NASA divulges $28 billion plan to send astronauts to the Moon in 2024

NASA recently announced its plan to send astronauts to the moon in 2024. An estimated $28 million has been made to execute the plan. 

$16 million from the estimated amount will be covered under the lunar landing module. 

Officials said ‘there are three projects undergoing to build the lunar lander which will carry two astronauts to the moon from vessel Orion. 

These three are named as Artemis I, II and III respectively. 

• The first ( Artemis-I) has been scheduled without astronauts in 2021. 
• Artemis II will take off with the astronauts in 2023 as per the schedule. 
• Artemis III will have two to five ‘extravehicular activities’. This one is seen as equivalent to ‘Apollo 11’- 1969.

Among the undergoing projects, the first one is developed by Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) in partnership with Lockheed Martin and others. 

The other two projects are in the hands of SpaceX (by Elon Musk) and Dynetics company. 

However, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine shows his concern over the approval of the estimated budget for the plan. He said, “political risks” have always been a hurdle in NASA’s work, especially in the election time. 

“If the congress approves $3.2 billion by this Christmas we are still on the track for 2024” Bridenstine added.