Chron by Renee Yan 1/21/2024
America needs to rethink its plans if it has any hopes of landing humans on the moon again. At least, that's the general assessment of former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who offered some harsh words for the agency's Artemis program during a congressional subcommittee hearing on this very topic last week, according to an account by Eric Berger, Houston's premier meteorologist and senior space editor at Ars Technica.
In his plan, Griffin pushed for an alternative that calls for a return to basics and a reboot of the Artemis program—this time, without the help of commercial companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. This is a notable shift from his previous stance as he was the one responsible for helping advance commercial cargo space services under the George W. Bush administration, per Berger, who also pointed out that developing a commercial crew allowed the U.S. to break free from a dependence on Russia for rides to the International Space Station.
In his testimony, Griffin criticized SpaceX's approach for requiring too many orbital refueling operations and Blue Origin's designs for relying on challenging technology. He also took issue with the idea of fixed-price contract bids, which he said will "leave both sides stuck in a bad deal." It would lead to underbidding and less-than-desirable outcomes. The government will either acquiesce to demands of extra money, cancel the project altogether because it doesn't want to pay, or compromise quality and performance, Griffin said. According to Berger, Griffin's strategy leaves out SpaceX and Blue Origin in favor of more established private companies Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/former-nasa-administrator-wants-to-scrap-lunar-mission-plans-start-over/ar-BB1h2q1v#image=BB1h2uWZ|1
