Hoping to launch NASA’s Artemis 1 rocket to the moon is – so far – an exercise in frustration for Mark Franko. “I was hoping to feel the noise and the power and the sound — it would be very interesting to see, I think,” Franco told VOA as he and friends tried to watch a presentation behind a local restaurant near Cape Canaveral. . . But fuel leaks and other issues have twice delayed the launch of the most powerful rocket system ever built. Despite the delays, Franko’s friend Mary Jane Patterson believes NASA should not be in a rush to make the next launch attempt. “I think they should bring it back to the building and check it completely and then go again. I feel like it was too soon to go after the first problem, and I think, whether it was PR [public relations] or whatever, they were trying to push the envelope but at the same time they can’t. I don’t think you can be too careful,” he said. “This is the first time we’ve flown this rocket and this capsule,” noted astronaut Stan Love, who spoke to VOA before the first failed launch attempt. “There are many, many things that can go wrong. This is a test flight. Don’t get your expectations too high.” FILE – Spectators await the launch of NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System moon rocket, with the Orion crew capsule on top, aboard the Artemis 1 unmanned mission, which was later cleaned, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., 29 August, 2022. But with hundreds of thousands of tourists flocking to Florida for each launch attempt, joining media from around the world gathering at Cape Canaveral, Love knows those expectations are high, at least in part because of the effort’s hefty price tag. The initial cost for the SLS, or “Space Launch System,” which includes the rocket and boosters that propel the Orion capsule into space, has risen from $10 billion to $20 billion. Each successful launch will cost about $4.1 billion. NASA’s inspector general expects the total Artemis program to reach $93 billion by the time the first astronauts return to the lunar surface, targeted for 2025. That is if NASA can get the first uncrewed mission off the ground this year. FILE – NASA astronaut Doug Hurley speaks at a news conference after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 20, 2020. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP) “We have to make sure the vehicle is ready to go, we have to make sure it’s safe for the crew, and these things take time,” said Doug Hurley, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on the first crewed mission. of the Space X Crew Dragon capsule on the International Space Station. He now works for Northrop Grumman, one of the contractors working on Artemis, and is quick to respond to critics who say the current effort to return to the moon is running late and over budget. “I’ve heard it my whole career. Every aircraft I’ve worked on, every spacecraft I’ve worked on. We heard it with Crew Dragon flying – it was six years from the time the contract was awarded to when we flew. It takes time to to make these complicated machines. But it’s worth it.” As NASA navigates the difficulties while carefully weighing the risks of launching Artemis, cost is not the only factor. “Mission success comes as we evaluate the flight in retrospect,” said David Reynolds, NASA’s deputy program director, who added that the future of spaceflight depends on the performance of this first attempt to return to the Moon without a crew. “As you check the different boxes, you’re buying a certain amount of risk into the manned flight. And so once you decide and we decide that it’s safe enough to fly with a crew, we’ll consider that a mission success.” But Mark Franko, who had to return to Tempe, Arizona, before the next possible launch, wonders if the effort to see Artemis 1 up close was worth it. “If you watch it on TV, it would probably be closer,” he told VOA. NASA is now looking at launch windows of late September and early October.
