Why It Took So Long to Return to the Moon
The Apollo program was a remarkable feat of American ingenuity and state capacity, but the journey to return to the moon has been fraught with challenges and setbacks.
In the 1960s, the United States achieved a monumental milestone with the Apollo program, landing a man on the moon in just eight years. This was a testament to the country's technological prowess and the power of its state capacity. However, the story of returning to the moon is a different tale, one that highlights the complexities and challenges of modern-day state capacity.
The Apollo program's success was not just a matter of ambition and risk-taking. It was a result of a single, overriding mandate given to NASA to achieve a specific goal within a defined timeframe. This level of focus and direction is what made the Apollo program so effective. But when it comes to the Artemis program, the journey to the moon has been more of a meandering road, fraught with delays and cost overruns.
The Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon, has been in the works for two decades. However, it has faced numerous challenges, including funding issues, technical difficulties, and a lack of clear direction. The program's origins can be traced back to the Constellation program, which sought to build a rocket, orbiter, and lunar lander capable of returning humans to the moon. However, the program was never properly funded, and its fiscal unsustainability was highlighted by a commission led by aerospace guru Norm Augustine.
The Obama administration attempted to cancel the Constellation program and replace it with a collection of other goals, including sending astronauts to explore the asteroid belt. This shift in focus and direction led to a compromise, with the Ares 5 booster being repackaged as the Space Launch System (SLS) and funding for the Orion capsule being extended. However, the SLS-Orion package continued to suffer delays and cost overruns, with costs ballooning to over $4 billion per launch.
The problems with the Artemis program are emblematic of a broader issue: declining American state capacity. NASA has been hobbled by political mandates and a lack of clear direction, which has led to a decline in its ability to achieve its goals. The fundamental driver of dysfunction was the problem of state capture, where the money poured into the Constellation-Ares-Orion-SLS program was dictated by Congress, rather than NASA's own expertise and judgment.
The second reason for the United States' struggles to return to the moon is a combination of complacency and loss of national focus. Once the moon landing succeeded, the nation shifted its attention from space exploration to efforts to routinize space travel with the Space Shuttle program. However, this shift in focus failed to inspire the same level of ambition and risk-taking as the original Apollo program.
The lack of public interest in the Artemis program is also a concern. While competition with the Soviet Union drove continuing investment in the moon program in the past, competition with China has not played a similar role today. Perhaps Americans are already cowed by China's rapid advancements in high-speed rail and other technologies.
In conclusion, the journey to return to the moon has been a challenging one, fraught with delays and setbacks. The problems with the Artemis program are emblematic of a broader issue of declining American state capacity, where political mandates and a lack of clear direction have hindered NASA's ability to achieve its goals. To restore state capacity, Americans need to give bureaucrats more discretionary authority, fund them adequately, and eliminate the many political barriers that have been erected over the years.
