adventure tourism destination for millionaires like Everest is today?  Settlement on the frontier where families move there permanently and eke out a living over generations like the American West?

What the heck is it we’re trying to do on the Moon with the $8+ billion we’re throwing at Artemis annually?

“Going to stay” doesn’t answer that.  It may make space cadets like us with Post-Apollo Termination Syndrome feel better.  It may be a nice turn of phrase for a political document.  But it provides no clear vision.  It doesn’t tell us what we’re trying to do or why we’re going.  It doesn’t justify Artemis funding or provide any guidance on how that funding would be most effectively spent. 

And in point of fact, there’s no government program or installation that is permanent.  Even the military, the one government function written into the Constitution, doesn’t maintain bases and overseas deployments forever.  It’s frankly unrealistic that of all the things the USG does, a base on the Moon is the one thing that should go on forever.  Infinite timelines?  So much for small government...

I’m not arguing for a deadline or termination date on a USG lunar presence before it has even started.  But I don’t put much faith in feel-good phrases that have little substantive meaning like “going to stay”, either.

The Moon is a destination in of itself, it's not a stepping stone to something else, it's the end goal.

No, the Moon (and every other solar system body or location) is a target.  It’s what you do there that’s the goal.  That goal could be long-term in nature.  But just because a place exists doesn’t mean people should be there forever.  It would be much easier than supporting a permanent lunar presence, but no government maintains a permanent human presence under any of the Earth’s oceans, either.

Saying that we should stop going to the Moon once that we have accomplished certain goals is like saying we should stop going to space once that we have met certain goals. I don't agree with either of these.

I didn’t write that.  Space research works by moving from goal to goal and mission to mission.  Sometimes, multiple goals and multiple missions will maintain a permanent presence at a target for a long time.  See the Mars program.

It is boneheaded that science is not one organizing pillar of Artemis.  Besides providing some kind of return for the massive investment and making use of the unique lunar environment and record, it would help Artemis establish and maintain longevity.  If Artemis wants to stick around a long time, then the first thing it should be embracing is a research program to understand the record of the early solar system history embedded in the lunar geography, to find and characterize lunar volatiles and their cycles, and to understand the impact of low partial gravity on Earth organisms and their growth.  (Or pick a different set of lunar science.)  Those kinds of questions will take years and decades to answer.  They’ll probably spawn other questions that require more lunar research.  This is not something to be afraid of.

For the gobs of money we’re throwing at Artemis, there should be other organizing pillars, too.  For my money, it’s proving out production of propellant or other volatiles and demonstrating systems and operations needed for Mars.  I don’t think we should be afraid to call these things (or others) out because propellant production might not pan out or because we eventually send a human mission to Mars some year or decades into the future.  We may or may not be done with the Moon at that point, but lunar sentimentality shouldn’t keep us from doing what needs to be done.  The alternative is to shrink our justification for Artemis to short, feel-good phrases that can’t justify or inform the budget and allow it to get hijacked by parochial interests (as continues to happen annually).

It's not very detailed but the good stuff in the Architecture document is in this part (the sustained lunar evolution segment):

It’s mostly generic descriptors and process.  Very little specificity.  And what little specificity exists is typical NASA human space flight engineering sandbox, build-it-and-they-will-come, self-licking-ice-cream-cone syndrome.

Stuff like “increase the size... of the lunar population significantly” with “local resources”.  Okay, but why do we need to increase the population in the first place?  What is it we’re trying to do?  How many people does that require?  Only after that should we be asking whether ISRU or shipping from Earth makes more sense to supply them.

Stuff like “fission power” to “achieve a year-round population”.  Okay, but why do we need a year-round presence in the first place?  What is it we’re trying to do?  How many man-hours does that require and at what times of the year?  Only after that should we be asking whether a reactor makes sense.

Hundreds of NASA personnel were involved in writing these documents.  And this level of specificity — or utter lack thereof — is the best they can do in terms of the mid- or far-term vision for Artemis.  Really?

I’m not saying Artemis has to have every man-hour plotted to the nth degree.  But the program needs some idea of what it’s trying to achieve (besides get back before 2030) in order to justify its existence and budget and make intelligent trade offs between different systems and operations.  I would love to see a program that requires a dozen crew at a time or four visits a year and therefore necessitates moving on from Orion/SLS ASAP.  But those numbers can’t be plucked out of thin air, either.  Those astronauts have to be achieving something(s).  What is/are that/those thing(s)?  Everyone here can think of lots of possibilities.  But NASA and its stakeholders have to put some concrete ones down on paper and drive the program with them.

Jumping straight to the “solution” like a baseball field in the middle of Iowa cornfields works if you’re Kevin Costner trying to attract ghosts and spectators in a Hollywood film. It’s a terrible way to plan multi-billion dollar engineering programs in the real world.

FWIW...

[Vultur]

I think the goal is basically political.

We didn't "need" to go to the Moon between 1973 and today because no other nation had a credible plan to go there. Now there's competition. "Going back to stay" IMO really means "maintain a foothold at least as long as any other nation wants to go". Thus, the stuff about permanent presence/lunar population.

The goal is to have people on the Moon, not specifically what they do there, because by being there they stake a claim (informally of course, OST doesn't allow the US to actually claim the Moon, but...)

If China canceled its lunar program, and nobody else established one, the US might go back to the Obama era "we've been there already" disinterest in the Moon, and focus on Mars instead.

--

I *wish* it was science driven, but I think that's secondary at best.

[DanClemmensen]

I think the goal is basically political.

We didn't "need" to go to the Moon between 1973 and today because no other nation had a credible plan to go there. Now there's competition. "Going back to stay" IMO really means "maintain a foothold at least as long as any other nation wants to go". Thus, the stuff about permanent presence/lunar population.

The goal is to have people on the Moon, not specifically what they do there, because by being there they stake a claim (informally of course, OST doesn't allow the US to actually claim the Moon, but...)

If China canceled its lunar program, and nobody else established one, the US might go back to the Obama era "we've been there already" disinterest in the Moon, and focus on Mars instead.

--

I *wish* it was science driven, but I think that's secondary at best.

I want SLS/Orion to be cancelled as they are a horribly inefficient, inadequate, and expensive system whose actual function is pork distribution. I still think we should go to the Moon now to stay because we are in the late stages of developing a much less expensive system that is much more capable.  The SLS/Orion kludge is too expensive, so the result is not worth it. A Starship-based system can support a continuous crewed presence at a base that allows for useful ongoing research, primarily selenology at first. Probably more than 1000 times the research hours for the same cost as an SLS/Orion-based system.