---
title: "NASA: Bad News, Something Came Up, Gotta Rain-Check That Moon Trip :("
description: "Bad news, space fans: NASA just announced it's gonna have to reschedule its long-awaited return to the Moon it'd been planning in a few years."
date: "2020-03-20"
modified: "2020-03-20"
authors:
  - name: "Foster Kamer"
    job_title: "Editor-in-Chief"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/foster"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-coronavirus-orion-space-launch-system-2024"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Moon"
  - "NASA"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "NASA"
  - "the digest"
---

# NASA: Bad News, Something Came Up, Gotta Rain-Check That Moon Trip :(

![Bad news, space fans: NASA just announced they're gonna have reschedule that trip to the Moon they'd been planning in a few years.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/coronavirus-shuts-down-nasa-work-moon-return-mission.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NASA/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Space: Rescheduled

Well, 2020's off to a rip-roaring start of "cancelled," so here's more to toss on this heaping trash fire of a year, Space Fans Edition: NASA just announced it's gonna have to reschedule that trip to the Moon.

According to a [Friday report](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/science/nasa-coronavirus-sls-rocket-moon.html>) in the *New York Times*, NASA has officially put the kibosh on plans to get Orion and the Space Launch System — both of which would be used to get us to the Moon sometime before the end of 2024 — on hold.

## Blue Moon

Yes, even NASA facilities — like every other crack, crevice, corner, and human in this world — can, in fact, catch some coronavirus. At the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where the Space Launch System was being tested, one worker was confirmed to have tested positive for COVID-19. Plenty of work on rockets can be done remotely, but in order to actually give these systems the tests they need to progress, there have to be workers on-site.

## Non-Moonshot Moonshot

According to the *Times*, NASA workers at other sites have caught COVID-19 as well. But interestingly — and, also as the *Times* points out, *incredibly optimistically* — [NASA invited media to come](<https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-invite-media-to-first-crew-launch-to-station-from-america-since-2011>), in May, and witness the first launch of Americans to the ISS since 2011 on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon program.

**READ MORE:** [Coronavirus Delays Work on NASA’s Moon Rocket and Capsule](<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/science/nasa-coronavirus-sls-rocket-moon.html>) \[The *New York Times*\]

**More from the Dept. of Space Womp-Womps:** *[NASA fixes Mars Lander by telling it to hit itself in the head with a shovel](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-lander-hit-itself-shovel>)*

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/foster.bsky.social>)