Elon Musk, owner of space exploration companies SpaceX and Tesla, has offered the company’s services to help NASA develop the next generation of spacesuits. On Twitter, the millionaire responded to a tweet on the topic, stating that he is available for this collaboration.
Musk responded to a tweet by a CNBC journalist, who shared a report published yesterday by the US Space Agency’s audit division on the development of next-generation spacesuits. This report shows that the agency has been developing these facts for 14 years, but that NASA faces “significant challenges” to achieve the goal of getting the first facts ready by November 2024, when it intends to return to the Moon, on the Artemis mission.
SpaceX can do this if needed
– Elon Musk August 10, 2021
NASA has already spent $420 million on the project (about 358 million euros) and is expected to spend another $625 million (533.6 million euros). In addition, persistent delays in the program suggest that it is only possible that the first facts will be ready “at least in April 2025”. According to Elon Musk, “SpaceX can do it [ajudar no desenvolvimento], if it is necessary “.
SpaceX has already developed suits for astronauts who were aboard the Dragon capsule on a trip to the International Space Station (ISS). But the development of facts for a mission that involves leaving the cabin, as with Artemis, entails another level of complexity, since it is necessary to ensure the astronaut’s survival in adverse conditions.
Until now, astronauts on the International Space Station use spacesuits created 45 years ago, at the time for the space shuttle mission, which has transported astronauts for years to the International Space Station. That program ended in 2011, leading the US space agency to rely on Russia to transport astronauts to the space station.
It is indicated in the report that Covid-19 has also played a role in the delay in the development of this project, which could have a total cost of “more than a billion dollars” by 2025. NASA’s initial goal was to have space suits ready until March 2023, even before the mission Artemis.
In this mission, the United States wants to repeat the moonwalk again, more than 50 years after the Apollo 11 mission.
at CNBC, NASA only commented that it asked space makers last month to provide comments on the “acquisition of commercial spacesuits, devices, and services,” and did not comment on Elon Musk’s offer.
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