Why do we want to return to the Moon in 2024?

The year ahead looks set to be very exciting in the realm of space travel, with the Artemis 2 mission set to make a lunar flyby - our first in many decades. I've been speaking to the space scientist, author and former BBC editor, David Whitehouse.

David - Artemis II is a spectacular mission because, for the first time in many decades, we are actually going somewhere in space. They have to actually start stacking the rocket and preparing it as early as February. It's a year-long campaign as part of proving the capsule so that the capsule is ready for when it's part of a landing mission a bit later on.

Chris - Why is everyone so interested in the Moon? Why does this matter? Is it pushing the technology, is it the opportunities that people foresee there? Why are they doing this?

David - There are many reasons to go to the Moon. It's something that brings the youngsters into science and technology and that's important because we are living, going to be living, in a century of science and technology. But of course there's the development of the technology, there's the spending of the money which is spent in companies, in firms, in developing services. And of course there is going to the Moon and understanding the Moon, living in space, as part of living further in space than living on the Space Station. They're also preparing for a mission to Mars because it was interesting to note that in a recent press conference with the crew of Artemis II, NASA was prefacing, every time it said about going to the moon, 'this is part of our mission to Mars'. So this is part of a longer term plan.

Chris - Who is funding this? And what's the role for private companies? They are, to my mind, increasingly playing a bigger and bigger role in space activities, aren't they?

David - They are indeed. NASA is funding most of this, although there is part of it being funded by SpaceX with a lot of NASA money. NASA has got to have cutbacks. It takes all year for people at NASA to work out the budget for the next year or the next two years. It's a full-time job for so many people and they've worked out for this year it's $27.2 billion and next year it's 27.7. But then along comes the Fiscal Responsibility Act which says you've got to cut 10% off that. So they're going to have to lose a few billion from something that they had carefully crafted and that might affect Artemis. The problem with this is, and this is going to be a big story this year, is that I understand the bureaucrats at NASA want to take that cutback from the science budget and not Artemis. That's going to cause a big row among the scientists. This is going to be an exciting year for NASA with Artemis, an exciting year for Elon Musk testing his spaceship and developing the way to land on the moon, but the money is very, very tight.

Chris - Elon Musk has also got Arianespace, the French, first commercial space launch company - they're snapping at his heels because they are trying to recoup some of the satellite market because Musk has kind of cornered the market there at the moment.

David - He certainly has. In the 90's and the 00's, Arianespace, the European backed launch company, had it all its own way. But along comes Elon Musk with his Falcon series of rockets and starts taking away the market. It's interesting that I think the biggest customer for Ariane 6 over the next few years, when and if it does fly, is Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk's competitor, who's also wanting to put up over 3000 small satellites to improve global broadband access, global internet access. Now, Bezos couldn't really go to Elon Musk, but he's gone to Ariane 6 - the new rocket that Arianespace is building. It's supposed to be better performing, a lot cheaper, and able to fly a lot more missions. The problem is all with the money because there are rumours that Ariane 6 is not going to be cheaper than Ariane 5, and if it doesn't get the launch rate that it should, then Arianespace is going to be a problem. For instance, Ariane 5 cost about 150 million euros to launch. For Ariane 6, they want to cut that in half to 75 million. The problem is you can buy a Falcon 9 launch from Elon Musk for just over $60 million, so they've really got to work harder than they planned at the moment. The amazing thing is that Arianespace may go back to the European Space Agency and say, in order to keep Europe in the space satellite launching business, we need more money from you.

Chris - Haven't Boeing been muscling in on the act a bit? They've got their Starliner?

David - Many years ago, when NASA's space shuttle retired, they only had the Russians to take astronauts to and from the Space Station. That was politically untenable. It was also only one route to and from the Space Station, so it was also very hazardous as well. They put out contracts to Elon Musk to develop his Dragon capsule, and he put out contracts to Boeing to develop their Starliner. Now Elon Musk's capsule works very well and he's now a regular part of taking crew to and from the Space Station. The Starliner from Boeing has had many problems along the way. It looks more like the Apollo capsule of 50 years ago; obviously it's much more technical, but it's more complicated. They've had various failures on the way. They've docked it with the Space Station automatically on one occasion, and in April they're going to put people onboard. There's going to be a crew of two which are going to go and dock with the Space Station and I think spend a couple of weeks there and then come down again. That's important because not only does it give the United States two routes to and from the Space Station, but it also develops a whole load of technology which could be used elsewhere in the space programme. It's important that Boeing, after many technical problems in developing this capsule, failures and delays - I mean, this thing should have flown four or five years ago - eventually, if they do get it to the Space Station with crew onboard, that'll be a major hurdle. This year, for the Americans, the human in space is vital. This is a crucial year for people travelling in space, not only with Artemis II and the development of Artemis III, the landing on the Moon, but also Boeing sending their Starliner into space.