How did space travel fare in 2024?

2024 has been a stellar year in the field of astronomy. The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered atmosphere on planets over a hundred light years away, and the Euclid mission has begun to unravel some of the secrets of dark matter. But, down here on Earth, much of the buzz around space has been about humanity’s planned return to the Moon, even if we’re not sure who is set to get there first. I’ve been speaking to the space scientist and author David Whitehouse…

David - Well, I think it's got to be Elon Musk and the latest test, or one of the latest tests, of his Starship and his super heavy booster. It's more powerful than anything that has been launched before. It's taller. It's relatively simple in terms of what it does, but it's done some spectacular things. One of the latest, most watched space missions of recent years was when the star ship went into orbit and then flew around the world and came down in the Pacific, not far from Australia, but the super heavy booster that took it on the first few minutes of its flight and provided most of its thrust to get into orbit was actually returning to the launch pad and was captured by these two arms called chopsticks. And this was the very first attempt at doing that. And I don't think anybody expected it to work, but it was absolutely spectacular. And it shows the difference in momentum and achievement between SpaceX and NASA in the sense that SpaceX flies more frequently. It is learning faster, it's prepared to fail, but when it fails, it learns from that and progresses. And that's why Elon Musk has become the centerpiece of going back to the Moon. But also he has captured, with his Falcon Rockets, the majority of the market to take satellites into space and has the only working capsule that can take astronauts to and from the Space Station. So this year, next year and probably years to come, it's all about Elon Musk and what he does.

Chris - You mentioned NASA. Of course, we should have seen NASA astronauts back heading to the Moon this year, shouldn't we? That's been put back. Any update on that?

David - Well, yes, alongside Elon Musk's success, he has a role in the return to the Moon. And we should have seen, in December this year, astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission fly around the moon, testing out the Orion capsule and the space launch system. But that has been put back at least a year because of problems with the heat shield, with the Orion capsule. And it's somehow when put against Elon's success, showing that the Artemis plan to go to the Moon is now beginning to look complicated, very expensive, difficult to bring together and delayed. And so it seems to be going into the territory that sced all the previous attempts to put people back to the moon. And I think that one of Elon's goals, particularly since he's now so close to the incoming administration, will be to try and rationalise that and to try and well with his role in the Department of Government Efficiency to save money. But I think as part of saving a lot of money, he could actually bring SpaceX and NASA closer together. And we may see a big redesign of going back to the Moon.

Chris - It's quite a serious conflict of interest though, isn't it? Because you've got this person who is very successful in that respect commercially and in forays into space. At the same time, is going to command quite a lot of control and quite a lot of power and command, quite a lot of influence in Washington, in the administration, and therefore in what they decide to do. So is anyone kind of concerned about that or the fact that we have one person holding all the cards like this?

David - Yes. Elon Musk seems to have moved himself, through his political interest this year and his backing of President Trump, into a centre position for many things, including space. It was discussed on the grapevine that Elon Musk might even become the director of the administrator of NASA. But that presumably would've been too much of a conflict of interest. Having said that, it is traditional for the administrator of NASA to offer his resignation to a new administration in January for the president to decide who may want to replace him. So who knows.