The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has once again proven how useless it is, this time by canceling its lunar rover project after already throwing away $450 million on its development.
On Wednesday, NASA announced that it was canceling its moon rover project after cost overruns and constant delays forced administrators to throw in the towel.
Per Space Daily:
he Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) was intended to explore the lunar south pole in search of ice and other resources, paving the way for planned crewed missions by American astronauts under the Artemis program later this decade.
“Decisions like this are never easy,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator of the science mission directorate.
“But in this case, the projected remaining expenses for VIPER would have resulted in having to either cancel or disrupt many other missions.”
The mobile robot, which NASA had hoped would venture into the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters, where ice reserves have endured for billions of years, was originally planned to launch in 2023.
Launch dates for the rover had already been set ahead several times from 2022, to 2024, then to 2025.
Meanwhile, China beat the U.S. to the dark side of the moon with its Chang-6 mission which became the first to bring back samples from that little visited part of earth’s companion.
This agency has literally wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on failed projects, half realized platforms, cost overruns, and waste.
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