The audacity of 2024

摘要

Over the next 16 months, we'll learn whether setting a bold, but probably unrealistic, date of 2024 for a U.S. return to the moon was folly or a stroke of genius by the Trump administration. In the genius column, this aggressive schedule could be the only way to push the lunar hardware to the point of "too big to cancel" before a new administration has a chance to rethink NASA's entire strategy on Inauguration Day in January 2021 or 2025. In the folly column, the 2024 goal could backfire as follows: Rushing could increase the odds of a critical test failure. An ambivalent audience in Congress or a corner of the executive branch might balk at supplying tax dollars to try again. An example of this is the X-33 single-stage-to-orbit demonstrator that was supposed to clear the technical path for a successor to the space shuttle. The wall of its liquid hydrogen tank peeled apart after a 1999 ground test. That turned out to be the coup de grace for the program, and the X-33 never flew.