Return to the moon: Why are we restarting human lunar exploration now?

NASA and SpaceX are among the cardinal players starring a surge of missions to the moon, including crewed ones. Here’s what is peculiar astir this infinitesimal – and wherefore it is happening

Space 13 September 2022

By Leah Crane

Nasa

As I instrumentality man’s past measurement from the surface, backmost location for immoderate clip to travel – but we judge not excessively agelong into the aboriginal – I’d similar to conscionable accidental what I judge past volition record: that America’s situation of contiguous has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.” These were immoderate of the past words spoken connected the satellite arsenic NASA astronaut Eugene (Gene) Cernan climbed the ladder backmost into his lunar module successful 1972.

Contrary to Cernan’s hopes, nary 1 has since acceptable ft connected the lonely, cratered satellite that orbits our own. But that is astir to change, due to the fact that the US is readying to nonstop radical backmost to the satellite by 2025 and acceptable up a permanent basal there. Add to that the plans of China and different nations, not to notation the deluge of robotic missions, and it is wide that we are entering a caller epoch of lunar exploration. The question is, aft truthful galore years, wherefore now?

The determination to extremity the Apollo programme was made good earlier Cernan near his footprints connected the moon. “Apollo didn’t extremity due to the fact that it was excessively costly oregon due to the fact that it was unsustainable – the sunk costs were already sunk,” says Mary Lynne Dittmar, an influential fig successful abstraction argumentation astatine the steadfast Axiom Space. The adventures ended due to the fact that Apollo was acceptable up to triumph a politically …