The hearing, entitled “There is a bad moon in the elevator: why the congress and NASA China have to thwart in the space competition,” had no witnesses who did not agree with this point of view. They all include Cutler, CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the most important lobby organization for SLS, Orion and Gateway; Jim Bridenstine, former NASA manager who now leads government activities for United Launch Alliance; Mike Gold van Redwire, a gateway contractor; and Lt. General John Shaw, former Space Command Official.
The hearing for the committee chaired by Cruz, Commerce, Science and Transportation, included the usual mishmash of parochial politics, lobbying for traditional space, saving back and Fawning – on one point, gold, a Star Trek fan, went so far that Cruz is the “Captain Kirk” of the US Senate.
Apart from this, however, there was a considerable amount of teeth that bragged that the United States has a serious threat from China, that seems to be on track to put people on the moon before NASA can return there with the Artemis program. China wants people in the South Pole to land before 2030.
NASA will probably lose “racing”
Bridenstine, who supervised the creation of the Artemis program six months ago, said the most bone: “Unless something changes, it is very unlikely that the United States will defeat the expected timeline of China to the surface of the moon,” he said.
Bridenstine and others on the panel criticized the complex nature of SpaceXs on starship -based lunar lander, who selected NASA in April 2021 as a means to get astronauts to the moon surface and the back. The proposal is based on Starship that is used in a low track to the launches of several Starship Tanker.
