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Congress isn’t happy about SpaceX’s lunar lander and may vent this week

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Elderberry:
ARS Technica by Eric Berger - 6/22/2021

Congress isn’t happy about SpaceX’s lunar lander and may vent this week

"I would simply say, Congress supports SLS and Orion."

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will appear at a committee meeting of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday, and the meeting could be full of intrigue when the subject of NASA's Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon and SpaceX comes up.

We can probably expect some happy talk as Nelson—who as a US Senator in 2011 championed the development of the Space Launch System rocket alongside Kay Bailey Hutchison—references the recent stacking of the booster's core stage with its solid rocket motors at Kennedy Space Center. After a decade and more than $20 billion in costs, NASA's large SLS rocket is indeed finally getting closer to its first test launch.

But the real intrigue will involve the Human Landing System needed as part of the Moon program to take astronauts down to the lunar surface and back up to orbit. In April, due in part to a lack of funding from Congress, NASA selected SpaceX and its Starship vehicle as a sole provider for this critical component of Artemis. The space agency awarded $2.89 billion to SpaceX for the lander.

Finding Artemis funding

Nelson was formally named NASA administrator shortly after this award was made. He has supported the contract because he knows it is the only real chance that NASA has to make a 2024 landing. But he has repeatedly asked Congress for more funding so that NASA can support a second lander contract, either via the Biden administration's jobs and infrastructure bill or as a straightforward budget addition.

More: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/nasa-administrator-to-defend-lunar-budget-before-a-skeptical-congress/

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