Good Things Come to Those Who Wait (in Space)
Artemis I closes out 2022 with a bang - and shows why delays and cost overruns aren't the whole story on big projects
Last Sunday, the uncrewed first mission of the Artemis program came to an end when its Orion crew vehicle splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. By all accounts, the spacecraft – including the massive Space Launch System rocket that hurled Orion into orbit and the European Service Module that powered it around the Moon – performed exceptionally well on its three-and-a-half-week test flight, frequently exceeding the expectations of NASA engineers officials. What’s more, Artemis I beamed back breathtaking images of the Moon and Earth captured in a single frame – all streaming live on NASA’s social media feeds.
It's an achievement that caps off an impressive two years for NASA and reminds us of the need for patience and perseverance when it comes to large, impressive public projects. Artemis received more than its fair share of criticism – often over-the-top and sometimes vitriolic – as government watchdogs and SpaceX enthusiasts have attacked the program for cost overruns and repeated delays. Despite the very public issues the program faced over the years, in the end Artemis I has proven its doubters wrong.
If that story sounds familiar, well, it’s the same one that could be told about the James Webb Space Telescope. Years of delays and busted budgets were forgotten once the first pictures from Webb were unveiled, much in the same way similar concerns melted away when Artemis I lifted off. It goes to show that not all public programs and projects that face delays and overruns deserve the harsh, occasionally overbearing scrutiny they often receive.
Indeed, many of these problems result from attempts to accomplish ambitious goals with the limited resources Congress lays out on an annual basis. NASA and other government agencies wind up awarding contracts to companies that bid low but can’t execute, something that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted in testimony before Congress earlier this year. It’s a way of doing business that keeps immediate costs down and within the budgets Congress passes – not a small or unimportant thing – but it ultimately leads to more spending over a longer period of time. A little more money spent earlier on would likely avoid many of the delays and cost overruns programs like Artemis inevitably see as they proceed.
Overall, though, the ultimate success of Artemis goes to show that good things come to those who wait and persevere. Along with national pride and prestige, a sense of optimism about the future and the possibility of progress – not to mention perspective on our place in the cosmos – remain the most important things America gets from its space program.
If the past two years are any indication, moreover, America stands on the cusp of a new golden age of space exploration. Since President Biden took office in January 2021, NASA has racked up an impressive list of achievements:
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February 2021 to collect samples for return to Earth later this decade. It carried with it the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, which made the first powered flight on another world in April 2021.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched aboard a European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane rocket in December 2021 and sent back its first images in July 2022, with more images and scientific observations coming in all the time.
NASA crashed the DART robotic spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022, successfully altering its orbit and showing that humanity could, in theory, change the trajectory of an asteroid that threatened to kill all life on Earth.
After a pair of technical delays in August and September, Artemis I blasted off in November 2022, spent more than 25 days in space, orbited the Moon, and splashed down last Sunday.
There’s still more on to come over the next several years, including:
Astronauts will orbit the Moon on Artemis II in 2024, marking the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since the end of the Apollo program five decades ago. NASA plans to name the crew for this mission sometime early next year.
The launch of the first components of the Gateway, a space station in lunar orbit, in November 2024 or some time thereafter. NASA hopes to land astronauts on the Moon with Artemis III no earlier than 2025.
A host of robotic exploration missions are set to launch over the rest of the decade, including the Europa Clipper to the Jovian moon Europa in October 2024, the Dragonfly quadcopter drone to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2026, the DAVINCI+ Venus orbiter in June 2029.
International cooperation will be integral to all of NASA’s space exploration plans moving forwards. ESA will continue to build service modules for Orion, and European, Japanese, and Canadian astronauts will fly on future Artemis missions. Like the International Space Station, moreover, these three partners will build critical components of the Gateway – and the United Arab Emirates is reportedly in talks to build an airlock for the station. NASA plans to operate the ISS itself until 2030, and Japan and ESA have formally extended their own participation in the program.
In addition, more nations look set to sign on to the Artemis Accords, an agreed set of principles to govern space exploration moving forward. Nigeria and Rwanda became the twenty-second and twenty-third countries to join the accords, signing during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington.
That’s not to say all is well or going perfectly with America’s space program – it’s not. The launch of the Psyche mission to a metallic asteroid of the same name was postponed from its planned launch date in August to October 2023, for instance. An independent review of this mission’s delay found management problems at NASA’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory and caused another mission – the VERITAS probe to Venus – to receive a three-year delay of its own. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threw the future of the International Space Station into serious doubt and destroyed the possibility of any future space cooperation with Moscow. Moreover, SpaceX’s convoluted scheme to land astronauts on the Moon for Artemis III will require as many as sixteen launches of its as-yet untested Starship spacecraft to work.
Still, with sufficient perseverance and patience these obstacles are not inherently insurmountable. More to the point, space exploration remained worth the time and effort needed to work through the thicket of bureaucratic, political, and technical brambles involved. It’s vital for America to have future-oriented goals and a sense of national optimism – two things space exploration provides in spades.
The success of Artemis I in the face of chronic criticism and very real problems ought to be reason enough to embrace the wonder and hopefulness inherent in the enterprise of space exploration – and to make sure it heads in the right direction.