NASA postpones moon flights in deference to Elon Musk's Space X

ZMany worries plague people on earth; it would be nice to get to Munich on time with Deutsche Bahn. Some people may therefore see NASA's plan to bring people back to the moon with the Artemis missions as a waste of scarce resources. This attitude is getting a boost from the announcement that the first manned flight to the moon since the 1970s will be postponed. The time will come in September 2025, with the landing at the south pole of the Earth's satellite following a year later.

Among other things, NASA is talking about the need to check the heat shield, even if it withstood extreme stress during the first Artemis mission. The space agency is therefore taking the partner it chose as a supplier for the lunar landing system into consideration.

First test for moon landing with Starship planned for 2025

The plan is for the astronauts to transfer in lunar orbit from the Orion spaceship, whose technology module is being built by Airbus, to a modified Starship from the private company Space X, which belongs to Elon Musk's empire.

Apart from the fact that the launch vehicle did not survive the last two launch attempts, the first test of an unmanned moon landing with the Starship is not scheduled until 2025. Even if it worked straight away, filling such a vehicle with people shortly afterwards would be all too careless.

However, anyone who demands that the trip to the moon be abandoned entirely is still making a mistake. Ultimately, the moon is just a stopover on the journey to Mars and the associated question of how people can survive in space for a long time. The associated technical development, for example in the processing of the CO exhaled by humans₂may one day also be useful for very earthly problems.