The Apollo program, which was the first to land a man on the Moon, required an enormous amount of resources: more than 400.000 people and 25.400 billion dollars. In today's dollars it's roughly $180.000 billion.
By Miami Diario Newsroom
"At one point, the NASA it received more than four percent of the federal budget, and today it's less than half a point," said Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of space history at the Smithsonian Museum.
According to Miami cbs, the dynamics of financing have helped create a different relationship between public-private partnership and space exploration.
"It used to be that NASA hired subcontractors to build spacecraft or components for them," said Kimberly Slater, lead of Space Innovations at Draper. "Now it's commercial companies that are leading that development, building their own components, building their own spacecraft, and NASA is helping them launch them."
"When we can take advantage of commercial capacity whenever possible, it really offsets our costs and allows us to do more with fewer dollars," explained John W. Dankanich, NASA Marshall Chief Technologist.
Companies bid on specific NASA projects, incentivizing private companies and keeping costs within budgets.
“We are accomplishing more collaboratively and working together than ever before in history,” Slater said.
"We're meeting with our partners, and not just in the United States - that's another exciting part - and getting ready to learn that we can go beyond the moon," said Lakiesha V. Hawkins, Assistant Manager of the Office of Systems Development NASA room.
The result is more space launches.
"We are in the golden age of space exploration," said Tuohy. “We currently have more human spacecraft in development than ever before in the history of the United States. It's going to be an exciting ten years that are going to see a lot of interest and a lot of action with the moon. You will see launches several times a year, aiming to return to the moon.