France to give civil servants 3.5% pay hike to tackle inflation

28 June 2022 - BY CAROLINE PAILLIEZ

These concerns are piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his government after he and his centrist party lost control of parliament in an election earlier this month.
Image: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/ File photo

France will raise the salary index of its civil servants by 3.5% on July 1 to tackle rising inflation, Public Sector Minister Stanislas Guerini said on Tuesday.

The index used for the global calculation of civil servants' remuneration has been frozen since 2017 as inflation had been low.

“In view of unprecedented inflation, we took an exceptional measure, an overall increase in the salary index of public servants,” Guerini said on Twitter, confirming trade union reports.

The move would cost the state an estimated 7 billion euros, as a 1% increase in the salary index of France's 5.7 million public servants represents a cost of some 2 billion euros for the state, government sources said. Trade unions had requested index hikes ranging from 3% to 10%.

Meanwhile lawmakers are preparing legislation to shore up households' buying power by raising some forms of government assistance by 4% at a cost of 8 billion euros ($8.47 billion) from July to April next year, Les Echos business paper reported on Sunday.

France's central bank forecast this month that inflation would average 5.6% this year before falling to 3.4% in 2023 and easing to just below the European Central Bank's 2% target in 2024.

A growing number of employees in the private sector, including those working in air transport and trucking, have called for pay rises to offset the rising cost of living and for strikes to back their demands.

These concerns are piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his government after he and his centrist party lost control of parliament in an election earlier this month. His opponents so far have ruled out any form of coalition or pact with his party.

French public journalists strike over Macron plans to eliminate media tax

FRANCE 24 
Some FRANCE 24 programming will be disrupted on Tuesday due to a strike across France’s state broadcasting sector over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to abolish the TV licence fee and fund public media broadcasters through general taxation. Media unions say Macron’s proposal will undermine the independence of public service media and could lead to budget cuts.

© Martin Bureau, AFP

Macron vowed to abolish the media tax (known as the “contribution à l'audiovisuel public”), which funds TV, radio and online programming, during his re-election campaign. The 138€ yearly charge paid by the 23 million households owning a television in mainland France brings in over €3 billion per year to pay for France Médias Monde, France Télévisions, Radio France, Arte-France and INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel).

In a joint statement, journalists’ unions criticised the plans, saying they “threaten the very existence of public broadcasting”. In the absence of a ring-fenced revenue source, public service media will become “more precarious” and subject to “political pressure”.

The unions went on to say that “citizens have never needed independent information” more, including access to varied and diverse cultural offerings.

France “must have an independent and publicly funded audiovisual media service commensurate with the issues and challenges we must meet”.

According to a report by Julia Cagé, an economist specialising in the media, 13 of the 27 member countries of the European Union continue to impose media fees including France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Italy and Portugal.

“At a time when fake news is proliferating and inflation is eating away at budgets, it is essential to provide transparency in funding and fairness in distribution, as several Nordic countries have been able to do over the past ten years,” wrote Cagé.

The French fee is far from the highest. In Germany it amounts to €210 per year, and all households pay the tax on the grounds that, even if they don’t have a TV, people can still read public broadcasters’ news articles and listen to radio podcasts online.

The BBC is funded by a £159 (€190) charge on all British households that have a TV. However, Boris Johnson’s government plans to abolish the licence fee by 2027 – although the alternative way of funding the BBC is thus far unclear. Westminster is considering several ideas, from allowing advertising on BBC channels to making it, in effect, a streaming service like Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Public Accounts Minister Gabriel Attal made the proposal to the cabinet in mid-May, a month after Macron secured his second five-year term in the Élysée. The licence fee will be “abolished for good” this year, they said; the government will “continue to ensure the media’s pluralism and independence” with funding through general taxation.

The bill abolishing the licence fee is scheduled to be presented to parliament in July.

The protest begins at noon, with striking journalists marching from the Montparnasse Tower to the National Assembly in the centre of the French capital.

"Stunningly infectious" COVID demands better preparation, says Former CDC director

June 28, 2022   

GZERO Staff

Many people are done with the pandemic, but the pandemic ain't done with us yet.

Why? There's long COVID, and also we can't predict how the virus will play out in the future, former CDC chief Tom Frieden tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

Still, he points out, the best way to "keep yourself out of the hospital and, quite frankly, out of the morgue" is to get vaxxed and boosted.

Frieden says he's stunned by how infectious COVID is compared to other diseases — and that's why those who claim they can predict what's going to happen in a few weeks don't know what they're talking about.

Watch the GZERO World episode: How depoliticizing the US health response will save lives (COVID isn't over)

• Is omicron the best thing that's happened since the pandemic started ... ›
• Biden administration's COVID response likely to impact midterms ... ›
• Will we finally ditch COVID in 2022? - GZERO Media ›
• What we learned from COVID - GZERO Media ›

Mystery Deep-Sea Creature Dubbed Ugliest Thing Fisherman Has Ever Seen

BY JESSICA THOMSON 

ON 6/28/22 

An unknown creature dubbed the "ugliest" a fisherman had ever seen has been caught in deep waters off southeastern Australia.

Professional fisherman Jason Moyce, who goes by the moniker Trapman Bermagui on social media, reeled in the mystery monster off the coast of his Bermagui hometown, about 240 miles south of Sydney. He shared a photo of the beast on social media asking for help identifying it, as both he and the captain of the charter boat had no idea what the fish could be.

It appears a mottled pink-gray, like something out of Stranger Things' Upside Down. Its eyes bulge out the sides of its head, and its huge mouth, which takes up most of its face, contains rows of sharp teeth. The fish can be seen to still have the bait fish inside its mouth.

The mystery deep-sea creature caught off the Australian coast.

TRAPMAN BERMAGUI

"It was 4kg [8.8lbs] and caught in 540m [1770ft] deep [waters]", Moyce told Newsweek.

Moyce suggested it could be a blobfish in the caption of his post, with some commenters agreeing. Others put forward other ideas, including monkfish or toadfish.

Blobfish are usually found in deep water, and they deform significantly when they're exposed to the much lower pressure conditions of sea level. However, they are recognized, and are infamous for, by their flabby "nose" drooping over their mouth, which can't be seen in the picture, and importantly, they don't have teeth.

Monkfish in the family Lophius appear to fit the bill slightly better. They have the same large curved mouth as the mystery fish, and have sharp teeth that look similar to the ones in the picture. One major issue to this suggestion is that mostly no species of monkfish have recorded ranges near the east coast of Australia, where the mystery beast was reeled in, although some are natively found in the north Pacific, off China and Japan.

According to James Maclaine, senior fish curator at London's Natural History Museum, it's "definitely not a blobfish."

"That looks to me very much like a monkfish—also known as an anglerfish—from the family Lophiidae", he told Newsweek. "In fact I'd bet money on it because I'm pretty sure I can see the lure it uses to catch its prey, just between the eyes!"

"[The] specimen looks most like Lophiodes mutilus (the smooth goosefish) to me," Maclaine said.

Anglerfish usually live up to a mile below the surface, and include 200 species, including goosefish. Their characteristic huge heads, large crescent mouths and sharp teeth match the profile of the mystery fish. Smooth goosefish are bottom dwellers that "walk" over the bottom on their leg-like pectoral fins, ambushing their prey. They are also often found off the Australian coast, and have the same pinkish coloration that the mystery fish does.

While the smooth goosefish is a promising suggestion, what the "ugliest" sea creature truly is, for now, remains a mystery.

Mother’s Plea Leads Indonesia Lawmakers to Consider Medical Weed

Norman Harsono
Tue, June 28, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Indonesian lawmakers will discuss a plan to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, after a mother’s plea for the treatment for her child spread widely online.

Legislators will study the plan with the health ministry, parliament’s Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said in a statement on Tuesday. Any changes would be done by revising the narcotics law, which bans the use of cannabis except for certain research purposes, he added.

Santi Warastuti went viral for joining Jakarta’s crowded car-free day on Sunday while bringing a placard that said, “Help, my child needs medical marijuana.” Her child has cerebral palsy. Dasco met Warastuti in Jakarta on Tuesday, and vowed to raise the issue with legislators who are deliberating the law.

Neighboring Southeast Asian countries have started to ease restrictions on cannabis use. Thailand legalized marijuana consumption in June, while Malaysia allowed cannabis use for medicinal purposes last year. Indonesia has strict laws against the use and distribution of controlled substances including marijuana, with a maximum sentence of 12 years imprisonment.

Jordan’s prime minister  has instructed authorities to launch an investigation into the deadly blast at the Red Sea port of Aqaba that killed at least 13 people.

By Associated Press
June 28, 2022 

A man suffers breathing difficulties after inhaling chlorine gas from Monday’s toxic gas explosion is treated at a private hospital in Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba, Tuesday, June 28, 2022. A crane loading chlorine tanks onto a ship on Monday dropped one of them, causing an explosion of toxic yellow smoke that killed over a dozen people and sickened some 250, authorities said.

(AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)


AQABA, Jordan — Jordan’s prime minister said Tuesday that he has instructed authorities to launch an investigation into the deadly blast the previous day at the Red Sea port of Aqaba that killed at least 13 people.

A crane loading chlorine tanks onto a ship on Monday dropped one of them, causing an explosion of toxic yellow smoke. Along with those killed, some 250 were sickened, authorities said.

Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh visited the site Tuesday and, citing civil defense and environmental authorities, said the gas concentration in the area had returned to normal. He said that most movement at the port has resumed, except for the exact site of the incident which was being cleaned and inspected.

Al-Khasawneh said “other nationalities” were among the dead, without elaborating. He said many of those in hospitals were being discharged.

Video carried on state TV showed the moment the tank exploded, sending dockworkers scrambling to escape the toxic cloud. Some 200 people were hospitalized.

The Public Security Directorate, which initially described it as a gas leak, said authorities sealed off the area after evacuating the injured and sent specialists in to address the situation.

State-run Jordan TV said 13 people were killed. Al-Mamlaka TV, another official outlet, said 199 were still being treated in hospitals. The Public Security Directorate said a total of 251 people were injured.

Aqaba is on the northern tip of the Red Sea, next to the Israeli city of Eilat, which is just across the border. Both are popular beach and diving destinations.

Eilat’s emergency services said in a statement that there was no impact on the city but that they were following the situation closely.

Firefighters in Bangladesh lack safety gear, adequate training

Factory fires rising in South Asian nation as safety law flouted

SM Najmus Sakib |

28.06.2022


DHAKA, Bangladesh

Firefighters in Bangladesh perform duties without safety gear and adequate training amid a rise in factory fires in the South Asian nation.

Earlier this month, 12 firefighters died when a fire broke out at a chemical depot in Chattogram, Bangladesh's main port. The casualties recorded were the highest in the Fire Department since 1981.

Ill-equipped firefighters on the spot tried in vain to control the massive blaze, which was eventually doused by the Bangladeshi army.

In the last decade alone, 16,000 fire incidents have occurred in Bangladesh killing 1,590 people, including firefighters, according to the Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association, a local group with a focus on the safety of workers.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Ali Ahmed Khan, former head of the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defense, shed light on the state of fire safety in the country.

"The capacity of our Fire Department is poor when compared to other countries in the West or Europe. According to the global standard, one firefighter is required for 500 people. We have only 13,000 firefighters against a population of 165 million.”

Among them, 150 firefighters are trained to extinguish chemical-induced fires.

The country's fire safety law makes it mandatory for organizations to train 18% of their staff to use fire extinguishers. However, the law is being flouted. Without regular fire drills, employees are often unaware of safe exits in case of an emergency.

People living in the congested streets of old Dhaka, the country's capital, also store highly inflammable chemicals in their houses or shops making it a fire hazard.

The response time for a fire incident is 8 minutes because after 10 minutes it spreads out of control, he said.

However, in the unplanned metropolises of Dhaka and Chittagong, the roads are too narrow for fire engines to respond immediately, Khan said.

According to an assessment of the Fire Department, 90% of buildings in seven city corporations in the country lacked fire safety arrangements, and more than 40% of the hospitals and healthcare centers in Dhaka had no fire-fighting capabilities.

He said more than strengthening the Fire Department, there was a need to enhance and enforce fire safety mechanisms.

“There is a serious gap in the fire safety inspection in buildings and warehouses. Building owners do not run regular inspections, audits, and surveys of buildings or risk assessment to keep their structure safe,” Khan said.

But amid pressure from European buyers, Bangladesh's lucrative ready-made garment industry has improved its safety standards.

"We can follow in their footsteps," he said.

Lori Garver’s new book is must read

Marc Boucher June 28, 2022 

In this weeks Space Economy podcast my special guest is Lori Garver, the former Deputy Administrator of NASA and author of the new book Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age.

Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age. Credit:

During her 35 year career, and this is just partial list, Lori worked at NASA twice, advised a variety of presidential candidates, led the NASA transition team under Barak Obama, was the Executive Director of the National Space Society for nine years and co-founded the Brooke Owens Fellowship, an internship and mentorship program for collegiate women. Oh, and she’s also a space pirate, and that’s a good thing.

My long-time friend and colleague Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch and SpaceRef, said of the book “Not a week goes by without a new headline about yet another commercial space mission. NASA is now among the loudest cheerleaders, but that was not always the case. In Escaping Gravity, former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver documents the long internal and external struggles that often went on behind the scenes wherein the agency slowly warmed to commercial space. She was there in the trenches pushing the agency to transform. If you want to truly understand the origins of the current revolution in commercial space, this book is a must-read.”

Listen in.

About Marc Boucher

Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor & publisher. He is the founder of SpaceQ Media Inc. and CEO and co-founder of SpaceRef Interactive LLC. Boucher has 20 years working in various roles in the space industry and a total of 30 years as a technology entrepreneur including creating Maple Square, Canada's first internet directory and search engine

The Costs of NASA's Modern Moon Mission Are Really Adding Up

Commentary: Let's talk about the fiscal footprint of NASA's latest lunar endeavor, Artemis.

Monisha Ravisetti
June 28, 2022 

NASA's Space Launch System rocket has faced a flurry of technical setbacks and fiscal complications.
Getty Images

As a science writer, I'm very familiar with the excitement of musing about humanity traveling to the moon -- I even find awe while writing about the tiniest lunar update.

A headline like "The Moon Might Have a Trace of Something That Could Potentially Be Water But Probably Not" will do it for me because, at the very least, it underscores that we're far along enough in our timeline to study worlds beyond our own. It's proof that we're on the path toward spectacular, scientific breakthroughs.

But the toil, planning and money that it takes to create -- let alone realize -- a moon mission often gets lost in translation.

Lunar travel inspires us because the difficult middle steps feel like a means to a deserving end. The remarkable cosmic finding that eventually propels medical research on Earth. The stirring realization that, somehow, we did it. That might've been what John F. Kennedy meant when he said we choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

For a moment, though, let's talk about the toil, the planning and moreover -- the money.

NASA's Artemis I moon mission is still a go, having slowly but surely waddled through its final testing phase. But as NASA is a government agency, pretty much all the money funding this lunar dream comes from taxpayer pockets -- a fact that inevitably calls into question whether moon missions are really worth the thrill, and even the scientific advancement, they give us. 

The Artemis I Space Launch System rocket, topped by the Orion spacecraft, stand tall at launch complex 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14.NASA/Cory Huston

Facts about lunar billions

NASA's Artemis moon rocket, slated to touch space for the very first time in 2022, was supposed to launch in 2017.

It was supposed to encompass four missions, each with a price tag estimated a decade ago at $500 million -- but a 2021 audit now projects a cost of $4.1 billion per launch. That's a difference of about $3.6 billion for every cosmic ferry. At a rate of one number per second, it'd take you over a century to count to that figure. This might explain why the same audit and NASA's inspector general bluntly label the endeavor "unsustainable."

This audit is the second of two conducted for the program, and according to the document, was motivated by the fact that Artemis is the agency's "most ambitious and costly activity." It states that Artemis "faces schedule, procurement, technical and funding risks," and therefore looked at NASA documents, systems, policies and procedures pertaining to schedule, cost, budget, operations, and other such things to evaluate those risks.

What it found was striking."I do think there are people who maybe believed it could happen, but they really in their heart of hearts had to know they were going along with something that was going to take a lot longer and cost a lot more money."
Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver

According to the audit, those four launches at a projected $4.1 billion a pop would be on top of the about $40 billion already spent to build Artemis equipment -- items like the rocket itself, known as the Space Launch System, and the Orion spacecraft, which will hold important devices for science exploration.

A rosy sunrise lightens the sky behind NASA's Artemis I SLS rocket in Florida. NASA

Under the Trump administration, NASA set a goal for the first Artemis crewed trip to the moon -- mission three -- for late 2024 instead of the program's initial hope of 2028, which was "just not good enough," Vice President Mike Pence said during a meeting of the National Space Council in 2019.

The accelerated timeline prompted the agency to request a "down payment" of $1.6 billion and left congressional budgeters with some big questions.

"NASA has not provided the committee with a full cost estimate despite repeated requests," US Rep. José Serrano, a Democrat from New York, said at the time -- a worry that still holds true today, according to the latest audit.

"Since NASA has already programmed the lunar landing mission for 2028," Serrano continued, "why does it suddenly need to speed up the clock by four years, time that is needed to carry out a successful program from a science and safety perspective?"

Fast-forward to now.

That 2024 deadline has since changed to 2025 and might fall even further into the future because Artemis spacesuits are behind schedule. Those spacesuits themselves will also probably end up costing a ton more than previously expected. "Since our 2017 report, NASA has spent an additional $220 million -- for a total of $420 million -- on spacesuit development," the 2021 audit said.
All in all, $93 billion

The closest we get to an "all-in-all" within the audit is "when considering the $40 billion already spent on the Artemis mission from [fiscal years] 2012 to 2020, the total projected cost through FY 2025 becomes $93 billion."

In other words, it's probably going to take at least around $93 billion to bring humanity back to the moon via Artemis.

CNET reached out to NASA for comment on audit details like delays and budget changes and was directed to the appendix section of the document where NASA management provides thoughts on the inspector general's findings.

In this section, among other things, the agency lays out some steps it plans to take in order to learn from Artemis' setbacks. For instance, it notes its intention to review requirements and specifications for streamlining the program, implementing lessons learned and measuring technical performance against the costs needed to build equipment.

The agency also offers an example of one such lesson learned: "For the SLS Boosters team, learning curve improvements reduced non-conformances by 76 percent; similarly, the SLS Core Stage team achieved a 52 percent reduction in discrepancies per 1,000 labor hours."

As management's comments echo, it's all in the name of trailblazing lunar exploration – but as it stands, remember that Artemis has yet to venture into space.

An illustration of a suited Artemis astronaut looking out of a moon lander hatch across the lunar surface.NASA

Fingers are crossed that a launch goes as planned later this year, but we still don't know whether it will. Though what we do know is that NASA's moon expedition has cost billions upon billions of extra dollars, years upon years of extra time and, according to the agency's former deputy administrator Lori Garver, breath after breath of wasted words.

"It was projected to be $500 million [per launch]" Garver, who worked at NASA between 2009 and 2013, told CNET. "I was at NASA asking these questions of the technical people, who looked me in the eye and said they could do it for that. I don't believe they thought they could. I just don't. I think they're smarter than that."

"We had things to do with that money that could have gotten us much farther," Garver said, suggesting that the $500 million per launch could've been allocated for things like astrobiology studies, which help us understand where to search for life in the cosmos. Or for research closer to home.

"Whenever I tried to push for more Earth science," such as studies related to climate change, she said, "I would often get told by the Hill" -- that is, by members of Congress -- "'that's not NASA's job. NASA is supposed to go where no one's gone before,' and I remember thinking, well, that's actually Star Trek. That's not NASA."
The Artemis wet dress rehearsal success

You might've heard that June 20 marked a milestone for Artemis, as the agency got further than ever before with the spacecraft's final -- crucial -- testing sequence.

It's called the wet dress rehearsal, and it took four tries to get to this point. A flurry of technical setbacks imperiled each of the previous three rehearsal attempts -- and even Mother Nature played a hand when lightning struck during attempt No. 1.


This is essentially the last step in preparing for the big day and involves tasks like filling the rocket with fuel (hence, "wet" dress rehearsal) and quadruple-checking that all facets are in tip-top shape. Everything but the launch itself.

Though the mission still has a few more tests to take care of, Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager at NASA headquarters, said in a press conference last week that celebratory hugs and handshakes were spread on Monday.

"It firmly establishes Orion and SLS as our transportation system for crew and cargo for the Artemis program," he said a day after the team's wet dress rehearsal success. "Yesterday put us on a path for Artemis I."

But, economically, Artemis' mega vehicle has caused quite the commotion.

Once estimated to cost a total of $10 billion, the SLS has left a hole of over $20 billion in taxpayer money dedicated to NASA's ambitious lunar mission and it has taken much (much) longer to complete it's testing. Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA's Artemis launch director, remained hopeful in early April, saying that "this is a test, and the purpose of the test is to fully understand our systems."

Lightning strikes tower one of Artemis I's lightning protection system.NASA

To that end, however, Garver said, "it is absolutely true that testing is all about finding problems and continuing -- but these are the same people who said they could do it in five or six years. And instead of taking five or six years, it's taking 10 or 12. So you can't have it both ways."

OK. Your mind might be overwhelmed right now. It's been a bumpy road for Artemis. But this blown-out lunar travel timeline raises a couple of pressing questions.

Why would NASA support an overidealized Artemis timeline -- if, of course, the team knew it was over idealized?

And the second might've been one lingering in your mind since you began reading this article. Should we still go forward with Artemis at all?
Introducing the 'Senate' Launch System

The Space Launch System vehicle has earned a disparaging name among critics of the Artemis program: The "Senate" Launch System.

Some experts believe the pitfall of Artemis lies in irresponsible decisions put forth by members of Congress working with the NASA bureaucracy.

"I think anyone who was honest with themselves would have agreed the system allowed the aerospace industry -- who was getting billions of dollars to build [the SLS] -- to tell Congress they could do it by that time," Garver said, explaining that the industry knew it'd be paid the same amount every year, regardless of delays. "There was a reverse incentive."

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin, who led the recent audit, even told CNBC, "We saw that the cost-plus contracts that NASA had been using to develop that combined SLS and Orion system work to the contractors' rather than NASA's advantage." Cost-plus contracts basically promise that contractors get paid for all costs, plus a fee.

He called out Boeing, which was contracted to build the SLS, for what he described as "poor planning and poor execution."

NASA's '70s-vintage worm logo fully emblazoned across the Artemis I SLS boosters.

NASA/Kim Shiflett

When asked for comment on these high SLS construction costs, Boeing told CNET, "When adjusted for inflation, NASA has developed SLS for a quarter of the cost of the Saturn V and half the cost of the Space Shuttle," and "SLS, the Orion spacecraft and Exploration Ground Systems necessary for the Artemis missions have consumed less than the average annual spending on Space Shuttle operations, which is the sustained human space flight investment level for the system they were intended to succeed."

Plus, it's worth considering that SLS building timelines might have been a bit unpredictable because the last few years have been anything but normal – COVID-19 shutdowns affected spacecraft manufacturing, and a few natural disasters impacted locations where the rocket was kept.

But looking to the past, Garver said, "Congress and industry and many in NASA have done this before. They go along with the narrative just to get a program started, knowing it will be hard to cancel."

As an example, she pointed to what we now know as the International Space Station. Back in the late '80s, when President Ronald Reagan dubbed it "Space Station Freedom," it was announced as an all-American space hub and was initially going to have a price tag of $8 billion. By 2010, after it had become an international project, overall estimates of its cost, to all participating countries, was pegged at $100 billion.

Though cost increases were to be expected as the scope of the project expanded and the ISS itself grew more efficient, that's exactly what tends to happen with timelines and budgets for big space projects.

"I do think there are people who maybe believed it could happen," Garver said of Artemis' initial timeline and budget. "But they really in their heart of hearts had to know they were going along with something that was going to take a lot longer and cost a lot more money."
In a world of reusable rockets, Artemis doesn't have one

SpaceX, Blue Origin, you name it. Everyone involved in the space game wants to craft the ultimate recyclable rocket. One that you can fly to space, then bring back home like the car sitting in your driveway.

The goal is to create cheaper, greener versions of space travel. But in this world of reusable rockets, the Artemis vehicle isn't one. "Guess what the benefit is supposed to be?" Garver said. "Cheaper; faster."

But for an example of cheaper and faster, there's Starship, the reusable rocket that Elon Musk's SpaceX is building. It's cost $5 billion so far and is arguably nearing the same point as Artemis' SLS, if it's not further along. The SLS has cost something like $23 billion so far. To be clear, Starship also hasn't yet made it to space, so it's story is still being written too.

If Starship does find success quicker than NASA's SLS, Garver suggests it might be the case that Musk's private space organization could light the way for future moon missions -- it's already poised to help with Artemis III's crewed mission and has garnered a lot of praise for its Falcon 9 successes, though notably, Falcon 9 trips have only gone as far as low Earth orbit.

Starship prototype SN15 during its successful test flight.SpaceX

"There's no way to use it for something else, unfortunately," Garver said. "Those sunk costs would be a waste -- it's not easy to say, and the people who worked on it are not bad. This was a design flaw."

However, the SLS' recent checkpoint with the wet dress rehearsal completion offers some hope that this worst-case scenario won't happen.

Further, it would be remiss to ignore the feeling that NASA's intrinsic value transcends what private space companies have right now. Undoubtedly, the agency's highly trained astronauts will uniquely know what to do once we do get to the moon and possess valuable insights from the Apollo missions that began our lunar saga -- insights that SpaceX hasn't yet proven to hold.

Traveling there via the SLS, or even the Starship for that matter, is just one piece of the puzzle. But that is the piece we have to worry about right now.

It's only a matter of time before we see how the rest of the Artemis story will unfold. Artemis I's uncrewed mission will be followed by several others, including a crewed mission that takes the first woman and first person of color to the moon and later others to build lunar space stations, bases, something called the "Lunanet" (think of it as a moon-based internet) and even pave the way for Mars missions down the line.

Regardless of who gets there first, and aboard which vehicle, Kennedy's Apollo speech still resonates:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

But even as we all feel lunar butterflies, we might want to consider the costs incurred along the way.

"I am also confident we all have the same shared goal – a robust human spaceflight program. But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details," US Rep. Brian Babin, a Republican from Texas, said during a House space subcommittee hearing in March.

"We are still waiting on those details."

Nasa's Capstone mission blasts off to study unique Moon orbit

Findings will help scientists work out where to place a future crewed station called Gateway





The Capstone CubeSat system was launched on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from New Zealand on June 28, at 1.55pm, UAE time. All photos: Nasa

Sarwat Nasir
Jun 28, 2022

Nasa has launched a small satellite to the Moon to study a unique lunar orbit that would be home to a crewed station called the Gateway.

The Capstone CubeSat — which stands for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment — was launched on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from New Zealand on Tuesday at 1.55pm.

Electron is a two-stage, partially recoverable orbital launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, an American aerospace company with a New Zealand subsidiary.

It was designed and built to send small satellites, which are meant to be affordable and reliable, to space more often.

Capstone is commercially owned and operated by Advanced Space, a company that works on sustainable exploration, development, and settlement of space. But the project is funded by the US space agency.


The satellite will study a unique, halo-shaped orbit, called near-rectilinear halo orbit (NHRO). This would be used by Nasa for its Gateway, a lunar outpost astronauts will arrive at first before descending to the Moon's surface.

It is part of the Artemis programme, which aims to build a sustainable human presence on the Moon.

“After a four-month journey to its target destination, Capstone will orbit this area around the Moon for at least six months to understand the characteristics of the orbit,” Nasa said on its website.

“Specifically, it will validate the power and propulsion requirements for maintaining its orbit as predicted by Nasa’s models, reducing logistical uncertainties.

“It will also demonstrate the reliability of innovative spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation solutions as well as communication capabilities with Earth.”

Capstone will enter into and try to maintain the unique lunar orbit for at least six months.

“Hanging almost like a necklace from the Moon, NRHO is a one-week orbit that is balanced between the Earth’s and Moon’s gravity,” Nasa said.

“This orbit will periodically bring Gateway close enough to the lunar surface to provide simple access to the Moon’s South Pole where astronauts will test capabilities for living on other planetary bodies, including Mars.

“NRHO can also provide astronauts and their spacecraft with access to other landing sites around the Moon in addition to the South Pole.”

During this mission, Capstone will use its on-board flight computer and radio for calculations to determine its location in the orbital path.

The Capstone CubeSat will study a unique, halo-shaped orbit that would be potentially used by Nasa to place the Gateway. Photo: Nasa

It will use Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009, as a reference point.

The CubeSat will communicate directly with the orbiter and use its data to measure its position in space and help mission control test Capstone’s autonomous navigation software.

“If successful, this software, referred to as the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System, will allow future spacecraft to determine their location without having to rely exclusively on tracking from Earth,” Nasa said.

“This capability could enable future technology demonstrations to perform on their own without support from the ground and allow ground-based antennas to prioritise valuable science data over more routine operational tracking.”

Under the Artemis programme, the space agency hopes to send the next man, first woman and first person of colour to the lunar surface.

It is hoped that once a Lunar Gateway is built in the Moon’s orbit, it would establish a continuous human presence there, including landing on the surface regularly for science experiments.

“Built with international and commercial partnerships, Gateway’s capabilities for supporting sustained exploration and research in deep space include docking ports for a variety of visiting spacecraft, space for crew to live and work, and on-board science investigations to study heliophysics, human health, and life sciences, among other areas,” Nasa said.

The space agency is launching Artemis 1 later this year, an uncrewed test flight to the Moon and the first of many under the Artemis programme.

The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft will launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, a mission that will help to measure the spacecraft’s performance.

Updated: June 28, 2022, 5:19 AM