Little by little, since it is a complex challenge, steps are being taken in the NASA plans approved during the presidency of Donald Trump for the human being to step on the moon again. It is symbolic that everything begins in 2022, when it is 50 years since a similar event took place for the last time, with the Apollo XVII mission. What at the time seemed to point to a prominent space race suddenly ran out of budget and began to sleep a sleep that has lasted nearly half a century.
In my opinion (which is just that, a personal opinion), are fifty years wasted, fifty years in which a great deal of advancement in space exploration could have occurred. During all these decades many satellites have been put into orbit, but everything that comes out of low orbit has been exceptional (rare). I think I already mentioned it on another occasion, but I think this video by the disseminator Martí Montferrer, better known as CdeCiencia, perfectly expresses my point of view on the matter:
Be that as it may, past waters do not move the mill, so instead of continuing to look at the past thinking about what could have been but was not, it is time to focus our attention on the present and the near future, since the Artemis program of the US space agency has given us back the illusion in this regard. It is not yet clear that the “boots on the moon” milestone will occur before the end of this decade, but at least progress is being made in this direction.
A key step, as we told you a few weeks ago, is the launch of Artemis I, scheduled for next Monday the 29th, and which will mean the long-awaited debut of the Space Launch System (SLS), a launcher that will return to NASA the autonomy lost since the space shuttle program was suspended. We talk about a 42-day mission, in orbit around the Moon to collect data.
With everything ready for launch, and except for last minute surprises, now it all depends on the weather on launch dayor, and during the last few days there has been a certain pessimism in this regard, because the conditions have not been ideal. And today we already have an estimate about it, Currently the mission has a 70% chance that conditions are acceptable, according to the 45th Weather Squadron, which provides detailed evaluations for air and space operations in the United States.
We will still have to wait until a closer prediction, but let’s remember that in case the launch cannot be carried out on Monday, other optimal launch windows have already been identified, the next days September 2 and 5. However, and after so much time waiting, do you really want it to be carried out as soon as possible?
