First woman on Moon by 2024
Even as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, the NASA has already decided to send first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.
The American space agency plans on landing the first-ever woman astronaut on Moon through its upcoming Artemis mission. Artemi is named after the twin sister of Apollo who is also the Goddess of the Moon and the hunt.
The astronauts would explore regions of the Moon never visited before, unlock mysteries of the Universe and test the technology that will extend the bounds of humanity farther into the solar system.
Returning astronauts to the Moon in 2024 could cost about $30 billion, or roughly the same price tag as the Apollo 11 spaceflight when factoring in inflation. The total cost of the Apollo programme that the US launched in 1961 and concluded in 1972 was $25 billion.
The climax of that programme came nearly 50 years ago when two astronauts landed on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission, which cost $6 billion at the time, equivalent to $30 billion today.
An in order to ensure that astronauts are prepared for lower gravity environment of the Moon, NASA is now using a huge water tank to prepare them for the challenges that arise while going into space.
In a recent blog post, the US space agency said that it is using its Neutral Buoyancy Lab, which is located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for preparing potential astronauts. At the moment, the teams are in the early stages of evaluating how the astronauts would live and work on the Moon.
The next lunar missions will be delivered into space by the Space Launch System, a rocket being developed by NASA and Boeing that will be the largest ever built once it is fully assembled.
That rocket will send into orbit a new spacecraft known as Orion.
Fun Fact
NASA is known to show the movie Armageddon to new staff and question them about inaccuracies in the film. At least 168 have been identified.
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