Cape Canaveral, Florida – People who toil day and night to put astronauts on Earth Moon during Apollo We are happy with that NASA is finally back. They just wish this Artemis shoots the moon It happened sooner while much of Apollo’s workforce was still alive.
Now in their 80s and 90s, the number of survivors is dwindling NASA’s Greatest Generation I’d also like to see more enthusiasm for Artemis.
There are very few of them left out of 400,000, so no reunion celebration is planned Artemis’s upcoming second voyage Four astronauts will tour the moon on April 1. Those who live near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will watch the launch from their backyards.
“Because it was the first time, there was an energy. There was a passion that probably isn’t the same today and hasn’t been for a while,” said Charlie Mars, 90, who worked on the Apollo command and lunar modules and helped establish the American Space Museum in nearby Titusville.
Retired engineer Joan Morgan is still angry about the cancellation of the last three Apollo moon landings under President Richard Nixon due to budget cuts, concerns about risk and shifting priorities. She was the only woman inside Launch Control when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins launched Apollo 11 to the moon in 1969. Three years later, Apollo 17 ended the big era.
“I’m just trying to survive so I can see us come back and set foot on the moon,” she said. “I’m 85 and I still feel cheated after 53 years.”
Morgan isn’t the only one frustrated with NASA and the nation’s slowdown.
“It’s a good thing I’m not in charge, because I’ll be out there beating the bushes urging people to move,” Mars said.
One big difference this time is that it’s all women in the lead roles.
NASA’s Artemis launch director is Charlie Blackwell Thompson. The Artemis 2 crew includes Christina Koch, who holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman – 328 consecutive days in orbit.
“It will be even greater when they actually have a woman plant her shoe on the moon,” Morgan said.
Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke points out that half the world’s population had not yet been born when he walked on the moon in 1972.
NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman, the tech billionaire who paid his way into space twice, is one of them.
Apollo veterans are relieved that Isaacman, 43, is accelerating the launch pace of Artemis to more closely match Apollo’s speed and safety record. Artemis was walking at a flying rate of once every three years, which Isaacman found unacceptable.
He added a test flight in Earth orbit to practice docking with lunar landers before using them to put astronauts on the lunar surface. Last week, he released a blueprint for a lunar base that, along with a battalion of drones and spacecraft, is expected to cost $20 billion over the next seven years.
Carlos Garcia Galan, self-described NASA’s “lunar base man,” promises “cool cameras” on everything to heighten the excitement.
In the near term, the ultimate goal is to overcome the Chinese and reach the surface of the moon. NASA aims to land astronauts in 2028 and China by 2030.
The United States beat the Soviet space program in the first race to the moon, landing 12 astronauts from 1969 to 1972.
John Tribe, 90, who directed Apollo spacecraft propulsion, considers NASA’s revised Artemis plan “much more logical.”
“The other approach was ridiculous,” Tribe said. “I don’t know if we’ll beat the Chinese or not.”
Apollo 9’s Rusty Schweickart also loves the reconfigured Artemis. As for the Apollo thrills, though, good luck.
“We can all remember Columbus, but who can remember ‘Who Came 50 Years Later?’” Schweikart said in an email.
Duke, one of only four astronauts still alive, expects the excitement of Apollo to return once the Artemis astronauts begin landing, especially for a younger audience who previously missed out.
“If the first mission is successful and we start landing at the South Pole, I think millions will watch that. I know I would if I were still here,” Duke said.
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