New <keyword id="19900881" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="delhi" source="keywords">Delhi</keyword>: A man on Tuesday alleged that a private hospital in Delhi had kept his newborn twins after delivery and was demanding more money for it. However, when the issue surfaced in the media and was raised by senior AAP leader <keyword id="19895329" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sanjay-singh" source="keywords">Sanjay Singh</keyword>, the hospital reached a settlement and discharged the two babies without any additional payment around 5.30 pm, <keyword id="20202805" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pankaj-mishra" source="keywords">Pankaj Mishra</keyword>, the father of the children, told PTI. <br /><br /> Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had earlier in the day posted on X about the matter and said that a complaint had been lodged with the <keyword id="19898134" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="delhi-police" source="keywords">Delhi Police</keyword>. <br /><br /> Before reaching a settlement with the parents of the newborn babies, <keyword id="23120489" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="apollo-cradle" source="keywords">Apollo Cradle</keyword>, in west Delhi's <keyword id="20941525" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moti-nagar" source="keywords">Moti Nagar</keyword>, denied the allegations. The hospital said the parents were "unresponsive" despite its best efforts to resolve the situation. <br /><br /> According to the complaint shared by the AAP leader on X, the babies -- a boy and a girl -- were in the hospital for nearly 50 days after the mother was discharged on July 20. <br /><br /> In a statement released earlier, Apollo Cradle said, "When the babies were ready for discharge on August 31, the parents refused to cooperate and exhibited disruptive behaviour. Despite our ongoing efforts to resolve the situation, the parents have been unresponsive." <br /><br /> The children's hospital added that the parents were clearly informed that their babies were would be ready for discharge on August 31. <br /><br /> Sharing the father's letter to the police on X, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, however, said that the hospital was demanding more money and keeping the child "hostage". <br /><br /> "Apollo Cradle Moti Nagar has kept the two newborn children of Pankaj Mishra, who works as a guard, hostage. The children are in the hospital without their parents. After depositing Rs 5.81 lakh, the hospital is demanding another Rs 14 lakh. This is illegal and inhuman. A complaint has been made to Delhi Police. Delhi Police should rescue their children from the hospital," Singh posted in Hindi. <br /><br /> In the letter, Pankaj Mishra alleged that the hospital had initially quoted a smaller price for the entire procedure but after delivery, the hospital demanded additional payments. <br /><br /> Pankaj said his wife, Anita Mishra, had to be admitted to Apollo Cradle on June 27 on an urgent basis when her health deteriorated abruptly and they could not find any other hospital with NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) facility. <br /><br /> Pankaj added that his wife delivered twin babies through a cesarean section on July 17. <br /><br /> The hospital initially quoted an estimated cost of Rs 4-5 lakh for the treatment and delivery, and offered an additional 50 per cent discount, he said in the letter. <br /><br /> "But, after the twins were delivered, they have taken Rs 5.81 lakh, and are now illegally making a bill of Rs 13 lakh and demanding more money," he wrote. <br /><br /> Pankaj said when he asked the hospital to bill him as per their earlier promises, and told them that he does not have more money, they are "neither allowing them to see the babies, nor returning them". <br /><br /> "...they are saying that we will keep the babies," he wrote in the police complaint. <br /><br /> Responding to the allegations, hospital authorities, before a settlement with the couple, said that the doctor delivered IVF twin babies via "emergency cesarean section at just 30+2 weeks, requiring specialised NICU care due to their low birth weight". <br /><br /> Despite initial advice to terminate the pregnancy, the team successfully managed the high-risk situation and ensured the babies' survival, it said. <br /><br /> Apollo Cradle added that it was surprised at the parents' actions given "the extensive care provided" and said that they were making efforts to complete the discharge process and ensure the safe return of the babies.

Man claims Delhi hospital refused to discharge his newborn twins for 50 days demanding more money

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c13bfbecf079510e017a5dd-2399/earthrise-apollo-nasa-as8-14-2383hr.jpg" border="0" alt="earthrise apollo nasa AS8 14 2383HR" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="The famous &amp;quotEarthrise&quot; photo taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during their trip around the moon on Dec. 24, 1968." data-link="https://www.nasa.gov/content/forty-fifth-anniversary-of-earthrise-image/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/content/forty-fifth-anniversary-of-earthrise-image/">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">The famous "Earthrise" photo taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during their trip around the moon on Dec. 24, 1968.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>The 50th anniversary of the first <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/moon-landing">moon landing</a>, which occurred during the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo-11">Apollo 11</a> mission, is on July 20.</li><li>The feat was seen around the world on live TV and is often referred to as the "Apollo moment."</li><li>But astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9, said the greatest moment of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa">NASA</a>'s moonshot program happened on December 24, 1968. That's when <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo-8">Apollo 8</a> astronauts saw Earth rise above the moon's cratered landscape from lunar orbit.</li><li>Schweickart calls that moment the "cosmic birth" of humanity.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>People sometimes throw around the phrase "Apollo moment" to describe a seemingly impossible, yet possibly reachable, pinnacle of achievement.</p><p>Today, this term gets used for business ventures, scientific discoveries, national projects, and more. But it originally comes from NASA's Apollo moon-landing program of the 1960s and 1970s. And to most people, it specifically refers to July 20, 1969: when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto lunar soil for the first time in history.</p><p>But not everyone agrees that the moon landing was the Apollo program's most profound moment.</p><p><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/schweickart_russell.pdf">Rusty Schweickar</a>t, an aeronautical engineer and astronaut who flew on the Apollo 9 mission (and now works to protect Earth from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-detection-mission-neocam-nasa-funding-astronaut-support-2018-11">killer asteroids</a>), said the most pivotal moment in the program happened nearly seven months before Apollo 11.</p><p>"I've thought a lot about what does Apollo mean - after 50 years, what is the real significance of Apollo?" Schweickart told Business Insider during a recent interview at the <a href="https://www.cradleofaviation.org/plan_your_visit/apollo/countdown-to-apollo-at-50.html">Cradle of Aviation Museum</a> in New York. "I think it is epitomized most directly by the Apollo 8 crew going out to the moon."</p><p>Here's what happened during that mission, which never touched the moon, and why Schweickart believes it's the biggest moment in the history of human civilization.</p><h2>Why Apollo 8 was our 'cosmic birth'</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c13ee072a5b74195e23c474-2158/apollo-8-saturn-v-rocket-launches-liftoff-cape-canaveral-florida-december-1968-nasa.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo 8 saturn v rocket launches liftoff cape canaveral florida december 1968 nasa" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="A Saturn V rocket launches NASA's three-astronaut crew of Apollo 8 toward the moon on December 21, 1968." /><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p><p class="caption">A Saturn V rocket launches NASA's three-astronaut crew of Apollo 8 toward the moon on December 21, 1968.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Apollo 8 was the second flight of NASA's moonshot program.</p><p>Leading up to its launch on December 21, 1968, the situation on the ground was anything but ideal.</p><p>"There was the Vietnam War going on - it was not a popular war, especially with the younger people," <a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lovell-ja.html">Jim Lovell</a>, who flew on Apollo 8, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-is-heaven-james-lovell-lunar-astronaut-2017-3">previously told</a> Business Insider. "There were riots, there were two assassinations of prominent people during that period, and so things were looking kind of bad in this country."</p><p>NASA and its contractors were running behind on production of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-apollo-moon-mission-lunar-module-locations-museums-2019-6">lunar modules</a>, the spacecraft designed to ferry astronauts to and from the moon's surface. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was plugging away at its own lunar program and threatening to launch cosmonauts <a href="http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,844661-1,00.html">around the moon</a>.</p><p>NASA knew that a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/classified-apollo-11-anomaly-threatened-to-crash-first-moon-astronauts-2019-6">command and service module</a> - Apollo's human-rated system for voyages between Earth and the moon - would be ready by December 1968, according to Andy Chaikin's book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Man-Moon-Voyages-Apollo-Astronauts/dp/014311235X">A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts</a>."</p><p>So NASA approved a new flight plan for Apollo 8. Lovell and his crewmates <a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/borman-f.html">Frank Borman</a> and <a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/anders-wa.html">Bill Anders</a> would not land on the moon, but instead fly out to and around it - something no human had ever done before. In fact, at the time, no one had ever left the protective cradle of low-Earth orbit and journeyed into <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-atmosphere-extends-beyond-moon-hydrogen-gas-cloud-2019-2">deep space</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54863f1deab8ea0b62efed85-1200/apollo-8-mission-profile.png" border="0" alt="Apollo 8 mission profile" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="Apollo 8 mission profile." data-link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8#mediaviewer/File:Apollo-8-mission-profile.png" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8#mediaviewer/File:Apollo-8-mission-profile.png">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">Apollo 8 mission profile.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The flight to the moon took about three days. Once Anders, Borman, and Lovell arrived, the trio entered into lunar orbit.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">The space between Earth and the moon is mind-boggling. This graphic reveals just how big it is - and what's out there.</a></em></p><p>This set up the famous Earthrise photo (shown at the beginning of this story), which shows our planet from about 240,000 miles away, hanging in the black void of space above the moon's cratered surface.</p><p>"It gives you a different perspective of the Earth when you see it as three-dimensional between the sun and the moon, and you begin to realize how small and how significant the body is," Lovell said of the view. "When I put my thumb up to the window I could completely hide it, and then I realized that behind my thumb that I'm hiding this Earth, and there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there."</p><p>That is the precise moment that Schweickart sees as the most profound of the Apollo program.</p><p>"They were the first human beings who got out of the Earth's gravity field and into the gravity field of another object," Schweickart said. "They were shocked when they turned the spacecraft around and saw the Earth coming up over the lunar horizon."</p><p>It's also why Schweickart thinks that, perhaps 10,000 years from now, what will be remembered of Apollo will not primarily be the moon landing but "the moment when humans first left the protective envelope" of our home planet.</p><p>"That was the first time humanity really understood or realized that we ... had left the womb of Mother Earth. That was the first time that we had looked back at mom from outside of the birth canal. That was the moment that I call 'Cosmic Birth,'" he said. "Humanity will never again take that first step into space. That was it; that was when we look back and understood - and are still wrestling with understanding - the fact that all the life we know is on this small, beautiful planet that we call Earth."</p><h2>Just the right stuff</h2><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58c32c67c1407797048b4815-800" border="0" alt="james jim lovell astronaut apollo 13 nasa" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="Jim Lovell's formal portrait for the Apollo 13 mission in 1970." data-link="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/images13.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/images13.html">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">Jim Lovell's formal portrait for the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.</p></div><p></p></div></div></h2><p>Lovell shares a similar view to Schweickart.</p><p>At the time he saw Earth rise over the moon, he felt small, Lovell said - and incredibly lucky:</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">"You realize that people often say, 'I hope to go to heaven when I die.' In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you're born. You arrive on a planet that has the proper mass, has the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, which are the very essentials for life. And you arrive on this planet that's orbiting a star just at the right distance - not too far to be too cold, or too close to be too hot - and just at the right distance to absorb that star's energy and then, with that energy, cause life to evolve here in the first place."</p><p>Lovell also reflected on humanity's role in taking care of the planet and humanity. </p><p>"In reality, you know, God has really given us a stage, just looking at where we were around the moon, a stage on which we perform," Lovell said. "How that play turns out is up to us, I guess."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-starship-spacex-starhopper-rocket-moon-2019-6">Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar Starship rocket could one day take people to the moon and Mars</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/Bsa5q9dJ-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

An Apollo astronaut says the greatest moment of NASA's program was not the moon landing - it was the 'cosmic birth' of humanity

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d13d060e3ecba10b3315452-2400/charles-charlie-duke-apollo-16-astronaut-moon-lunar-surface-spacesuit-crater-edge-nasa-as16-114-18423orig.jpg" border="0" alt="charles charlie duke apollo 16 astronaut moon lunar surface spacesuit crater edge nasa as16 114 18423_orig" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="Apollo 16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. stands at the Descartes landing site at the rim of Plum Crater on April 21, 1972. A lunar rover is seen in the background." data-link="https://images.nasa.gov/details-as16-114-18423.html"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://images.nasa.gov/details-as16-114-18423.html">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke stands at the Descartes landing site at the rim of Plum Crater on April 21, 1972. A lunar rover is seen in the background.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Apollo astronauts are celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/moon-landing">moon landing</a>.</li><li>Charlie Duke, an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/astronauts">astronaut</a> who flew on NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo">Apollo</a> 16 mission, said the scariest moment of his life occurred while "horsing around" on the moon in April 1972.</li><li>Lunar gravity is about one-sixth as strong as Earth's, so Duke tried to set a long-jump record that no athlete at the 1972 Olympics could break.</li><li>But Duke fell backward upon landing. If he'd broken his life-support backpack, the mishap would have killed him.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>July 20 marks the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronauts-50th-moon-landing-anniversary-photos-2019-4">50th anniversary</a> of the first crewed moon landing. As the big moment approaches, Apollo astronauts are touring planet Earth to discuss and celebrate NASA's historic achievement.</p><p>At a recent event with some of these astronauts at the <a href="https://www.cradleofaviation.org/plan_your_visit/apollo/countdown-to-apollo-at-50.html">Cradle of Aviation Museum</a> in New York, Charlie Duke, who piloted the lunar-landing module during Apollo 16, told Business Insider about what he considers the scariest moment of his life.</p><p>"It was a 1972, and there was going to be the Olympics in Munich that year, so we were going to do the 'Moon Olympics,'" Duke, who was the youngest person to walk on the moon at age 36, said.</p><p>But Duke hadn't practiced a key move in his unwieldy spacesuit. This led to a clumsy fall that he said could have split open the only barrier between himself and the vacuum of space - which would have killed him.</p><h2>Duke's near-deadly high jump</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d08f7a86fc9201967469c64-2400/charlie-duke-apollo-16-astronaut-moon-lunar-spacesuit-cradle-aviation-museum-dave-mosher-business-insider-img20190606133412-edit.jpg" border="0" alt="charlie duke apollo 16 astronaut moon lunar spacesuit cradle aviation museum dave mosher business insider IMG_20190606_133412 EDIT" data-mce-source="Dave Mosher/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Charlie Duke, an astronaut who walked on the moon during NASA's Apollo 16 mission, stands next to a training spacesuit at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York. The suit was used for training during the space program." data-link="http://davemosher.com"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://davemosher.com">Dave Mosher/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">Charlie Duke, who walked on the moon during NASA's Apollo 16 mission, stands next to a training spacesuit at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York. The suit was used for training during the space program.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>At the Cradle of Aviation Museum - where one of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-apollo-moon-mission-lunar-module-locations-museums-2019-6">three remaining lunar landers</a> bound for the moon is on display - we interviewed a handful of astronauts about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronauts-react-nasa-trump-2024-moon-landing-plan-2019-6">what they think</a> of President Donald Trump's plan to land humans back on the moon in 2024 and what they believe would be Earth's next big "Apollo moment" might be.</p><p>We also asked each astronaut for a relatively little-known story from their missions. One of Duke's anecdotes, which is also detailed in his 1990 book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalker-Astronaut-Enough-Satisfy-Success/dp/0840791062">Moonwalker</a>," stood out.</p><p>Duke said that he and his commander, John Young, decided to use the final minutes of a spacewalk on the moon to beat several Earth-based feats of human athleticism. This is possible, of course, because lunar gravity is just one-sixth as strong as that of Earth's.</p><p>"We just started out doing the high jump," Duke said.</p><p>They were just "horsing around," Duke said, but he was able to leap 4 feet into the air - an impressive height for anyone, especially a person wearing a bulky spacesuit. However, Duke said he straightened his body mid-jump, and that turned out to be a huge mistake.</p><p>The lunar-surface spacesuits Apollo astronauts wore weighed more than 300 pounds each on Earth. This wasn't as much of an issue on the moon due to its weaker surface gravity; the suits there weighed about 50 pounds. Still, the Apollo spacesuit's backpack made up more than half of that mass, which created balance issues (especially for leaping humans).</p><p>"The backpack weighed as much as I did. So I went over backwards," Duke said. "It's a fiberglass shell, and it contained all your life support systems. If it broke, I was dead."</p><p>Duke said he rolled right to break his fall, yet still bounced onto his backpack, also called the portable life support system or PLSS.</p><p>If he'd cracked his PLSS or torn his suit, that would have caused a "hiss-out" or loss of breathable air. This would have knocked Duke unconscious and likely killed him before Young could drag him back to the lunar module, close the airlock, and pressurize the spacecraft.</p><p>"My heart was pounding. John Young, my commander, came over and looked down and says, 'That wasn't very smart, Charlie.' And I said, 'Help me up, John,' and I got real quiet," he said.</p><p>Duke said that once he got up, he listened to the sounds of the PLSS to determine whether anything had broken.</p><p>"You could hear the pumps running. And I said, 'Well, I think I'm okay,'" he said, adding: "I learned a lesson: Never do anything in space that you haven't practiced, and we had not practiced the high jump."</p><p>A TV camera <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16D0hmLt-S0">recorded</a> Duke's terrifying moment, though equipment blocks a view of Duke's fall.</p><h2>Falling on the moon</h2><p>This wasn't Duke's only fall on the moon: He also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU0Rgpdujzo">fell face-first</a> while trying to poke an instrument called a penetrometer into the lunar surface. And he tumbled over after hopping down to <a href="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/19730008098_1973008098.pdf">pick up a pair of tongs</a> (which he'd retrieved to pick up a hammer that he'd dropped moments before).</p><p>Other astronauts also floundered on the moon - humans had never before worked in lunar gravity, which made objects and bodies behave abnormally.</p><p>Plus, despite months of intense training, the Apolo astronauts often struggled in their heavy, stiff, and unwieldy spacesuits. In many ways, wearing such a suit is akin to working in an over-inflated and rigid balloon. Stooping to pick up an object with the gloves was practically impossible, so astronauts had to rely on other tools. They also needed to hop in order to crouch down, using the landing from the hop to compress their inflated and springy suits (which fought against normal movement).</p><p>The video below, which shows the hop-and-crouch trick, is an entertaining - and at times frightening - supercut of astronauts falling all over the moon.</p><p>For future missions to the moon and Mars, NASA and aerospace companies are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacesuit-design-history-timeline-changes-nasa-2018-3">designing new spacesuits</a> that are lighter, better balanced, and more flexible to accommodate typical human motions.</p><p>With any luck, engineers will make silly (and potentially life-threatening) stumbles outside any future NASA <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/artemis">moon base</a> or SpaceX <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colonization-human-survival-radiation-food-biosphere-2018-4">city on Mars</a> a rarity.</p><div><iframe width="830" height="467" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/16D0hmLt-S0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><div><iframe width="830" height="467" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bVNTNeNMH8Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-starship-spacex-starhopper-rocket-moon-2019-6">Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar Starship rocket could one day take people to the moon and Mars</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/Bsa5q9dJ-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

An Apollo astronaut explains how he nearly killed himself 'horsing around' on the moon in 1972

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a874e5ad0307229008b4617-1729/rtx3pjxq.jpg" border="0" alt="Trump astronaut" data-mce-source="Reuters/Carlos Barria" data-mce-caption="U.S. President Donald Trump holds a space astronaut toy as he participates in a signing ceremony for Space Policy Directive at the White House in Washington D.C." /></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>The White House wants <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa">NASA</a> to land astronauts on the moon in 2024, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-landing-mission-budget-increase-request-2019-5">program called Artemis</a>.</li><li>NASA thinks Artemis may cost $20-$30 billion over the next five years on top of its existing budget.</li><li>Business Insider spoke to Apollo astronauts during an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/moon-landing">moon landing</a>.</li><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo">Apollo</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/astronauts">astronauts</a> said they support President Trump's plans, but they think extra funding for "unknown unknowns," solid leadership, and a shift in management is necessary to pull off the feat.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>. </li></ul><p>The White House is pushing NASA to pull off a remarkable feat: Rocket astronauts back to the moon's surface, then start building a permanent base there - all within this decade.</p><p>Artemis, as the renewed moonshot program is called, is seen by the Trump administration as a follow-up program to Apollo, and also as a learning phase before transitioning to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colonization-human-survival-radiation-food-biosphere-2018-4">crewed exploration of Mars</a>.</p><p>Initially, the administration wanted astronauts walking on the lunar surface in 2028. In late March, however, Vice President Mike Pence said NASA would send astronauts back <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pence-calls-for-landing-us-astronauts-on-moon-in-5-years-2019-3">in 2024</a>.</p><p>NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has said that getting the job done in just five years would require new commercial moon ships - perhaps similar to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-moon-lunar-lander-2019-5">Blue Moon</a>, a next-generation <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-apollo-moon-mission-lunar-module-locations-museums-2019-6">lunar module</a> designed by Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company, Blue Origin.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5cd4c80a021b4c067a321bd3-2079/jeff-bezos-blue-moon-lunar-lander-spacecraft-model-unveiling-dave-mosher-business-insider.jpg" border="0" alt="jeff bezos blue moon lunar lander spacecraft model unveiling dave mosher business insider" data-mce-source="Dave Mosher/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Jeff Bezos shows off Blue Origin's lunar lander concept, called Blue Moon, in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2019." data-link="http://davemosher.com" /></div></div></div>Bridenstine also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/13/tech/nasa-budget-moon-mission-artemis/index.html">told CNN</a> in June that Artemis, which he said would help establish a "sustainable" presence on the moon, will cost NASA about $4-5 billion a year over the next five years. This would be on top of NASA's current <a href="http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2019/0215-fy2019-nasa-gets-its-best-budget-in-decades.html">$21.5 billion annual budget</a>.</p><p>The Apollo program cost much more than that: $110 billion when adjusted for inflation. But Artemis is still not cheap, and congressional appropriators are <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/cost-politics-and-bureaucracy-may-doom-plan-for-2024-moon-landing/">reportedly hesitant</a> to fund <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-landing-mission-budget-increase-request-2019-5">a $1.6 billion "down payment"</a> that Bridenstine says the agency will need in the next year.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">Astronauts explain why nobody has visited the moon in more than 45 years - and the reasons are depressing</a></em></p><p>During an event celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing <a href="https://www.cradleofaviation.org/plan_your_visit/apollo/countdown-to-apollo-at-50.html">at the Cradle of Aviation Museum</a>, Business Insider interviewed a handful of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-astronauts-50th-moon-landing-anniversary-photos-2019-4">Apollo astronauts</a>. One question we asked everyone: What do you think of Trump's plan to return to the moon in 2024?</p><p>Here's what Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) said in response.</p><h2>The astronauts support the Trump administration's moonshot plans</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d0cea63e3ecba262f5d7db9-1032/artemis-moon-base-lunar-lander-astronauts-rovers-illustration-artist-concept-foo-01.jpg" border="0" alt="artemis moon base lunar lander astronauts rovers illustration artist concept foo 01" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="An artist's concept of a crewed Artemis mission to the moon's surface in the 2020s." data-link="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/moon2mars/" /></div></div></div></p><p>Duke said he's excited about Artemis and "all for it."</p><p>"I've been pushing for a return to the moon for a long time," he added. "That's a place we should be back on, building a moon base - sort of a permanent <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> station on the moon, where we'd cycle crews back and forth every couple of months."</p><p>Schweickart also supports Artemis, and doesn't mind what motivates White House leaders as long as the result is a real and resurgent moon program.</p><p>"The new NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine, seems to have - at the moment, at least - President Trump's ear," Schweickart sid. "While president Trump wants to accelerate everything so that there's a credit provided to him, that's a fine motivation. I don't have anything wrong with that."</p><p>Schmitt said exploring deep space is no less risky today than it was during Apollo. But he views Trump's push as a vital step toward even more challenging feats of exploration in the solar system, since <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-ice-deposits-crater-map-lunuar-base-2018-8">ice on the moon can be mined</a>, melted into water, and split into hydrogen and oxygen - fuel that can launch rockets.</p><p>"It's important, I think, just for the psychology of the human race - that they are still exploring. Exploration is I think almost certainly in our DNA, because families 2 million years ago still had to explore to find resources, and that's what we're doing now," Schmit said. "And the resources that we find on the moon, and have found on the moon, are going to be a major part of getting to Mars."</p><p>He added: "It's important that this initiative now succeed. We've tried two other times - administrations have tried - and they've been stillborn."</p><p>Schmitt also lauded the Trump administration for setting an ambitious date of 2024.</p><p>"It's a milestone, and it gives everybody something to work towards, and control of your plan," he said.</p><h2>But they're concerned about the flow of money</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bce24dde92e975f37451938-2400/apollo-11-astronaut-edwin-e-buzz-aldrin-nasa-administrator-james-jim-bridenstine-410973199854b2dc65946o.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo 11 astronaut edwin e buzz aldrin nasa administrator james jim bridenstine 41097319985_4b2dc65946_o" data-mce-source="Bill Ingalls/NASA" data-mce-caption="NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, left, meets back stage with former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin, prior to giving the keynote speech at the Humans to Mars Summit (H2M), Wednesday, May 9, 2018 at George Washington University in Washington." data-link="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/administrator-bridenstine-and-buzz-aldrin-at-humans-to-mars-summit" /></div></div></div></p><p>All of the astronauts expressed concerns about money. In short, they said it's hard to get - and keep - adequate funding over many years with so many other needs <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-budget-estimates-opinions-poll-2018-12">in a federal budget</a> constantly clamoring for attention. </p><p>"You don't accomplish the program that the president and vice president have called for from NASA without committing funds and seeing it through the hard times that are going to be required," Schweickart said. "Accelerating something that ambitious is a real challenge, and it takes commitment and dollars, and that's what's going to be required."</p><p>He added: "Good luck, Jim Bridenstine; so far you seem to be doing well."</p><p>Schmitt thinks NASA will need even more funding than it's asking for today and should plan for that uncertainty. Indeed, <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-377">a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published this week</a> claimed sections of the space agency misled Congress and its own administrator about $800 million in cost growth associated with its Space Launch System - a giant rocket being built in support of Artemis. (The report noted that NASA has been on the GAO's "<a href="https://www.gao.gov/highrisk/nasa/why_did_study">High Risk List</a>" for sticking to costs and keeping its schedules since 1990.)</p><p>Engineering lunar hardware is full of surprises, Schmitt said, and the government must be prepared for that.</p><p>"Congress and the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, have to agree that we're going to provide what we call reserves - funding reserves - so you can deal with the 'unknown unknown' challenges of engineering in very complex programs," Schmitt said. "If you don't have those reserves to take care of them, you're going to have to slip milestones, and the worst thing you can do, politically, in the space business, is to slip milestones. You need to stick with your milestones."</p><h2>The astronauts also believe NASA needs to rethink its culture</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d0ce5e097ad760acd6eaca8-2400/apollo-mission-control-room-houston-johnson-space-center-nasa-1960s-s69-26301.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo mission control room houston johnson space center nasa 1960s s69 26301" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="NASA's Mission Operations Control Room in the Apollo Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston." /></div></div></div></p><p>All of the astronauts expressed concerns related to NASA's leadership, workforce, and creative momentum.</p><p>"You probably need the Apollo management environment in order to make that 2024 date, and NASA's challenge is to recreate that kind of environment," Schmitt said. "It's an environment where young people dominate; the average age of the people in Mission Control for Apollo 13 was 26 years old, and they'd already been on a bunch of missions. So you've got to realize young people are essential to this kind of an effort."</p><p>Schweickart echoed this concern, adding that the average age of someone today at Johnson Space Center is closer to 60 years.</p><p>"That's not where innovation and excitement comes from. Excitement comes from when you've got teenagers and 20-year-olds running programs," Schweickart said. "When Elon Musk <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-landing-video-natgeo-mars-2016-12">lands a [rocket booster]</a>, his whole company is yelling and screaming and jumping up and down."</p><p>Schmitt said it's not just the age of workers to consider, but also the red tape.</p><p>"I think it's going to take a concerted effort to reduce the bureaucratic overhead within NASA to literally develop that Apollo-type environment, where decisions can be made quickly, well, and continuously," Schmitt said. "I would think that is probably the biggest management challenge that Jim Bridenstine has."</p><p>Still, they all think NASA has the potential to pull off Artemis. </p><p>"I think if Congress will appropriate the money, we could build a lunar module in five years - we proved that in Apollo," Duke said. "We flew one in eight years and two months - landed on the moon! So I think the same thing can happen if we just apply our will to it and our money to it. It's going to take leadership to make it possible, though."</p>

3 Apollo astronauts weigh in on Trump's push to land NASA astronauts on the moon in 5 years

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5da4b5c4cc4a0a068b4ba1b3-2400/missing-apollo-lunar-lander-lm-14-lm14-moon-landing-missions-illustration-david-anderson-business-insider-nasa-edit.jpg" border="0" alt="missing apollo lunar lander lm 14 lm14 moon landing missions illustration david anderson business insider nasa edit" data-mce-source="David Anderson/Business Insider; NASA" data-mce-caption="NASA officials couldn't say what happened to Lunar Module 14, but the truth is probably depressing."><p class="source"><span>David Anderson/Business Insider; NASA</span></p><p class="caption">The story of NASA's "missing" Lunar Module 14 likely ended in tragedy, and perhaps a rebirth.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa">NASA</a> ordered 15 space-grade moon ships for its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo">Apollo</a> program in the 1960s and 1970s.</li><li>Ten of those vehicles, known as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/lunar-module">lunar modules</a>, or LMs, launched into space. Astronauts landed six of them on the moon.</li><li>After Congress canceled the Apollo program, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/museums">museums</a> put three spare LMs on display in Florida, New York, and Washington, DC.</li><li>Grumman Aircraft (now <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/northrop-grumman">Northrop Grumman</a>), NASA's main contractor for the landing craft, did not finish two of them - LM-14 and LM-15.</li><li>What was left of LM-15 was likely scrapped for metal. LM-14 probably met a similar fate, though historians don't have documents that'd say for certain.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>In its race to land people on the moon, the US spent billions on Apollo spaceflight hardware. One essential piece of gear created for NASA was a landing craft called the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-apollo-moon-mission-lunar-module-locations-museums-2019-6">lunar module</a>, or LM.</p><p>Grumman Aircraft (now Northrop Grumman) created LMs, final versions of which weighed about 35,000 pounds and stood roughly two stories tall. Because they were the first true spaceships - vehicles that operated only in a vacuum - they had an alien appearance.</p><p><a href="https://www.pfinspace.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Paul Fjeld</a>, a space artist and historian of the vehicles, described them as having an "angry" face that "looks like it's going to dare you to call it ugly."</p><p>"It looks like an unmade bed, and that was by design," Fjeld told Business Insider</p><p>This was because, in spite of its rough-edged look, the LM design embodied form following function to keep astronauts alive.</p><p>"It cost an appalling amount of money to make it look that bad," Fjeld added.</p><p>A <a href="http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2019/apollo-cost-analysis.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent independent accounting</a> of the Apollo program suggests NASA spent about $2.24 billion on lunar-module design, construction, and testing from 1963 through 1970. Adjusting for inflation, that's nearly $16.66 billion today. Though it's tricky to calculate an individual LM's cost, NASA ordered 15 space-worthy ships from Grumman, which works out to about $1.1 billion each in today's dollars.</p><p>Not every LM ordered for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">deep space</a> actually made it there, though. When the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">Apollo program ended in December 1972</a>, rockets had launched 10 of the moon ships, and six of these transported astronauts to and from the lunar surface (on Apollo missions 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17). NASA abandoned four in space during tests.</p><p>Five of the 15 modules never <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-is-heaven-james-lovell-lunar-astronaut-2017-3">left planet Earth</a> in part because NASA cancelled Apollo missions 18, 19, and 20. Three of these LMs are easy to account for, but where the last two ultimately ended up is less widely known or certain.</p><p>The uncertainty is especially thick surrounding the fate of LM-14: a spacecraft NASA would have used used on Apollo 20 (had that last mission not been canceled). Space museum curators, Northrop Grumman and US government archivists, historians, and even NASA itself didn't know or couldn't say with certainty what happened to LM-14.</p><p>A version of the story of this "missing" moon lander that some experts would agree on, though, is depressing.</p><h2>What NASA's moon landers were and how 3 ended up in museums</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d7ffc272e22af326410457d-2400/apollo-lunar-module-lm-moon-lander-rocket-engine-firing-landing-illustration-drawing-concept-nasa-s69-33765orig.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo lunar module lm moon lander rocket engine firing landing illustration drawing concept nasa S69 33765_orig" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="An Apollo-era artist's concept of NASA's lunar lander or module rocketing toward the moon's surface." data-link="https://images.nasa.gov/details-S69-33765.html"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://images.nasa.gov/details-S69-33765.html">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">An Apollo-era artist's concept of NASA's lunar lander or module rocketing toward the moon's surface.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>The lunar module was designed to take two of three Apollo astronauts from a command and service module in orbit around the moon, land them on the surface, and launch them off the ground.</p><p>Two main sections, or stages, got the job done. The descent stage came with a big rocket engine, which slowed the vehicle enough to drop out of lunar orbit and fall toward the moon's surface. It also powered a gentle landing.</p><p>The vehicle's ascent stage - a blocky upper section - blasted the crew off the moon following their surface mission. Once back in orbit, the ascent stage linked astronauts back up with the command and service module. This vehicle then took the two moonwalkers and a third astronaut (who'd waited inside during the landing) back home to Earth inside a gumdrop-shaped crew capsule.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/classified-apollo-11-anomaly-threatened-to-crash-first-moon-astronauts-2019-6">'We could have lost the Apollo 11 crew:' A once-classified anomaly nearly killed NASA's first moon astronauts, a new book reveals</a></em></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d0935a497ad7609390487d6-2294/kennedy-space-center-visitors-complex-florida-apollo-lunar-module-9-lm9-jud-mccranie-ccbysa3.jpg" border="0" alt="kennedy space center visitors complex florida Apollo Lunar Module 9 lm9 jud mccranie ccbysa3" data-mce-source="Jud McCranie (CC BY-SA 3.0)" data-mce-caption="Grumman's Apollo Lunar Module LM-9 on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida." data-link="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_Lunar_Module_9.jpg"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_Lunar_Module_9.jpg">Jud McCranie (CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></span></p><p class="caption">Grumman's Apollo Lunar Module LM-9 on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Grumman designed, pitched, and constructed the spacecraft as a contractor for NASA and collaborated with the agency on <a href="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LLRV-DFRC.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a number of prototypes</a>. But NASA ultimately ordered 15 space-worthy ships numbered LM-1 through LM-15, which earned names like "Eagle" or "Snoopy" only after reaching orbit and housing crew members.</p><p>Three of these 15 LMs ended up in museums on Earth. LM-2 is in Washington, DC; LM-13 is on Long Island in New York; and LM-9 is in Florida.</p><h2>Why the fate of NASA's last 2 moon landers is somewhat unclear</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5da61772cc4a0a20b4247b7b-2126/nasa-apollo-lunar-module-lm-drawing-illustration-diagram-labeled-parts-handbook-lm10handbookvol1-17.jpg" border="0" alt="nasa apollo lunar module lm drawing illustration diagram labeled parts handbook LM10HandbookVol1 17" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="A labeled diagram of an extended lunar module from a Grumman handbook for NASA." data-link="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LM10HandbookVol1.pdf"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LM10HandbookVol1.pdf">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">A labeled diagram of an extended lunar module from a Grumman handbook for NASA.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Reliable information about LM-14 and LM-15 - the last two space-worthy modules NASA ordered - is hard to find, and where official information does exist, it's vague or conflicting.</p><p>On the website of the Smithsonian Institution, for example, which <a href="https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_883" target="_blank" rel="noopener">manages</a> most of NASA's artifacts, LM-15 is <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/spacecraft/location/lm.cfm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marked as "Scrapped,"</a> suggesting its aerospace-grade aluminum was cut up and sold or reused. The same page makes a distinction from this, describing LM-14 as "Not Used (mission cancelled)."</p><p>Meanwhile, a NASA document titled <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6473665-Apollo-Skylab-ASTP-and-Shuttle-Orbiter-Major-End.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Apollo/Skylab ASTP and Shuttle Orbiter Major End Items"</a> - a complete version of which Business Insider obtained from the University of Houston-Clear Lake's archives - has a different description. Originally published in March 1978, the document describes itself in part as a "thumbnail historical reference" for NASA's most prized hardware. It lists LM-14 and LM-15 as both "deleted" from the Apollo program, yet offers nothing else.</p><p>An historian at NASA told Business Insider he was "not sure about the disposition" of LM-14. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian said all that's known about LM-14 is that it was cancelled and a <a href="https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4009/v4p3g.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stop work order issued</a> in January 1970.</p><p>Josh Stoff, a curator at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, said he thought part of LM-14 was incorporated into a model that sits in the backyard of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.</p><p>However, <a href="https://www.fi.edu/scientists/derrick-pitts-hond" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Derrick Pitts</a> of the Franklin Institute says no part of LM-14 is in <a href="https://www.fi.edu/history-resources/grumman-lunar-module" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the science museum's artifact</a>.&#xa0;</p><p>"It was made clear to us then that what we were receiving was nothing more than a fabrication model," Pitts told Business Insider, adding that he spoke with Grumman engineers as they rolled the model off a flatbed truck in 1976. "It is not made of any kind of flight-grade material."</p><p>Several experts told us it's no surprise that clear and unambiguous documentation of either LM-14 (or LM-15) doesn't exist - mainly because Grumman didn't finish the spacecraft. As a result, neither NASA nor the Smithsonian ever took possession of the vehicles and carefully logged their whereabouts.</p><p>"We just don't have any documentary records to speak of," <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/people/staff/michael-neufeld" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Neufeld</a>, a senior curator at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, told Business Insider.</p><p>Still, space historians are relatively certain what happened to the "missing" lunar module, even if they can't definitively prove it with documents.</p><h2>NASA's last moon landers were probably Frankensteined into F-14 fighter jets</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5da63802cc4a0a51bd705815-1796/grumman-f-14-f14-tomcat-fighter-jet-usnavy051105-f-5480t-005anf-14dtomcatconductsamissionoverthepersiangulf-region.jpg" border="0" alt="grumman f 14 f14 tomcat fighter jet US_Navy_051105 F 5480T 005_An_F 14D_Tomcat_conducts_a_mission_over_the_Persian_Gulf region" data-mce-source="Rob Tabor/USAF" data-mce-caption="An F-14D Tomacat fighter jet flies over the Persian Gulf on November 5, 2005." data-link="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_051105-F-5480T-005_An_F-14D_Tomcat_conducts_a_mission_over_the_Persian_Gulf-region.jpg"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_051105-F-5480T-005_An_F-14D_Tomcat_conducts_a_mission_over_the_Persian_Gulf-region.jpg">Rob Tabor/USAF</a></span></p><p class="caption"> An F-14D Tomcat fighter jet flies over the Persian Gulf on November 5, 2005. </p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Robert Pearlman, a space historian who runs the space-history publication <a href="http://www.collectspace.com/">CollectSpace</a>, said he thinks both spacecraft are no longer with us.</p><p>"My understanding is that LM-14 was only partially assembled when the Apollo program ended and ultimately, its parts were scrapped," he previously told Business Insider.</p><p>Neufeld agreed with this, adding he's "certain" the spacecraft were never completed and that their construction was halted at a very early stage.</p><p>"LM-15 hardly existed. It hardly had any components built up," Neufeld said. "There's little doubt that LM-14 went away and was junked."</p><p>Fjeld, who's helped restore the space-grade LMs still on Earth, whole-heartedly concurred with these assessments.</p><p>"I would almost bet the life of my son - I'd bet a lot of money, I'd bet my house - that they just scrapped it," Fjeld said of LM-14. "That's just what they did. Nobody felt any wonderful warm feelings about it. They [the workers] were losing their jobs, they were done with the program."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5da63f94cc4a0a59fb6e3bb2-2000/lunar-module-lm-14-15-lm14-lm15-grumman-work-chart-paul-fjeld-labeled.png" border="0" alt="lunar module lm 14 15 lm14 lm15 grumman work chart paul fjeld labeled" data-mce-source="Paul Fjeld" data-mce-caption="Part of a Grumman flight history chart detailing the progress on NASA's lunar modules 14 and 15." data-link="https://pfinspace.com"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://pfinspace.com">Paul Fjeld</a></span></p><p class="caption">Part of a Grumman flight history chart detailing the progress on NASA's lunar modules 14 and 15.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>To back this up, Fjeld sent Business Insider a Grumman flight history chart that he noted is "is extremely accurate based on my research that corroborates many dates." According to the chart, Fjeld believes LM-14 was perhaps 1% to 5% complete before workers started cutting it up for scrap.</p><p>What's more, he says, around the time NASA cancelled work on Apollo, Grumman was building brand-new fighter jets for the US military - the F-14 Tomcat - and so it probably worked&#xa0; lunar-module metal into those aircraft.</p><p>"I'm gonna say they would've said, 'Look, we've got a bunch of F-14s that are just starting to come off the line here. This is what's the future for Grumman. We need all the metal that we can get,'" he said. "'Can we use that on F-14s?' 'Sure.'"</p><p>Still, Fjeld couldn't promise that some element of LM-14 isn't out there, somewhere, in its original form.</p><p>"I can't guarantee that some guy didn't just drive it off the lot and it's now sitting in his basement or up in an attic that his grandkids have no idea what the hell it is," he said. "Who knows?"</p><h2>Watch a video about our search for LM-14 below:</h2><p>&#xa0;</p><p><em>Have a story or information to share? Send Dave Mosher<span> an email at <a href="mailto:dmosher+tips@businessinsider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dmosher+tips@businessinsider.com</a></span><span>&#xa0;</span>or consider more secure communication options<span>&#xa0;</span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dave-mosher" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed here</a>.</em></p><div><div itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/VideoObject"></div></div>

NASA isn't sure what happened to one of its last Apollo moon landers. The truth is probably depressing.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d09051f6fc92063703c81b4-2400/apollo-moon-lander-astronauts-lunar-excursion-module-lem-illustration-painting-nasa-s71-16101orig.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo moon lander astronauts lunar excursion module lem illustration painting nasa S71 16101_orig" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="A Grumman Aerospace Corporation artist's concept of Apollo 14 astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Edgar D. Mitchell on their first lunar-surface outing." data-link="https://images.nasa.gov/details-S71-16101.html" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://images.nasa.gov/details-S71-16101.html">NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">A NASA artist's concept of Apollo astronauts outside of a Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa">NASA</a> had 15 moon-landing spacecraft built for its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apollo">Apollo</a> space program in the 1960s and 1970s.</li><li>Ten of those spacecraft, known as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/lunar-module">lunar modules</a>, launched into space. Astronauts landed six of them on the moon.</li><li>After Congress canceled the Apollo programs, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/museums">museums</a> put three spare lunar landers on display in Florida, New York, and Washington, DC.</li><li>Grumman Aircraft (now Northrop Grumman), the prime contractor for NASA, did not finish two lunar modules. It scrapped at least one of them.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>When NASA made history 50 years ago by landing the first two <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">humans on the moon</a>, a peculiar-looking spacecraft called the lunar module made the journey possible - and survivable.</p><p>The module's descent stage - lower part with a big rocket engine - took Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. The vehicle's blocky upper section, the ascent stage, blasted the crew off the moon a day later.</p><p>For the Apollo program, NASA commissioned 15 flight-ready lunar modules. Saturn V rockets launched 10 of the moon ships into <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">deep space</a>, and six of those transported astronauts to and from the lunar surface (on Apollo missions 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17). The other four were left or discarded in space.</p><p>But that leaves five modules that never got a chance to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-is-heaven-james-lovell-lunar-astronaut-2017-3">leave planet Earth</a>.</p><p>Here's what happened to those units - more than one may have been destroyed - and where they are now.</p><h2>One is in Washington, DC<a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lunar-module-2-apollo"></a></h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d091ae7726af801dd22a435-2400/nasa-grumman-apollo-lunar-module-lm-2-smithsonian-air-space-museum-99-15231h.jpg" border="0" alt="nasa grumman apollo lunar module lm 2 smithsonian air space museum 99 15231h" data-mce-source="Mark Avino/Smithsonian Institution" data-mce-caption="Lunar Module #2, which was designed for an uncrewed test flight, is one of a few surviving moonships built for NASA's Apollo program by Grumman Aerospace. LM-2 is located at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC." data-link="https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/99-15231hjpg" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/99-15231hjpg">Mark Avino/Smithsonian Institution</a></span></p><p class="caption"> Lunar Module #2, which was designed for an uncrewed test flight, is one of a few surviving moon ships built for NASA's Apollo program by Grumman Aerospace. LM-2 is located at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. </p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>NASA didn't design and build the lunar modules; rather, Grumman Aircraft (now Northrop Grumman) designed, pitched, and constructed the spacecraft as a contractor for the agency.</p><p>The modules were numbered 1 through 15. They only earned names like "Eagle" or "Snoopy" if and when they flew into space with astronauts inside.</p><p>The second lunar module that Grumman ever built, called LM-2, is on display at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The module has been on display in full since around 1970, after its descent stage took a quick trip to a world's fair in Japan.</p><p>LM-2 was not designed to carry people to the moon. It was a backup for Apollo 5: the first test flight of a lunar module. Apollo 5 wound up being so successful in taking LM-1 through the paces of spaceflight, though, that NASA decided to keep LM-2 on the ground and use it for tests instead of launching it.</p><p>Later, LM-5 took Aldrin and Armstrong to the moon and back. It was not so different from LM-2, as museum curator Robert Craddock, a spaceflight artifact expert at the Smithsonian, <a href="https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/whats-real-and-whats-not-69316452/">told</a> Air &amp; Space magazine in 2013.</p><h2>Another is on Long Island</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d08f7a86fc92073a00e8d10-2400/apollo-19-lunar-lander-lem-cradle-aviation-museum-dave-mosher-business-insider-img20190606100710-edit.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo 19 lunar lander lem cradle aviation museum dave mosher business insider IMG_20190606_100710 EDIT" data-mce-source="Dave Mosher/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Lunar Module 13 is a flight-ready spacecraft that NASA never launched during the Apollo program." data-link="http://davemosher.com" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://davemosher.com">Dave Mosher/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">Lunar Module 13 is a flight-ready spacecraft that NASA never launched during the Apollo program.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In 1969, NASA was planning an Apollo 18 mission, which was slated to reach the lunar surface in 1973. So it asked Grumman to build a 13th lunar module, LM-13.</p><p>However, Congress abruptly canceled three final moon missions - Apollo 18, 19, and 20 - in September 1970. The last mission to reach the moon was Apollo 17 in December 1972.</p><p>A variety of factors <a href="http://www.astronautix.com/a/apollo18.html">led to the program's cancellation</a> (and the mothballing of LM-13). First, a ruptured oxygen tank on Apollo 13 nearly killed its crew en route to the moon in April 1970, which gave rise to concerns about whether another potentially deadly accident could stall NASA's future spaceflight plans. There was also push to divert money away from the Apollo program, and put those resources toward a US space station program called Skylab.</p><p>A third reason: Apollo was, on the whole, already a huge success.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d08f7a86fc920644f02021c-2250/apollo-19-lunar-lander-lem-cradle-aviation-museum-dave-mosher-business-insider-img20190426120839-edit.jpg" border="0" alt="apollo 19 lunar lander lem cradle aviation museum dave mosher business insider IMG_20190426_120839 EDIT" style="color: #000000;" data-mce-source="Dave Mosher/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="An Apollo lunar module prototype on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York." data-link="http://davemosher.com" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://davemosher.com">Dave Mosher/Business Insider</a></span></p><p class="caption">An Apollo lunar module prototype on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"They'd accomplished everything they were trying to do," John Schuessler, who worked as an engineer during the Gemini program (which preceded Apollo), <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a7166/why-apollo-really-stopped-at-17/">told</a> Popular Mechanics in 2011. "Apollo was a proof that the United States was a leader in technology in space. That was the big gain."</p><p>LM-13 was not finished when Congress formally cancelled Apollo 18. The Smithsonian later took possession of the spacecraft, then <a href="https://www.asme.org/about-asme/who-we-are/engineering-history/landmarks/218-apollo-lunar-module-lm-13">permanently loaned</a> the ship to <a href="https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/exhibits/exhibit-galleries/exploring_space/grumman_lunar_module_lm-13.html">the Cradle of Aviation Museum</a> in Garden City, New York - not far from Northrop Grumman headquarters in Bethpage. The moon-ready vehicle was restored and put on display in 2002.</p><p>The Cradle of Aviation Museum also has a very early, unfinished prototype called <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lunar-module-test-article-lta-1a11d">Lunar Module Test Article-1</a> on display. The vehicle has a round door (which astronauts with squareish life-support backpacks could not fit through) and is missing protective and reflective outer coverings.</p><h2>A third is in Florida</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d0935a497ad7609390487d6-2294/kennedy-space-center-visitors-complex-florida-apollo-lunar-module-9-lm9-jud-mccranie-ccbysa3.jpg" border="0" alt="kennedy space center visitors complex florida Apollo Lunar Module 9 lm9 jud mccranie ccbysa3" data-mce-source="Jud McCranie (CC BY-SA 3.0)" data-mce-caption="Grumman's Apollo Lunar Module LM-9 on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida." data-link="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_Lunar_Module_9.jpg" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_Lunar_Module_9.jpg">Jud McCranie (CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></span></p><p class="caption">Grumman's Apollo Lunar Module LM-9 on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>There are two main sizes of lunar module: a lighter standard one and a heavier extended version.</p><p>Apollo missions 14 and earlier used standard lunar modules, which permitted stays of about a day or so on the moon's surface. Apollo 15 and onward used the extended modules, which allowed astronauts to spend a few days on the moon. They also carried a lunar roving vehicle.</p><p>Apollo 15 was supposed to use a standard-size module: LM-9. But after Apollo missions 18, 19, and 20 were canceled, NASA was eager to make the most out of its remaining missions. So the agency swapped in an extended module, which left no use for LM-9.</p><p>That lunar module is now at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Brevard County, Florida. Like the other moon-ready spacecraft, it's on loan from the Smithsonian.</p><p>"This is what a flight-ready LM looks like," the museum says on <a href="https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/blog/landed-lunar-module-9">its web page</a>. "It was completely re-furbished in 2017 with new mylar and kapton on exterior surfaces and landing feet."</p><h2>Two others were likely scrapped, but there's confusion about the fate of LM-14</h2><p>The two unused lunar modules that NASA planned to launch on Apollo missions 19 and 20 were LM-14 and LM-15, respectively.</p><p>Not much is widely known about the vehicles today, in part because Grumman engineers had only partly assembled them by the time Apollo was canceled. A <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/spacecraft/location/lm.cfm">page</a> on the Smithsonian's website lists LM-15 as "scrapped" and LM-14 as "not used."</p><p>A curator at the Cradle of Aviation Museum told Business Insider that he thought the descent stage (or lower half) of LM-14 was located outside the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, but the <a href="https://www.fi.edu/history-resources/grumman-lunar-module">science museum's website says</a> the vehicle there is a hybrid built from test devices that weren't designed to fly in space.</p><p>Robert Pearlman, who runs the space history publication <a href="http://www.collectspace.com/">collectSPACE</a>, thinks both spacecraft are likely no longer with us.</p><p>"My understanding is that LM-14 was only partially assembled when the Apollo program ended and ultimately, its parts were scrapped," he told Business Insider.</p><p>A spokesperson for the National Air and Space Museum concurred.</p><p>"The community that tracks these things have not come up with anything more than LM 14 was 'scrapped,'" the spokesperson told Business Insider.</p><p>However, an official chronology does not state that LM-14 was scrapped - only that workers were asked to assess its condition. A <a href="https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/hrst/archive/1690.pdf">March 1978 inventory of major "end items"</a> from NASA's space programs is missing the page that should note what happened to LM-14.</p><p> </p><p><em>Are you a current or former space-industry employee with a story or information to share? Send Dave Mosher <a href="mailto:dmosher+tips@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an email</a> or consider more secure options <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dave-mosher" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed here</a>.</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-starship-spacex-starhopper-rocket-moon-2019-6">Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar Starship rocket could one day take people to the moon and Mars</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/Bsa5q9dJ-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

NASA built 5 Apollo lunar landers that never launched into space. Here's what happened to the historic moon ships.

<ul><li>We spoke to Dr Vaishali Sharma, Senior Consultant Gynaecologist, Laparoscopic Surgeon and <keyword id="214479" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="infertility-specialist">Infertility Specialist</keyword> at Apollo Cradle &amp; Milann Fertility, Delhi, to help us understand concerns and dispel the myths of taking the vaccine.</li><li>While our Ministry of Health has contraindicated the use of the vaccine in pregnant women, most gynaecological associations world over have suggested that since pregnancy with <keyword id="8764262" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="covid">Covid</keyword> is a very high-risk condition, it is recommended that the benefit of the vaccine should be extended to pregnant females as well. </li><li>While the research is limited, so far, there are no known adverse effects of breastfeeding on the child. </li></ul><br />During these harsh times, when the dreadful <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">Coronavirus</keyword> has even reached the <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-outbreak-threatens-mount-everest-climbing-comeback-plans-2436806">peak</a> of Mount Everest, and people are so desperate for relief that they are <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/nashik-hospital-oxygen-leak-saw-people-take-cylinders-from-the-dead-use-them-to-revive-kin-7283811/">snatching oxygen cylinders</a> off people who have succumbed to the virus to save their kin, the vaccine is, without a doubt, the best way to defeat this onslaught. <br /><br />But like with everything unknown, there is a fair bit of hesitation in taking the shot, primarily due to the number of rumours spewed all over the internet and messenger apps. Women are particularly hesitant because of its possible impact on either fertility or those expecting a child, or nursing mothers. They are wary of taking the vaccine because these supposed side effects may permeate to the child they are having or nursing. <br /><br />That said, not all of the concerns women have are baseless, and some of the apprehensions people have of possible side effects may, in fact, hold ground. However, on the flip side, the impact of the terrible consequences of actually contracting the virus is right there in front of us. <br /><br />We spoke to Dr Vaishali Sharma, Senior Consultant Gynaecologist, Laparoscopic Surgeon and Infertility Specialist at Apollo Cradle &amp; Milann Fertility, Delhi, to help us understand the concerns and dispel the myths.<br /><br /><strong>Can pregnant women get vaccinated?<br /></strong><br />As such, our Ministry of Health has contraindicated the use of the vaccine in pregnant females considering the lack of studies on this. But most associations of gynaecologists world over have said that, since pregnancy with Covid is a very high-risk condition, it is recommended that the benefit of the vaccine should be extended to pregnant females as well. The <a href="https://www.fogsi.org/">Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI)</a> has also <a href="https://www.fogsi.org/wp-content/uploads/covid19/fogsi-statement-on-covid-vaccination-in-pregnancy-and-bf.pdf">advised</a> that all pregnant females should get vaccinated as soon as possible.<br /><br />Personally, I would like to advise all pregnant women to take an informed decision to get vaccinated, considering the benefits of taking the vaccine definitely outweighs the risks associated with not taking the vaccine and contracting the virus. That said, it's prudent to check with your doctor before taking the vaccine because they would be best equipped to guide you, depending on your condition.<br /><br /><strong>Can breastfeeding women take the vaccine?<br /></strong><br />Yes, they can. Gynaecological societies world over have said that it is safe to breastfeed. While the research is limited, so far, there are no known adverse effects on the baby. In fact, there is a passage of protective antibodies to the child, which may have a beneficial effect. However, the <keyword id="191419" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ministry-of-Health-and-Family-Welfare">Ministry of Health and Family Welfare</keyword>, India is yet to make changes in recommendations in accordance with other countries associations.<br /><br /><strong>There are rumours that women shouldn't take the vaccine five days before and after their menstrual cycle and not during their periods. Can you get vaccinated during this time?<br /></strong><br />Yes, definitely. It would be best if you got vaccinated as soon as possible irrespective of your periods.<br /><br /><strong>Will getting the vaccine have any kind of effect on your periods?<br /></strong><br />No, not at such. But yes, anxiety and stress can definitely make your periods irregular so be calm and relaxed and get yourself vaccinated, especially now that the vaccine is available to every adult.<br /><br /><strong>Can the vaccine affect women's fertility?<br /></strong><br />At the moment, there are no long-term studies regarding this, but scientifically it should not have any effect on the fertility of women well as men.<br /><br />SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/canadian-city-lights-up-for-india-and-ontario-sends-3000-ventilators-to-delhi/articleshow/82476992.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink" target="_blank">Canadian city lights up for India and Ontario sends 3,000 ventilators to Delhi</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/gautam-adani-net-worth-has-crossed-60-billion-as-per-forbes/articleshow/82454659.cms">Gautam Adani’s net worth has crossed $60 billion – thanks to Adani Ports’ profits</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/good-news-for-tata-steel-jsw-steel-sail-hindalco-and-other-indian-steel-companies/articleshow/82451127.cms">China has broken another emissions record ⁠— and it is good news for some Indian companies</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/google-is-now-automatically-turning-on-two-factor-authentication-for-some-accounts/articleshow/82452629.cms"></a><br />

COVID-19 vaccines and women’s health: Dispelling myths on periods, pregnancy and breastfeeding

The mysterious case of NASA's missing $1.1 billion moon lander

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Before <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> can fly astronauts to the moon, it must design a <keyword id="6361668" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="TOILET">toilet</keyword> for the crew. </li><li>The agency's "Lunar Loo" <keyword id="6360717" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Contest">contest</keyword> offered $20,000 for a <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> toilet design that would work both in microgravity and on the lunar surface.</li><li>The space agency announced the contest winner this week, as well as the designs that took second and third place. </li></ul><p>The last time astronauts landed on the moon, in December 1972, they wore glorified diapers.</p><p>NASA never designed a proper toilet for the Apollo missions. Instead, the astronauts — all of whom were men — peed into roll-on cuffs, pooped in bags, and used space diapers when they ventured out of the lander in their spacesuits.</p><p>NASA <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-astronauts-pee-and-poop-in-space-2018-8">sent the first space toilet to the earliest US space station</a> in 1973. The technology has improved since then, and the agency's latest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/toilet-nasa-orion-spaceship-moon-mission-odor-control-problem-2020-9">$23 million space-toilet system</a> contains state-of-the-art fans that suction waste downward and provide odor control. </p><p>But now that NASA is working to send astronauts back to the moon in 2024, it's designing a new kind of toilet: one that can work both in orbit and on the lunar surface, where gravity is about one-sixth as strong as Earth's. </p><p>"We need a toilet that needs to work for seven days on the surface of the moon, as well as during that transit time to and from the moon," Mike Interbartolo, who's part of NASA's lunar-lander engineering team, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-is-offering-20000-lunar-loo-build-a-toilet-challenge-2020-6">previously told Business Insider.</a></p><div type="image" title="serena" height="694" width="1041" msid="78846744" hostid="261"></div><p>To accomplish that goal, the agency launched its <a href="https://www.herox.com/LunarLoo/updates">"Lunar Loo"</a> contest in June, in partnership with HeroX: a platform on which people can host contests, similar to the way fundraising efforts use Kickstarter. NASA invited engineers, designers, and space enthusiasts around the world to submit designs for moon-mission toilets.</p><p>All submissions had to work for male and female astronauts of varying heights and weights, and weigh less than 33 lbs (15 kg) in Earth's gravity.</p><p>"Bonus points will be awarded to designs that can capture vomit without requiring the crew member to put his/her head in the toilet," <a href="http://businessinsider.com/nasa-is-offering-20000-lunar-loo-build-a-toilet-challenge-2020-6">NASA's guidelines said</a>.</p><p>The contest received over 2,000 entries from around the world. On Thursday, NASA announced the winners. First place went to a team that designed a toilet they call the Translunar Hypercritical Repository 1 (THRONE). The team, led by Washington-based engineer <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/boone-davidson-b9145040/">Boone Davidson</a>, based its design on advice from former <keyword id="34120" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronaut">astronaut</keyword> Susan Helms.</p><p>That toilet won $20,000 in prize money, and the two runners up also got cash prizes. Here are the contest's three winners.</p><h2><strong>The first-place winners sought guidance from a retired astronaut </strong></h2><div type="image" title="THRONE Rendering" height="720" width="1036" msid="78846745" hostid="261"></div><p>The team behind the winning THRONE design wanted to get an astronaut's perspective, so they reached out to Susan Helms, who logged more than 5,000 hours in space before she retired from NASA.</p><p>Helms reportedly told the group that she and other female astronauts struggled to urinate and defecate at the same time while on the NASA Space Shuttle, which stopped operating in 2011. (Male astronauts could more easily <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-astronauts-pee-and-poop-in-space-2018-8#:~:text=Today%2C%20astronauts%20at%20the%20International,vacuum%2Dsucks%20their%20excrement%20away.&amp;text=A%20separate%20funnel%20equipped%20with%20a%20fan%20suctions%20their%20pee%20away.way.">use a funnel</a> to suction their urine away.) NASA's latest toilet model aboard the International Space Station has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/space-toilet-nasa-women/616686/">addressed this issue</a> by reshaping the toilet's urine funnel to better fit female anatomy.</p><div type="image" title="susan helms" height="2092" width="3060" msid="78846746" hostid="261"></div><p>Davidson's all-male team of engineers was determined to design a toilet that would work for both male and female lunar explorers.</p><p>Their resulting mock-up includes a retractable covering that opens after a bladeless fan within the bowl is activated; the fan draws waste down to prevent it from "nudging" the astronaut's behind. Team member and structural engineer Kunal Vaswani said the team was inspired by the retractable roof of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.</p> <p>The toilet also includes a "genital guard" that uses airflow to direct liquid waste into the bowl. It even has a memory-foam seat cushion that conforms to different users' behinds, allowing a custom fit that further helps reduce the chance of floating waste.</p><p>"The judges found the THRONE team's innovative idea for a bladeless fan to entrain waste as a good alternative idea compared to the typical suction/vacuum pump system," NASA wrote in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-names-lunar-loo-challenge-winners/">press release accompanying the announcement.</a></p><p>The judges were also impressed by the team's waste-storage system, which stores the bags of waste in a compartment similar to a Diaper Genie.</p><h2><strong>Second place went to a collapsible toilet with a custom seat for each astronaut</strong></h2><div type="image" title="lunar loo thatcher" height="494" width="712" msid="78846747" hostid="261"></div><p>Thatcher Cardon, a US Air Force colonel and flight surgeon, previously won the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-pooping-space-challenge-winner-thatcher-cardon-2017-2">HeroX Space Poop challenge in 2017, </a>which invited participants to design a system that could help astronauts comfortably pee and poop in their spacesuits.</p><p>Cardon's design for a waste-expelling suit featured a hole near the base of the genitals, through which inflatable bedpans and "hygiene wands" could be inserted and taken out without the astronaut needing to take the suit off.</p><div type="image" title="space poop challenge winner dr thatcher cardon nasa herox 30" height="1200" width="2133" msid="78846749" hostid="261"></div><p>For the space-toilet contest, Cardon teamed up with software specialist <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-morse/">Dave Morse</a> to design a blow-up, collapsible toilet that would have a custom seat for each astronaut. NASA said the team had designed an "an ideal interface for an Apollo bag-like system" that could reduce the weight of the moon-landing system.</p><div type="image" title="space poop challenge winner dr thatcher cardon nasa herox 34" height="3000" width="2399" msid="78846750" hostid="261"></div><p>Most space toilets rely on airflow and suction to keep waste from escaping. Cardon and Morse's toilet seat instead clings to astronauts' behinds so their waste cannot escape. For male astronauts, the toilet even has a "scrotal support area" that cradles the testicles. </p><p>When astronauts sit on the toilet, they'd pee and poop into separate pouches. A small fan at the toilet's base would suck the waste into those pouches.</p><p>A compressor helps keep the toilet inflated, and when astronauts finish using the device, it would suction the waste bags closed. After that, the bags could be frozen and put in storage until they get disposed of on Earth. </p><h2><strong>The designer that won third place works on luxury toilets full-time</strong></h2><p>By day, Franziska Wülker optimizes toilet-flushing performance for <a href="https://www.duravit.us/">Duravit</a>, a company that manufactures luxury bathroom appliances. So the focus of her third-place design is an ingenious flushing mechanism.</p><p>"In microgravity, the hardest thing is to get the things that should be in the toilet into the toilet," Wülker said in a conference call with NASA and HeroX on Thursday.</p><p>The Centrifugal Lunar Toilet she designed solves this problem using a simple spinning centrifuge at the center of the bowl. The toilet's wide seat enables astronauts to pee and poop at the same time, while a fan sucks liquid and solid waste into the machine, keeping the waste down using the force of its spin. A macerator crushes feces and toilet paper, then the crushed waste eventually gets pushed into a storage tank.</p><p>In its announcement, NASA said the design featured an impressive "trifecta of design concepts: a macerator, or shredder function for breaking down waste, a device for separating the waste, and a bagless system for containing the waste." </p><p><em>Correction: A previous version of this story said Susan Helms described challenges with a toilet on the space station, but she was actually describingthe toilet on NASA's Space Shuttle.</em></p>

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