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Japan is, just like with the ISS partnership, a key member of the Artemis accords (IIRC they'll be getting to send their own astronauts to the Moon too, just li

Japan is, just like with the ISS partnership, a key member of the Artemis accords (IIRC they'll be getting to send their own astronauts to the Moon too, just like how they do to the ISS right now). Thus the increasing activity towards the Moon. I think at this point basically every major country with any sort of space-related industry that isn't Russia or China aligned has signed on and is working on things related to the Moon. Turns out that the only way to force the US to commit to a destination in space instead of switching between the Moon and Mars every administration was for NASA to turn it into a large international partnership such that it would hurt the next administration's standing to cancel the program.

rsynnott 3y ago
> was for NASA to turn it into a large international partnership such that it would hurt the next administration's standing to cancel the program. That's no guarantee. See Jupiter moon exploration - there were _two_ proposed NASA/ESA ones, both cancelled when NASA pulled out. ESA then did their own one (JUICE) and now NASA is doing a couple of its own, too.
asdff 3y ago
What are some of the overall interests for these recent moon missions? In the past it was for manned spy satellite and ICBM programs. Is there a similar national defense parallel being worked on with these efforts?
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I think this time the emerging interest is that by leading the effort of and controlling most of the infrastructure for establishing a long term, potentially permanent presence on the Moon, the US can dictate the terms of these first realistic international agreements on the resource rights on foreign bodies. The next closest adversary who is a contender technology-wise for establishing a similar presence is China, so you can imagine that all the issues with them are involved too. Plus, to a smaller extent there's the idea behind Artemis that all this is a staging ground for our eventual trips to Mars (which, due to the mechanics of it, would have to be a long term thing), where of course the big interest is that it would be another monumental event in human history and politicians would very much like for that to be associated with their name (hell, part of Artemis' motivation was just that they promised to put boots on the Moon before the end of Trump's assumed second term, allowing him to claim to have been the one to oversee America's return to the Moon).

rsynnott 3y ago

> was for NASA to turn it into a large international partnership such that it would hurt the next administration's standing to cancel the program. That's no guarantee. See Jupiter moon exploration - there were _two_ proposed NASA/ESA ones, both cancelled when NASA pulled out. ESA then did their own one (JUICE) and now NASA is doing a couple of its own, too.

asdff 3y ago

What are some of the overall interests for these recent moon missions? In the past it was for manned spy satellite and ICBM programs. Is there a similar national defense parallel being worked on with these efforts?

dotnet00 3y ago
I think this time the emerging interest is that by leading the effort of and controlling most of the infrastructure for establishing a long term, potentially permanent presence on the Moon, the US can dictate the terms of these first realistic international agreements on the resource rights on foreign bodies. The next closest adversary who is a contender technology-wise for establishing a similar presence is China, so you can imagine that all the issues with them are involved too. Plus, to a smaller extent there's the idea behind Artemis that all this is a staging ground for our eventual trips to Mars (which, due to the mechanics of it, would have to be a long term thing), where of course the big interest is that it would be another monumental event in human history and politicians would very much like for that to be associated with their name (hell, part of Artemis' motivation was just that they promised to put boots on the Moon before the end of Trump's assumed second term, allowing him to claim to have been the one to oversee America's return to the Moon).