2 days ago
4
No Americans person stepped ft connected the moon's aboveground since 1972, the past twelvemonth of NASA's Apollo lunar missions, which safely landed Neil Armstrong and 11 much astronauts connected the aboveground of the moon.
For years, NASA's Artemis ngo has aimed toward sending radical backmost to the Moon to onshore connected its southbound pole.
When 60 Minutes archetypal visited successful 2021, analogous Bill Whitaker recovered the program was mostly being tally by women. NASA said its extremity was to onshore the archetypal pistillate connected the satellite arsenic portion of the Artemis program.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson is NASA's archetypal pistillate motorboat director.
"We speech a batch astir the moon, and I deliberation the satellite is phenomenal, and I can't hold to spell back," she told 60 Minutes successful 2021. "But erstwhile we speech astir those young radical that whitethorn beryllium similar maine erstwhile I was younger, looking up astatine the nighttime entity and looking up astatine the moon, I privation 'em to look up astatine the nighttime entity and not beryllium constricted to the moon."
In 2021, NASA signed a astir $3 cardinal declaration with Elon Musk's SpaceX to make a mentation of its Starship mega rocket for Artemis III, the ngo to get astronauts backmost connected the moon. Then successful 2023, NASA signed a $3.4 cardinal declaration with Blue Origin, the abstraction institution owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, to physique different lunar lander for usage connected a aboriginal Artemis mission.
When 60 Minutes analogous Bill Whitaker visited NASA's Kennedy Space Center successful Florida successful 2024, the pricey Artemis ngo was facing large delays. Jim Free, who has since retired but who was successful complaint of Artemis astatine the time, told 60 Minutes successful 2024 that helium inactive believed it was a realistic extremity to get astronauts backmost connected the satellite by the extremity of 2026. But arsenic of now, the extremity has been moved to 2028.
Free told 60 Minutes helium viewed Artemis arsenic the beginning, not the end.
"I spot america landing connected Mars," helium said. "Absolutely spot america landing connected Mars. But we person to enactment done the satellite to get to Mars."
In:
NASA's travel to the acold broadside of the satellite
Inside NASA's travel to the acold broadside of the satellite with Artemis II | 60 Minutes
(13:12)
English (US) ·