Judy: For the first time in half
a century, nasa is starting to
make its way back to a moon
landing.
Overnight, the artemis rocket
was finally able to launch after
prior delays, sending an
unmanned capsule around the
moon.
An actual lunar landing won't
happen before 2025.
But this was a historic moment
for the space agency.
And at the same time, there are
plenty of question about the
path nasa has chosen to make
this happen.
Miles o'brien reports.
Miles: Nasa's most powerful
rocket ever lit the night sky in
Florida.
The space launch system lofted
an Orion spacecraft on an
uncrewed test flight to orbit
the moon.
The rocket carries a long
backstory of political,
financial, technical and
meteorological delays.
Nasa launch director Charlie
blackwell-thompson savored the
success with her team at the
Kennedy space center.
>> I want you to look around.
Look around at this team, and
know that you have earned it.
You have earned your place in
the room, you have earned this
moment, you have earned your
place in history.
Miles: It is the artemis one
mission.
Nasa's first foray in its encore
campaign to send humans back to
the lunar surface.
This time the agency is
promising more than flags and
footprints.
Why is nasa going back to the
moon?
>> Because we do not have the
capability of going to Mars.
Miles: That is former shuttle
payload specialist, former
Florida senator and current nasa
administrator bill Nelson.
>> What we're going to learn
living and working on the moon
is going to help us.
Miles: I met Nelson at the cape
in July.
Still inside the cavernous
vehicle assembly building, the
Boeing built sls rocket was
enveloped in a cocoon of
scaffolding so technicians could
work through their closeout
checklists.
>> What goes through your mind
when you see this thing all
stacked up in here?
>> The enormity, the amount of
energy that is contained in
there.
Miles: As I toured the vab I
thought about the Saturn 5 moon
rockets.
This huge building was designed
to house four of them at once.
The sls is 15% more powerful
than a Saturn five.
It literally and figuratively
borrows from the Apollo and
space shuttle programs.
Its four main engines are
modified shuttle leftovers.
So too are the twin solid rocket
boosters.
And the fuel tank design also
has strong shuttle lineage.
>> Sls does not push technology
that was never part of its sales
pitch.
It was the opposite.
It was because we are reusing
shuttle parts, we are going to
be able to do this sooner and
for less money.
Miles: Lori Garver was nasa's
deputy administrator from 2009
until 2013.
In her newly released book
"Escaping gravity" she says
Boeing executives promised to
deliver a moon rocket in five
years for $6 billion.
That was 2010.
>> I don't believe these people
thought it would be true, but
they knew they could sell that
to congress.
Miles: And who was buying what
Boeing was selling?
None other than bill Nelson,
then chairman of the senate
committee that oversees nasa.
Why has it taken so long? [4.2s]
>> It wasn't a repeat of the
stack of the space
transportation system.
In other words, the shuttle.
The Orion capsule had to have
all kinds of new sophistication,
not the old Apollo stuff.
So this is a brand-new rocket.
And when you design a brand new
rocket and build it, it's going
to take time.
And it did.
Miles: Meanwhile the brand-new,
much cheaper rockets keep
emerging and launching from
spacex at a much faster rate.
The company has its own moon and
Mars ambitions with its heavy
lift rocket called starship.
The stainless steel buck Rogers
style vehicle will be fully
reusable.
Except for the Orion capsule,
nasa's new rocket is a
completely expendable, single
use system.
Nasa's inspector general
estimates the artemis campaign
will cost $93 billion between
2012 and 2025, $4.1 billion for
a single launch.
>> This isn't nasa's best foot
forward.
We are better than this.
Miles: What does sls prove if
anything?
>> I think sls will prove that
we shouldn't be doing things in
this way anymore.
Miles: It is already happening.
Nasa has contracted with spacex
to build the landing craft - a
modified starship take
, two astronauts from lunar
orbit to the surface of the moon
on the third artemis mission.
You have to wonder, is this the
beginning of an era at some
level, or is it the end of an
era of a way of building rocket
ships to space? [10.7s]
-- Ships to space?
>> It's the beginning of a new
era of both commercial and
government joining up in a
partnership.
It will evolve.
Miles: Of course, evolution
implies a natural selection.
Nasa's big, gold-plated
spaceship may finally be on
course to the moon, but it also
might be headed the way of the
dinosaurs.
For the pbs newshour, I am miles
o'brien, still here on planet
Earth.