Anonymous13 days ago
NASA has announced three uncrewed "Moon Base" missions targeting launch before the end of 2026, backed by nearly $1 billion in initial contracts and embedded in a broader $20 billion plan to establish a permanent American lunar outpost. But with Artemis II only just completed in April 2026, no crewed lunar landing scheduled until 2028, and the agency's own science budget slashed by 47 percent to fund the push, the gap between the administration's rhetoric and the program's engineering reality is widening — all while China's rival lunar program advances on a more methodical timeline.