Source: Fox News
(NASA)
“Our wish is to fly this year,” NASA official Thomas Zurbuchen said at the surprise announcement of a new Moon mission overnight. “We want to incentivize speed … We want to start taking shots on goal.
”While the media presentation focused on the need for speed, it didn’t divulge the why.
But U.S. President Donald Trump has been touting a grand vision of a triumphant return to the Lunar surface — and the establishment of a permanent base there.
“For us, if we have any wish, we’d like to fly this calendar year,” he said. “We do not expect every launch and landing to be successful.”
Like similar announcements by predecessor presidents about spectacular — but speculative — missions to Mars, the follow-through for a new Moon shot has so far been largely lacking.
Meanwhile, China late last year placed a probe and lander in one of the Moon’s most significant features — the unexplored South Pole-Aitken basin. It’s the biggest known impact structure in the solar system, and it is suspected of containing reserves of water ice and the rare isotope helium-3, both of which could fuel a colony and further space exploration.
HOWLING AT THE MOON
NASA has largely been living off the successes of space projects launched up to a decade ago…
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