Published: May 13, 2019 By

An Orion crew module, part of NASA’s Space Launch SystemFrom The New York Times: NASA officials on Monday evening unveiled an updated budget request to Congress, seeking more than $1 billion in additional funding in what they called a down payment to accelerate the return of astronauts to the moon by 2024.

Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, also said that the mission back to the moon would be called Artemis. In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, whose name was used by NASA for the series of spacecraft that first landed Americans on the moon in 1969.

But the revision is just a request, and Congress must decide whether to back the Trump administration’s plan to race back to the lunar surface. Read more...