THE AVION
B2 Technology
NASA Issues Final Proposal for Artemis Human Lunar Landers
Michael Weinhoffer Senior Reporter
On Sep. 30, NASA issued its final proposal for commercial human landers for the Artemis program, which plans to land humans on the moon in 2024. NASA is entrusting companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and more to develop landers that will safely transport men and women
to and from the lunar surface. NASA is moving at an aggressive timeline for the entire Artemis program, including giving commercial companies only a few months to write detailed proposals for their entire lander architecture. NASA plans to select two companies early next year for lander development, with one company providing a lander for the 2024 lunar landing and the other constructing
Image Courtesy/NASA
a lander for the 2025 mission. Initially, all proposed landers had to be fully reusable for multiple landings, but given the short timeline, NASA removed this requirement from the final solicitation. NASA plans to land two astronauts near the south pole of the moon in 2024, where they will live and work out of the lunar lander; with an intended stay of six and a half days. Two separate launches will introduce the Orion crewed capsule and the lunar lander to the project. Both of which will dock at the Gateway: a small space station in a unique lunar orbit. The Gateway will provide power and communications for the mission, and a small crew cabin to expand the living quarters of the astronauts. After the lunar mission is complete, the lander will be ejected into space or crash into the moon, and the Orion capsule will bring the astronauts safely home. The inclusion of the lunar Gateway in the architecture will enable extended operations before and after the lunar landing, which was not possible during the Apollo program. Each mission from launch, lunar landing, and splashdown is
expected to take 25-34 days. Once the 2024 deadline has been met, NASA plans to expand the missions, with up to four astronauts landing on the surface of the moon. Along with a more substantial Gateway with several modules provided by international partners from Europe and Japan, this next step will assist in future missions. NASA has been working tirelessly on the Artemis program since it was announced by Vice President Pence in March, and the lunar lander solicitation is a significant accomplishment for the agency. It is now up to commercial companies to propose lunar lander systems that will enable sustainable lunar exploration through the late 2020s. All of this development work and the Artemis program itself is the precursor to human exploration of Mars, which may become a reality in the 2030s. As NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has said repeatedly, the goal of the Artemis program is not to go back to the Moon, but to instead go forward on to Mars: The new frontier for humans to explore.
This is Not a Drill. The McRib is Back!
Rajan Khanna Editor-in-Chief
The only sandwich with a cult following is back. McDonald’s is finally bringing the McRib back. Comprised of a shaped pork patty, slivered onions, pickle slices, McRib sauce, all between a homestyle roll, the sandwich garners enormous amounts of excitement when it returns. A lot of fans have always wondered why the famous sandwich is only on menus for a short time, and that is entirely by design. McDonald’s is not the only restaurant with limited-time menu items. Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and Subway are just a few of the other restaurants that also feature seasonal menu items. The companies use these items as specific marketing campaigns to bring more people into the stores. The Pumpkin Spice Latte is possibly one of the most popular seasonal items on anyone’s menu. “We strive to provide our customers with unique, seasonal offerings to celebrate each season, and customer response has been extremely positive to that,” a Starbucks spokesman said two years ago. The difference between the predictable seasonal menu items on Starbucks’s menu and the McRib on McDonalds’s menu is that there is seemingly no logic to when the sandwich returns. The endless gaps between sandwich sightings build vast amounts of hype when it finally releases again. Supply and demand eco-
Image Courtesy/McDonalds
nomics dictate that the scarcity of the product increases demand, so McDonalds’s logic is to have long periods where the sandwich scarce and then put it in the market for a short period of time to give the people what they want. The sandwich is not remarkable in any way, but the sheer demand outweighs the outstanding averageness of the product. In 1981, the first iteration of the McRib was born, and it failed. In some parts of the United States, it generated a decent revenue to necessitate its infrequent returns. It can support itself as viable for a month or two, but people are generally bored with the product after that time,
and it becomes less and less feasible. Keeping it scarce makes the consumer forget what they were missing and fall in love with the sandwich all over again. McDonalds’s products provide excellent case studies for many fundamentals for economics. The “Big Mac Index” compares the price of a Big Mac in one country to another to show which one has a stronger currency. Purchasing power is how much of something you can buy with one unit of the currency, so when the burger is around four dollars in the US and five dollars in Sweden, the purchasing power of the US Dollar is higher on the Big Mac Index. You get “more Big Mac” for
your dollar. The burger is made with the same ingredients all over the world, so while the sandwich comparison is not extremely accurate, it does paint a pretty good image of the economies compared. Since McDonald’s is a worldwide corporation with the same core items in each market, the economic case studies are endless. Regardless of how much the consumer wants the McRib after it’s appearance this month, McDonald’s will not keep it here for long. The consumer will become bored with it, and it will not be worth it to remain on the menu. McDonalds’s knows that everyone will want it now, and no one will want it later.