Episode 1701: A Fleet for Lunar Science

Episode 1701: Talking Space returns after a hiatus to discuss the landing attempts by the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. First a successful soft landing of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost 1 mission on the plans of Mare Crisium.  Then a much more perilous landing attempt for the Intuitive Machines "Athena" lander, trying to land its suite of science and technology demonstrations closer to the Lunar South Pole than any other mission to date, with some mixed results. We also mention that Japan's ispace is set to try a lunar landing on 6 June.   We then focused on the Expedition 72 / 73 handover at the International Space Station and took one more look at the Crew-9 Mission's saga in the mainstream press with a reminder: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were never "stuck" or "stranded" on the ISS, and never needed to be "rescued." Our Mark Ratterman also reminds all that the NASA Spinoff catalog for 2025 is available for download. If at first, you don't succeed... try, try again out at Boca Chica Texas for the SpaceX Starship with Integrated Flight Test 8. Alas, the same result as Mission 7 with debris scattering over the skies of Caribbean Islands and air traffic having to be diverted out of the area, quickly. We discuss the incident and the possible future of the program.  We end the program with a plea, especially for our friends in the United States.  Due to current goings-on within the US government, both NASA's personnel and budget are poised to be cut drastically. A 50 % cut in the NASA science budget is not outside the realm of possibility. The impact would be catastrophic, causing long-established science investigations to shut down, and crippling the start of new missions. Very rarely do we go into activist mode, but this is one of those times where it is required. If you care for your space program, tell your elected representatives. Don't know how to contact them? Here's a guide via Congress.gov   Participants this Week:   Dr. Kat Robison, Mark Ratterman, Gene Mikulka