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NASA鈥檚 problem is not the rocket sitting on the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, really. The all-new Space Launch System is supposed to catapult U.S. astronauts back to the moon this decade, but the launch has been beset by problems and delays. The new launch window for this first test flight of the Artemis program is Saturday.

No, the real problem is that NASA, once the engine of so much innovation, is now struggling to keep up. Consider Artemis 1鈥檚 rocket. It is acting like all new rockets act 鈥� temperamental and a bit mysterious. That means delays and blown budgets.

Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin offset that by volume. Once the rocket is operational, it makes launch after launch after launch, honing the technology while also making money by making deliveries to space. Artemis鈥� Space Launch System will only be used for Artemis flights 鈥� maybe once every two years. To historian Howard McCurdy of American University, that means calculated risk. Each launch is high stakes because there are so few of them.

Back in the 1960s, he says, 鈥淣ASA made a lot of Saturn V rockets, so there were production efficiencies.鈥� They became the workhorses of the early space race.聽

Saturday鈥檚 launch, then, is not just a bold bid to get back to the moon with an eye to Mars. It is a test of whether NASA鈥檚 human spaceflight program can adapt to space鈥檚 new age of innovation.

Adds Professor McCurdy: 鈥淚f you really want to go to Mars, you鈥檙e going to have to bring down the cost to make it affordable.鈥�