Our vision of “People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity” can only be fulfilled through concrete steps involving Congress and other key sectors of our society. One of these key sectors consists of new space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others, which have dramatically lowered development and launch costs for spacecraft and brought us to the brink of a new space age.
Unfortunately, a new House bill, H.R. 5666, if enacted by Congress and signed by the President, would require the United States to abandon the Moon after a “flags and footprints” lunar landing, and would effectively prevent these new commercial firms from bringing sustainable human presence to the Moon.
In support for the better alternative of fixed price, milestone-driven public-private contracts for lunar landers and infrastructure in space, we urge you to read this short Space News op-ed and send it by email to your Congressperson and Senators along with your personal comments as soon as possible.
https://spacenews.com/h-r-5666-will-launch-the-u-s-in-the-wrong-direction/
Note: Please DO NOT call congressional offices directly as most of them will be shut down for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for carrying out this crucial action!
Randy Gigante
NSS Policy Committee Deputy Chair
You would think, in the 40+ years since the introduction of SSP by some very wise Americans who were paying attention, that those who think climate and energy are the most important overriding problems of our time would understand that permanent lunar return, lunar materials extraction, and (largely) lunar-built sunsats are the lead permanent solutions to those very problems.
You would think that those who care only about American economic opportunity and expansion and leadership in the space, energy, and manufacturing arenas would heed NSS’s wise direction on HR-5666.
After all of the efforts at education, when do the light bulbs go off in the heads of government leaders?
Artemis needs to trigger permanent operations on the lunar surface and in cislunar space, and it must use commercial participation to do so. Blue Origin has a clue. SpaceX is getting there.
Mars, quite frankly, has little import right now. Those who want it will get it soon enough, even though they know Mars will never offer 1g and it will never hold a breathable atmosphere. O’Neill knew the whys and wherefores of going to space on a large-scale basis, and the economic and biosphere-preserving reasons for doing so.
When will we see those light bulbs firing off?
Thanks for bringing this to our attention and pushing us to act. I have submitted comment to my congressman and senators now via the forms on their websites. Very easy to do actually.
Yes, very easy. Just follow the links.