We’re back! For the first time in five decades an American lander has set down on the moon.
And this time the private sector pulled it off, as a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ferried Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander from the Kennedy Space Center to lunar orbit.
It’s also the first craft to reach the south polar region, where permanently shadowed craters preserve ice than can provide drinking water, oxygen and even rocket fuel for future astronauts.
The mission had its glitches: It took a last-minute software patch to let “Odie” switch from failed equipment to an experimental NASA lidar to pilot its way to the surface.
And the craft wound up on its side, limiting its sensors and what data it can send back (another reason manned exploration remains necessary).
But it should still be able to deploy the EagleCam module to provide video of the area (and Odie).
It’s progress: As readers of “The Right Stuff” recall, NASA’s earliest rockets infamously kept blowing up at launch.
And, again, a US craft hasn’t made it to the moon since Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Smith touched down Dec. 11, 1972.
Plus, actual breathing Americans are headed to the moon within a few years, as NASA and the private sector build out capacity: Remember, it’s less than four years since SpaceX successfully ferried four NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
The plan remains to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, supported by the Artemis manned lunar satellite.
We’re seeing disaster avoided thanks public-private innovation; innovative tech entrepreneurs paving the way to new (and far cheaper!) space capabilities and even contributions from academia, as EagleCam comes from students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
For all our divisions, America in important ways is working together better than ever — and back in the space game to stay.