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After being visited by dozens of Soviet and American missions between 1959 and 1976, the Moon went out of fashion. The Apollo missions had sanctioned the American victory in the space race and, once the opponent was beaten, NASA’s attention (and that of US Congress, which saw no reason to fund costly human expeditions) turned to other objectives with sporadic scientific missions to continue studying the Moon from orbit. Not that there were no supporters, even authoritative ones, for the return to the Moon, but politics did not show sensitivity to the cause. The Apollo program taught us that great enterprises require large funding over a time frame much longer than the duration of a presidency, so it requires solid political will. Instead, NASA and Congress have oscillated according to the preferences of the succeeding Presidents. George W. Bush began talking about returning to the Moon in 2004 without however providing sufficient financial coverage. In 2008 the President changed and Barak Obama proved more sensitive to supporters of Mars and asteroid exploration. After all, the United States had already been to the Moon. Obama left his mark on the history of US space thanks to the idea of revolutionizing the way of sending men and materials into orbit by opening the business to private companies, no longer executors of NASA projects but sponsored by the Agency to develop their own technological solutions. It is thanks to this new political vision that SpaceX has become such an important player in the American and global space arena. Trump’s inauguration in 2016 changed the wind and NASA was ordered to prepare plans for the return to the Moon with some haste, given that, thinking about re-election (which did not happen) the President asked to bring American astronauts back to the Moon by 2024. NASA had no choice and began the program called ARTEMIS, a doubly apt name since it is about the twin sister of Apollo, goddess of the Moon, who baptizes the program that will bring the first woman (and the first non-white man) to our satellite. Trump’s lunar choice, later confirmed by Biden, was probably inspired by the very clear Chinese ambitions that, in the new millennium, have become important and very successful players on the lunar chessboard.

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Lunar Ecology in the Era of Commercial Exploitation

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Patrizia Caraveo

摘要

After being visited by dozens of Soviet and American missions between 1959 and 1976, the Moon went out of fashion. The Apollo missions had sanctioned the American victory in the space race and, once the opponent was beaten, NASA’s attention (and that of US Congress, which saw no reason to fund costly human expeditions) turned to other objectives with sporadic scientific missions to continue studying the Moon from orbit. Not that there were no supporters, even authoritative ones, for the return to the Moon, but politics did not show sensitivity to the cause. The Apollo program taught us that great enterprises require large funding over a time frame much longer than the duration of a presidency, so it requires solid political will. Instead, NASA and Congress have oscillated according to the preferences of the succeeding Presidents. George W. Bush began talking about returning to the Moon in 2004 without however providing sufficient financial coverage. In 2008 the President changed and Barak Obama proved more sensitive to supporters of Mars and asteroid exploration. After all, the United States had already been to the Moon. Obama left his mark on the history of US space thanks to the idea of revolutionizing the way of sending men and materials into orbit by opening the business to private companies, no longer executors of NASA projects but sponsored by the Agency to develop their own technological solutions. It is thanks to this new political vision that SpaceX has become such an important player in the American and global space arena. Trump’s inauguration in 2016 changed the wind and NASA was ordered to prepare plans for the return to the Moon with some haste, given that, thinking about re-election (which did not happen) the President asked to bring American astronauts back to the Moon by 2024. NASA had no choice and began the program called ARTEMIS, a doubly apt name since it is about the twin sister of Apollo, goddess of the Moon, who baptizes the program that will bring the first woman (and the first non-white man) to our satellite. Trump’s lunar choice, later confirmed by Biden, was probably inspired by the very clear Chinese ambitions that, in the new millennium, have become important and very successful players on the lunar chessboard.