NASA's Full Artemis Plan Revealed

NASA has revealed more details about it's Artemis project to return US astronauts to the moon by 2024. It's an ambitious plan that will require many launches of both NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and commercial rockets.

And it's going to be expensive.

One thing missing is its cost. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has asked for an additional $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2020 as a down payment to jump-start lander development. But all of the missions in this chart would cost much, much more. Sources continue to tell Ars that the internal projected cost is $6 billion to $8 billion per year on top of NASA's existing budget of about $20 billion.

It's a reasonably good plan but it will likely never happen. Given the political climate in the US, I can't imagine either a Republican or Democratic administration allocating the necessary funding. 

NASA is in danger of becoming a political football. Democrats are unlikely to support Pell Grants as a source of funding, and some space industry sources have speculated that this may have been a "poison pill" from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to undermine a long-term, costly program. If Democrats wanted to push back in a political way, they could tell President Trump they will only support NASA's lunar landing with Department of Defense funds earmarked for the "Space Force." Under such a scenario, the politicization of NASA would be bad for an agency that has mostly flown above the partisan fray.