Houston loses bid to lead lunar landing

NASA’s Alabama center will manage the development of the lander meant to take humans to the moon in 2024, the agency’s administrator announced Friday, drawing ire from Texas lawmakers who cited Houston’s role in the first lunar landing 50 years ago.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, speaking from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said Marshall was the best center for the job because of its history working with landing systems, such as the one built for the now-canceled robotic moon mission in search of water.

“I will say that this is not a decision that was made lightly,” Bridenstine said. “A lot of hard work has been done here in Huntsville over 10 years now.”

Marshall also is in charge of managing the agency’s behemoth Space Launch System rocket, which is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. SLS is NASA’s only rocket capable of transporting humans to the moon.

Texas lawmakers were not pleased. When rumors began circulating that Alabama would receive this designation, Rep. Brian Babin, along with Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, asked Bridenstine to reconsider.

“The Johnson Space Center has served as NASA’s lead center for human spaceflight for more than half a century,” they wrote in a letter to the administrator. “ ‘Houston’ was one of the first words ever uttered on the Moon, and Houston, the city that last sent man to the Moon, should be where the lander that will once again send Americans to the lunar surface is developed.”

The Johnson Space Center was in charge of the lunar lander program during the Apollo missions.

Babin, a Republican whose district includes the space center, originally was scheduled to attend the announcement but he did not show. In a statement Friday, Babin expressed deep disappointment.

“Marshall Space Flight Center does tremendous work for our nation’s space program, but the knowledge base and skill set for this task unquestionably resides at JSC where the Apollo lunar lander program was successfully managed,” hesaid.

Cruz, in his own statement Friday, echoed that sentiment.

“Johnson Space Center was the lead center for the lunar lander program during Apollo — the last time the United States landed astronauts on the Moon and brought them back safely to Earth — and remains the lead center in human spaceflight to this day,” the statement read. “While the Marshall Space Flight Center’s expertise in rocketry and propulsion is unquestioned, the responsibility for managing the next lunar lander should rest with the center with the history and experience in manned spaceflight — the Johnson Space Center.”

Bridenstine said at the Friday announcement that he understood the concerns of the Texas lawmakers, but he noted that Johnson still will work on the landing systems. The Alabama center will get 140 jobs for this project. Houston will get 87.

Johnson personnel will be in charge of “all aspects related to preparing the landers and astronauts to work together,” according to NASA. The Houston center manages the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a mini-space station NASA wants to build orbiting the moon, and all Artemis moon missions.

“We love the work Johnson does and we certainly love the history of Johnson as well,” Bridenstine said. “I want to make sure we don’t create a narrative that this is us against them. When we go to the moon there will be plenty of work for them there.”

Since the 1960s, Johnson has been home to the nation’s astronaut corps, served as the hub for human spaceflight research and training and is the storied home of mission control. It remains the base of operations for the International Space Station.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration directed NASA to put humans on the moon four years earlier than planned, in 2024. The project has been dubbed Artemis. Since then, the space agency has scrambled to put together a plan on such a short timeline.

Bridenstine has said that putting humans on the moon by 2024 will take up to $30 billion over the next five years. So far, the Trump administration has requested $1.6 billion from Congress for Artemis — primarily to fund development of a lunar lander.

Last month, Bridenstine told Congress that afull budget plan for the project won’t be ready until February — almost a full year after the accelerated timeline announcement.

Despite the news Friday, Lisa Watson-Morgan, who will be in charge of the lunar lander effort at Marshall, said the Alabama center will continue to partner with other NASA centers, just as it has done in the past.

“That’s how we bring out the best,” Watson-Morgan said. alex.stuckey@chron.com