Internal competition is escalating! Capital "sues" NASA for rocket contract stagnation, or it will be later than China's return to the moon

Space exploration has been a hot topic since the middle of the last century. Humans have left the earth due to the development of science and technology, which is regarded as a major progress. However, in the exploration of space, due to various factors, a space race between countries has emerged. In the past, the space race referred to the competition for the highest position in aerospace power during the Cold War, which referred to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But now, the objects of the space race are China and the United States. This implicit competition has become more and more obvious with the development of my country's space capabilities. Whether the two sides admit it or not, the comparison of China and the United States' space capabilities is of great concern to the public.

Capital competes for profits, and internal competition escalates, leading to obstacles in the moon landing?

In April this year, NASA officially announced its cooperation with SpaceX: SpaceX will develop a spacecraft to send astronauts to the lunar surface, which will become an extremely important part of the Artemis program. In this plan, astronauts will use NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to enter space, then take the Orion space capsule to fly to the lunar orbit, and then transfer to the SpaceX starship to land on the lunar surface.

After the news came out, SpaceX's winning of a contract worth $2.9 billion quickly spread around the world and became the focus of people's attention. As it lost in this competition, Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, was dissatisfied with the result and filed an appeal in early August this year, with a frequency of one lawsuit every 16 days.

Blue Origin's lawsuit has hindered the promotion of SpaceX's contract. Because the relevant departments need to advance the lawsuit, NASA has suspended SpaceX's contract. Last Friday, the deadline for the lawsuit was postponed again. This is another postponement after the postponement on August 27. The relevant departments said that the paperwork was too large, with a total of more than 16GB. This will cause NASA's original date for restarting the SpaceX contract to be extended due to the postponement of the case, and will be later than the original November 1.

The Importance of Project Artemis

With space suits to be delivered in 2025 and SpaceX contracts blocked by lawsuits, the Artemis program (return to the moon) originally scheduled for 2024 has become very difficult. For NASA now, the Artemis program is like a hot potato, which is hot in the hand but cannot be dropped. If it is dropped, China, which is chasing closely behind, will take the lead in spaceflight.

So, how important is the Artemis Project?

The Artemis program has four main goals:

1. Establish a base on the moon where people can live for a long time, thereby gaining strategic leadership on the moon.

2. Develop comprehensive technologies for exploring and landing on Mars, and explore advanced new technologies, new functions, and commercial value.

3. Expand commercial activities in the aerospace sector and increase cooperation among countries around the world.

4. Inspire the new generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics goals.

I believe many people know that the International Space Station is about to expire, but they don’t know why NASA is not building another space station. With the technology NASA has, it is absolutely possible to build another space station, and funding will not be a major problem. The reason why it is not built is that NASA feels it is unnecessary. They chose the lunar base over the other two options and gave up the space station project.

The establishment of a lunar base can not only replace the function of a space station, but also simulate the technology needed for landing on Mars in advance. In the Shackleton crater where NASA chose to build a lunar base, there are a lot of water ice resources in the shadows inside. At that time, the Lunar Excavator (L-Rex) and Lunar Transporter (L-Tran) that won the NASA Ice Breaking Moon Challenge may come in handy.

If this technology is successful, it will not only provide a steady supply of water for the lunar base, but also refuel rockets that land on the moon. It will also be used in landing on Mars.

In addition, the lunar base can continue to complete the osteoporosis research that has not been completed in the space station. NASA originally believed that the space station project would help solve this problem, but as of 2020, the space station has not achieved this goal. The osteoporosis problem here is osteoporosis, decline, and aging caused by space activities, which is largely caused by space radiation. The radiation conditions on the lunar surface are quite similar to those on the surface of Mars because there is no ozone atmosphere to protect it.

Previously, NASA held an iTech competition to seek help from scientists around the world in order to reduce the harm of cosmic radiation to astronauts. In the competition, Wlnad substances from the Harvard University research team were considered to be very helpful in resisting radiation. Wlnad substances exist in the human body and other organisms and are a common small molecule.

Wlnad substances can promote the synthesis of metabolic cells and are believed to be anti-aging and rejuvenating, so they are used in the field of health preservation for the middle-aged and elderly. Even in my country, channels such as JD.com can see the commercialization of Wlnad by "Lightway Health". Because of its potential mechanism to repair damaged DNA, NASA awarded awards to the research team in 2016 and 2018.

But this passive repair does not satisfy NASA. They hope to promote gene editing to transform the human body through the lunar base so that astronauts will not be afraid of radiation. Chris Mason, who is responsible for measuring the impact of space activities on the human body at NASA, said that they have begun to experimentally modify human space flight genes in the hope of establishing a genetic defense system.

The impact of continued delays to the Artemis program

The importance of the Artemis program is self-evident. If NASA's moon landing program continues to be delayed due to the failure to deliver space suits on time, the SpaceX contract and subsequent problems, then China may surpass NASA's moon landing program. By then, the lunar base jointly established by China and Russia will greatly narrow the gap in space technology.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is also very distressed about this. He has publicly criticized Blue Origin's founder Bezos on social platforms many times, mocking his full-time job after retirement to sue SpaceX, and believes that Bezos' lawsuits have become a bigger bottleneck than technology.

It is understood that the restart date of the SpaceX contract is very likely to be later than November 1. Some lawyers have suggested that the new restart date be November 8, but this date still requires the consent of NASA and other units.