NASA wants to put a $20 billion base on the moon

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has big plans for the agency’s future, including building a $20 billion lunar base, which he said would establish a “permanent presence” on the moon. Isaacman Announce the news During NASA’s ignition event on Tuesday, he also described the goals of launching a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars, he reportedly said. earlier before New York Times.

As a result of plans to establish a base on the moon, NASA announced it Pausing her portal project “In its current form,” which would have launched a space station orbiting the moon. Instead, NASA plans to “shift focus to infrastructure that enables sustainable surface operations,” and notes that it will “reuse” some of the equipment that went into its Gateway project.

According to NASA, the agency aims to build the base in three phases. The first phase includes developing communications and navigation systems, in addition to delivering landing vehicles and robotic vehicles to help astronauts traverse the moon. The next action will involve “repeated astronaut operations on the surface” of the Moon, followed by the establishment of a “long-term human presence,” allowing the delivery of heavier infrastructure to create a permanent lunar base.

Isaacman did not provide a timeline for when the base would be completed, but he said: “We will invest approximately $20 billion over the next seven years and build it through dozens of missions,” according to Reuters. now.

In addition to a new lunar base, NASA has also outlined plans to launch Space Reactor-1 Freedom, which it calls “the first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft,” to Mars by the end of 2028. When it reaches Mars, NASA said the spacecraft will deploy a payload by helicopter Similar to ingenuitythe small autonomous helicopter that completed the first powered and controlled flight on Mars in 2021.