Artemis and the Economics of a Permanent Moonbase

For space economists, few problems are more compelling than how to build and sustain a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. For one, it is a demonstrably hard problem. Not only is there no breathable air, no farmable soil, nor anyone there to trade with, but human missions to the Moon have thus far been very expensive.

The Apollo Program included six missions to the lunar surface with a cumulative total of around 25 days of experience amongst the twelve astronauts to walk on its surface. At around $250–$300 billion total in today’s terms for the overall Apollo efforts, the average cost per astronaut day on the lunar surface was around $10–$12 billion. The marginal cost per mission by the end was much better at around $3.5–$4.0 billion per mission in today’s dollars, cutting the marginal cost down to a still pricey $580–$670 million per day for the Apollo 17 crew’s roughly six cumulative days on the lunar surface.

For all of the Apollo program’s incredible achievements, it was ultimately cancelled by President Richard Nixon in part because those footing the bill for the effort—the American taxpayers—had signaled that they did not believe that the benefits of continuing the process of lunar exploration and development at that time were worth the cost.

The Artemis program is the third attempt to return to the Moon to stay since the end of the Apollo Program. The first attempt was the Space Exploration Initiative, announced by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, and then cancelled around 1993 when the NASA cost estimate ($500 billion in 1989, which is over $1 trillion in today’s dollars) for that particular Moon and Mars endeavor was submitted to Congress and deemed unaffordable. The second attempt was the Vision for Space Exploration, announced by President George W. Bush in 2004, which was later cancelled by the Obama administration, also for reasons of affordability, although some of its core elements—notably the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS)—were reinstated through the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and later became part of the Artemis Program.

I was serving in NASA’s office of the administrator at the start of the first Trump administration, and as it became clear that lunar return and permanence there were going to be prioritized once again, my constant refrain around the office was, “Great, let’s at least make a different mistake this time around.” In other words, given that previous NASA efforts to return to the Moon and build the infrastructure for a permanent human presence had been crippled by architectures and strategies that were both financially and politically unsustainable, the United States clearly needed to try a new approach. Thankfully, it did.

The Artemis program—and its lunar surface infrastructure development strategy, originally known as Artemis Base Camp—made two core strategic changes from what had come before: Artemis relies on commercial capabilities for critical path elements, and it also relies on international partners for critical path elements. Last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recommitted NASA and the nation to the development of a moonbase and laid out new plans for its acceleration and expansion. The United States and its partners, both in the private sector and internationally, should make sure that this effort is both successful and sustainable.

Part of that will be speed and architecture affordability, both of which motivated the most recent Artemis architecture changes from NASA and the Human Landing System (HLS) contractors. Incentivizing continued private investment and maintaining commercial competition will be another vital element. This will have to be balanced, however, with ensuring that the American public—who are still going to be underwriting the vast majority of the costs of this endeavor—continues to support the initiative and feels that it is in the service of the nation.

This is where issues such as whether different elements of the Artemis moonbase will be owned by the government or by private companies will come to the fore. Although there is a significant increase in private investment in space, there have yet to be significant nongovernmental revenues for lunar activities, and economic assessments suggest we should not be expecting this to change anytime too soon either. Maintaining U.S. governmental ownership of core Artemis moonbase elements—such as potentially some power systems and core habitation modules—and allowing for private ownership of others, such as additional power systems and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and mining hardware, might ultimately be an enabling mix for long-term sustainability given the expected revenue sources.

In addition to private investments in commercial capabilities, the most significant material contributions to Artemis come from international partners. Maintaining and growing this partnership will be vital but also potentially challenging with NASA planning to pause its lunar orbiting Gateway Project, which has thus far served as a core focus for Artemis contributions from Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates. If Gateway is no longer on the critical path, then another critical path element for overall sustainability will be to figure out how to migrate the Gateway partnership from lunar orbit down to the lunar surface. Having an international Gateway Station on the Moon within a broader U.S.-led Artemis moonbase has a certain logic to it.

As Artemis begins crewed operations around the Moon, the United States stands at the start of a campaign to develop our first phase of infrastructure development on the lunar surface. As Administrator Isaacman recently stated, “We are going to plus-up for moonbase construction in a huge way.” Sustaining an Artemis moonbase will require improving on the marginal cost per crewed mission, balancing the overall cost to the American taxpayer with public and national benefits, and leveraging international and commercial partnerships to the maximum extent practicable. If this can be achieved, then the legacy of Artemis might well be the realization of that long-held dream of a permanent home on the Moon. Or, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, Artemis is a commitment to humanity’s first moonbase—if you can keep it.

Alexander MacDonald is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.