Russia launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years on Friday in a bid to be the first nation to make a soft landing on the lunar south pole, a region believed to hold coveted pockets of water ice.
NASA had several options to develop smaller rockets with orbital refuelling. Which is the way forward according to just about every expert. There was one senator, I forget the name, who explicitly blocked research into that just so he could keep his pork barrels. The whole thing is riddled with cost overruns and piss-poor project management (launch tower, anyone?) This is of course mainly due to political meddling but overall this whole program has been a disaster.
NASA had several options to develop smaller rockets with orbital refuelling. Which is the way forward according to just about every expert. There was one senator, I forget the name, who explicitly blocked research into that just so he could keep his pork barrels. The whole thing is riddled with cost overruns and piss-poor project management (launch tower, anyone?) This is of course mainly due to political meddling but overall this whole program has been a disaster.
I don’t doubt that