NASA has relaunched the Artemis program with the aim of returning humanity to the Moon.
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| Humanity aspires to revisit the Moon and make it a lasting presence. |
NASA originally intended for the Artemis 3 mission to set foot on the Moon by 2025, which is almost fifty-two years after the last Apollo mission landed in 1972. But according to the US government's most recent administration, the space agency won't be able to accomplish this until at least 2027. However, given that it has demonstrated its ability to do so for the past 50 years, why does NASA want to return astronauts to the Moon?
You're not alone if you can relate to that feeling. Barack Obama, a former US president, had a similar viewpoint. In a 2010 speech at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, he shifted NASA's attention from the Moon to Mars and deep space. When we explore, there's a lot more to discover and learn."
But after thirteen years that went by very quickly, and with two new leaders in charge of the country, NASA has come back to the Moon with the Artemis program. Launched on November 16, 2022, the crewless Artemis 1 mission will travel around the Moon before safely returning to Earth. Next up is Artemis 2. suit, but Artemis 3 will bring people to Mars' surface at last.
Welcome to the #Artemis Accords, Angola 🇦🇴
— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) December 1, 2023
Angola became the 33rd country to commit to the peaceful and safe exploration of space as we look ahead to the Moon, Mars, and beyond: https://t.co/XmBmNIZjDm pic.twitter.com/K9KVUvOJlQ
What has changed since Obama shifted NASA's focus to other astronomical objectives? More accurately, what has transpired in the years since the Apollo program's termination, which forced us to shift our attention back to the Moon?
The former Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, stated succinctly in an interview with The Washington Post in 2022, "It's important to recognize that we are going back to a Moon that is fundamentally different from the Moon we left during the Apollo program. The Moon was dry on that occasion. The way we think about the Moon has evolved dramatically."
With the conclusion of the Apollo program, new scientific findings have led to a significant change in our understanding of the Moon. Crucially, we can now affirm that water exists in certain regions of the Moon. The only natural satellite of Earth, the Moon, may contain water, which opens up a world of possibilities we never would have thought possible.
We could, for starters, establish a permanent human presence on the Moon. For space travelers to survive, water and the oxygen it produces would be essential. Water can also be transformed into oxygen and hydrogen, which can be utilized as rocket fuel. Earth to Moon and back. The Moon will inevitably be a fantastic launchpad for additional missions. beyond the moons of Mars.
And among the most important is the fact that multiple nations are trying to improve their capacity for lunar exploration. In 2022, China declared that it would send three more crewed missions to the Moon this decade. The Chandrayaan-3 mission, which successfully landed a lander and rover close to the Moon's south pole, was a major accomplishment for India. Currently, ISRO is organizing a mission to the Moon to collect samples.
The "Lunar Economy" is a ten-year initiative that the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) unveiled this year to create the technological underpinnings of a shared, scalable, and interoperable system. services with a marketable potential.
Without a doubt, commercial space technology firms and government space agencies will work together to build a basic, long-lasting infrastructure on the Moon that will enable both exploration missions and more ambitious ones that will take them beyond it.