NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman unveiled an initiative on March 24 to expedite the construction of a $20 billion lunar base that would ultimately support permanent human crews.
“We will invest approximately $20 billion over the next seven years and build [the base] through dozens of missions, working together with commercial and international partners towards a deliberate and achievable plan,” he told a room of politicians and representatives of space partners in Washington, D.C.
However, this means that plans for an international lunar space station called Gateway will be put on pause. Isaacman recognized that there were “very real hardware and schedule challenges” with this change. But, he said that some equipment and international commitments could still be repurposed to support the new project….