NASA Head Seeks New Funding for Annual Moon Landings 'Over a Dozen Years’

The U.S. space agency NASA aspires to land humans on the moon every year for 12 consecutive years, Administrator Bill Nelson testified to a congressional committee Wednesday in support of a request to boost the agency’s fiscal 2022 budget.

Nelson acknowledged to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that the agency’s budget for fiscal 2021 included $850 million toward the development of a lunar lander as part of an ambitious, roughly $3 billion Human Landing System program. “But there needs to be a landing each year for a dozen years, so there are many more awards to come if you all decide that it's in the interest of the United States to appropriate that money," Nelson said. The Biden administration has proposed a 6.6% increase to NASA’s current budget for 2022, amounting to a $24.8 billion request from Congress. The funding would support sending additional rovers to Mars, continuing International Space Station operations, initiating probes to Venus and sending manned flights to the moon by 2024.