We can't even get an astronaut on US soil into LEO but we're gonna get boots on the Moon by 2024? How? But cutting the timeline by four years. This is pure idiotic political theater they pretend they want to avoid. Guaranteed, we'll not get boots on the Moon before 2028.
NASA had been planning to put boots on the lunar surface by 2028, in accordance with the moon-oriented Space Policy Directive 1, which President Donald Trump signed in December 2017. But this past March, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the target date for a crewed lunar return is now 2024.
The accelerated schedule increases the technical risks of NASA's newly named Artemis program; it will be tougher to develop and test the required technologies in the shorter time available, after all. But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he's confident the agency can meet that challenge, and he stressed that the schedule change reduces the second major risk factor for any space program — the political one.
