Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator on $20 billion Moon base proposal: “America will never again give up the Moon”

The United States became the first nation to put a man on the Moon when the crew of Apollo 11 successfully landed the Lunar Module Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility on 20 July 1969. In total NASA conducted six crewed lunar landings before financial constraints forced it to shift priorities and end the lunar program in 1972.

However, going back to the Moon has had become a priority for the U.S. with a new space race underway, this time with China. The Asian giant has plans to put its own astronauts, called taikonauts, on our nearest celestial neighbor before 2030.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman detailed the United States’ own goals for advancing American leadership in space on Tuesday during the “Ignition” event. “NASA is committed to achieving the near‑impossible once again,” he said in a statement.

NASA’s $20 billion Moon base proposal

NASA began working on the Artemis program at the end of 2017 with the aim of returning humans to the Moon, with the intention of establishing the first permanent lunar base. Phase One of the program was successful completed just under five years later.

Artemis II is set for liftoff in the coming days, with the next launch window no earlier than 1 April. It will pick up where the Apollo 17 mission left off, sending four astronauts around the Moon and back.

However, it won’t be until Artemis IV that NASA will attempt to put actual astronaut boots on the lunar surface, the agency has targeted 2028 for that to happen. Isaacman noted that China is hot on America’s heels, with their own crewed Moon landing planned for some time before 2030.

“They may be early, and recent history suggests we might be late,” he cautioned about The United States desire to beat the Chinese to the lunar surface. “The difference between success and failure will be measured in months not years.”

Going forward the NASA administrator said that the agency is “standardizing the SLS architecture with the Centaur V upper stage” and “reestablishing muscle memory to support a higher launch cadence,” in order to meet the established timeline.

“This time the goal is not flags and footprints, this time the goal is to stay,” he added. “America will never again give up the Moon.”

Isaacman then detailed NASA’s $20 billion plan for “building humanity’s first permanent surface outpost beyond Earth.” He said the moon base will not happen “overnight,” but that the investment will be spread over the next seven years and it will be “an evolutionary path” involving “dozens of missions.”

The space agency will be putting the Gateway program on pause, a multi-purpose small space station that would orbit the Moon. NASA will instead focus on putting astronauts on the lunar surface in three phases, “which has lots of advantages for safety, tech, demonstration, and science.” They are as follows:

Phase One: A dramatic increase in lunar landings, proposing one every six months. This will allow equipment payloads to be delivered including rovers, instruments and technology that can be put to the test in real-world conditions.

Phase Two: Transition from experimentation to semi-habitable infrastructure and regular astronaut operations on the surface.

Phase Three: Long-duration human presence on the Moon to establish a continuous human foothold.

“NASA once changed everything, and we’re going to do it again. The greatest days of science and discovery are ahead of us,” Isaacman concluded.

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