At long last, the saga of NASA’s 2024 budget has been resolved, four months into the year and more than seven months past the original Congressional due date.

Yet the overall trendline is not positive for NASA’s topline funding number, and there are serious negative impacts unfolding in NASA’s non-Artemis portfolio.

In early March 2024, 60 Minutes released a piece about NASA’s Artemis plans. It ended with a surprise pronouncement from Blue Origin’s John Couluris: Blue Origin's Blue Moon version 1 should be touching down on the lunar surface as early as January/February 2025 or as late as June/July 2025.

Considering Blue Origin’s current circumstances and history, Couluris’ Blue Moon prognostication seems overly ambitious. One reason to approach his statements with caution is Blue Origin’s slow development pacing, which is deeply steeped in its company culture. Because of this pacing, Blue Origin’s history, aside from New Shepard, is a trail of missed goals.

Space exploration and development is becoming increasingly multipolar in the 21st century. Astralytical has previously documented the rise of a trio of East Asian space powerhouses in the 21st century, China, Japan, and India, while also noting the decline in European space launch capacity.

Canada is another rising space power that has created a seat for itself at the table as humanity pushes deeper into the Solar System. Canada has a legacy of significant contributions to the International Space Station and is a major partner in NASA’s Artemis crewed lunar exploration program.

Humans have plenty of time and money to prepare for lunar exploration. But our knowledge of the Moon? We could do better, but it’s not for a lack of effort.

Despite humanity’s well-advertised visits to the Moon, the total number of days humans have lived on our satellite’s surface is about 11. The Apollo 17 mission took the most of those days—three—as Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt crammed in as much exploration and experimentation as they could, occasionally singing as they worked. Three days—that’s not a lot of time for even the most scripted research and exploration schedule.

The year 2023 was dominated by headlines of budget chaos in Congress. NASA was not spared the negative repercussions of this uncertainty, just as the agency is ramping up the Artemis program to return humans to the lunar surface.

Astralytical regularly documented this uncertainty, with articles in January, May, August, and November highlighting the risks to NASA from renewed budget austerity, delayed funding allocations, and the risk of a government shutdown.

Sadly for NASA and the space industry, 2024 has not started off any better, and the negative impacts are starting to cut hard.

Astrobotic’s Mission One was one of a new slew of NASA-funded commercial enterprises fixated on the Moon to provide lunar transportation and facilitate exploration. Expectations for the mission were high, especially after ULA’s Vulcan launch, which lifted off without a hiccup.

Instead, Peregrine’s “propulsion anomaly” made it a lunar lander that couldn’t land. The lander eventually traveled back to Earth, where it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and harmlessly disintegrated.

While the anomaly was mission-ending, it shouldn’t be surprising. Commercial startups conducting lunar activities is a relatively new concept, with corresponding inflated expectations. The Gartner Hype Cycle usefully illustrates where the commercial lunar exploration industry is within the cycle.

Mars is omnipresent when it comes to space exploration. Mesmerizing our night skies since the dimmest days of prehistory, it now occupies an outsized center of gravity in our modern space consciousness.

Mars is the heart of NASA’s search for life as well as an impressive array of increasingly advanced orbiters, landers, rovers, and now a helicopter.

The American public holds fluid views of Mars exploration, often indifferent yet with hardcore supporters and opponents. Overall, exploring Mars appears to be becoming increasingly popular. Rising intensity in public support for Mars exploration could have transformational impacts for support in Congress and the wider American space policy-making agenda.

SpaceX was not just dominant in 2023, it humiliated its competitors. We see this in launch services, in spacecraft operations (and, logically, manufacturing), and the tremendous mass its rockets lifted to orbit.

Japan is one of the most advanced spacefaring nations on Earth and is poised to continue playing a leading role in 21st century space exploration. The US, China, Russia, and India are leading a renewed geopolitical surge outward to the Moon and beyond and Japan is quietly but firmly in the mix.

With decades of experience and a highly mature space economy to lean on, Japan is a major space power jockeying for influence and opportunity in this new space age.

New Space rockets take longer to develop and slip their launch estimates worse than older rockets. Don't believe it? We have the numbers.

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