https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-might-nasa-change-under-trump-heres-what-is-being-discussed/

>>> The transition team has been discussing possible elements of an executive order or other policy directives. They include:

• Establishing the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars, by 2028

• Canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft

• Consolidating Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama

• Retaining a small administration presence in Washington, DC, but otherwise moving headquarters to a field center

• Rapidly redesigning the Artemis lunar program to make it more efficient

@Mqrius two things about this article stood out for me:

Whether the "transition team" as referred to here includes Musk or not.

(Obviously we assume it does, but I think more helpful reporting would have made this explicit )

"Establishing the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars, by 2028"

This is just a Musk timeline, but one Manifold has completely dismissed.

@JoshuaWilkes I actually think it doesn't include musk in any official capacity. What's weirder is that it doesn't include Isaacman even though he's gonna be admin.

The meeting points do seem musk-inspired though, yeah. Though Humana to Mars in 2028 still seems unlikely even if NASA starts wanting it too. But ambitious deadlines can help reduce delays.

Since this question may involve judgement calls, I’m divesting from the market (at a loss).

To clarify:

If SLS is used to launch Orion into low Earth orbit how will this resolve?

@JoshuaWilkes Good question. Rereading what I wrote above, I see both "crewed launch atop SLS" and "launch humans to the moon" as well as the "as planned" clause in the title. Taking all of that together I'm inclined to say that SLS needs to both launch Orion (with humans aboard), AND perform the trans-lunar-injection (with humans aboard), in order for this to resolve YES.

If NASA adds a new mission to the Artemis manifest after Artemis II that doesn’t involve sending humans to the Moon on an SLS, but that mission is called something other than “Artemis III” (like the “Artemis IIS” mentioned in this article), how would that affect the resolution of this market?

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/04/nasa-may-alter-artemis-iii-to-have-starship-and-orion-dock-in-low-earth-orbit/

@sesquipedalianThaumaturge That's a tough one! I don't love the idea of this market turning into a bet on the semantics of whether they choose to call it 3 or 2S. And if they change the mission, who cares if they change the name too. So that inclines me towards saying it's YES either way. But on the other hand, if it truly is a "bonus mission" inserted into the timeline, and the existing Artemis 3 launches as planned, then you could argue that it should resolve NO (maybe even if the bonus mission was called Artemis 3).

I'm very open to suggestions for firm resolution criteria here. In some sense, I think what we are looking to capture is whether Artemis 3 has changed plans, or if another mission has just been inserted in the interim time between 2 and 3. Maybe the naming really isn't the worst way to determine that? Again, very open to sugestions.

@YaakovSaxon I think the problem is that some people will surely have been betting on whether SLS is used for the third Artemis mission, and it doesn't seem fair to them to say that am Artemis 2.5 doesn't count.

But tbh I don't think NASA would do that!

@JoshuaWilkes I’m not certain if I understand you. I assume that an Artemis 2.5 would only happen if it was going to be an architecture that would (if we choose to resolve on that basis) resolve NO. Is that what you meant? That people are betting NO because they think SLS won’t be used (at least for TLI, as per my answer above) and it would be unfair to say that a 2.5 doesn’t count towards that NO?

Or are you contemplating a scenario where 2.5 uses SLS for launch and TLI and then 3 does not use SLS, and saying it would be unfair to the YES bettors to not count 2.5?

@YaakovSaxon I’m starting to think this is all over complicating things and the most natural solution is to say that the question is asking about Artemis 3.

2.5 != 3. 3 == 3.

So if 3 is still on track when a 2.5 happens then this question waits for 3 to happen (or be cancelled and resolve NO early) to resolve. Only if 3 has been cancelled when 2.5 happens, then if 2.5 is substantially similar, it inherits the question, as per the original description.

@YaakovSaxon Ok I think I’ve just now figured out what you mean. The question is whether “Artemis 3” most naturally refers to a mission _called_ Artemis 3, or to the third Artemis mission…

@YaakovSaxon Personally, I feel like the interesting question this market captures is "will the first human lunar landing of the Artemis program rely on an SLS rocket to get the astronauts onto a translunar trajectory", and corner cases should be resolved in the direction of that criterion. But I realize that's not necessarily the resolution criterion that people have been trading on the basis of.

I am running out of mana to bet this market down

For anyone interested, here's some further discussion of the piece between Eric Berger and Tim Dodd (of Everyday Astronaut) in his prelaunch commentary for Artemis 1
https://youtu.be/FbX2VuOwJGk?t=19224