The Old Way

The last time we went to the Moon, with the NASA Apollo program, it cost the US taxpayers over 4% of GDP for the decade of the sixties. The current funding levels of NASA are nearer 0.4% of GDP (Budget of NASA, 2023). Furthermore, in surveys, the US general public have indicated that this level of funding is appropriate for the nation’s civil space program. It seems that 0.4% is plenty (Pew Survey, 2023). And this is the background behind the current NASA plans regarding its proposed return to the Moon program, known as Artemis. Incidentally, that same Pew survey reports that sending astronauts back to the Moon should only be the eighth priority for NASA (following such items as climate change monitoring and asteroid protection).