In recent months, a realization has dawned on US lawmakers: without major intervention, China may land humans on the Moon before the United States manages to do so again through its Artemis Program.
Despite this concern, lawmakers have yet to enact substantial measures—this summer's $10 billion boost to NASA’s budget included little funding for initiatives required to place humans on the Moon within this decade. Nevertheless, the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology’s subcommittee has begun evaluating NASA's policies and expressed worries about China's advancements in civil spaceflight.
During a hearing on Thursday in Washington, DC, subcommittee members inquired with experts on how NASA could preserve its global space leadership over China and expedite the Artemis Program's progress toward a lunar landing.
“It cannot work”
The strongest critique of the Artemis Program came from former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. He has persistently critiqued NASA’s strategy for establishing a “sustainable” return to the Moon, relying on reusable lunar landers that will be refueled in space.
Griffin reiterated this criticism on Thursday, avoiding specific mentions of SpaceX or Blue Origin, which are developing the Starship and Blue Moon Mk 2 landers, respectively.
“The bottom line is that an architecture which requires a high number of refueling flights in low-Earth orbit, no one really knows how many, uses a technology that has not yet ever been demonstrated in space, is very unlikely to work—unlikely to the point where I will say it cannot work,” Griffin stated.
As they posed questions, some House members acknowledged China's effective long-term space exploration planning and adherence. In contrast, NASA underwent shifts due to changes in the White House and Congress. Wouldn't maintaining a consistent strategy be better?
“Sticking to a plan is important when the plan makes sense,” Griffin said. “China is sticking to a plan that makes sense. It looks a lot, in fact, like what the United States did for Apollo. Provably, that worked. Sticking to a plan that will not work for Artemis III and beyond makes no sense.”