Putting astronauts back on the Moon by 2024 will be no small feat, and NASA’s new human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders has been careful not to make any promises. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” Lueders said when asked about the feasibility of a 2024 Moon landing. “I wish I knew that answer. That’d make my job a lot easier. We’re going to try.”
Aeolis Mons lies in Gale crater, forming its central peak
Lueders, who recently became the associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate after Doug Loverro’s abrupt resignation, was a bit more pragmatic about the timeline of NASA’s Artemis program than her predecessor. While Lueders seems cautiously optimistic about getting astronauts to the Moon by 2024, Loverro was confident and unwavering in his assertion that NASA would make the deadline. At a NASA town hall in