NASA is back with the Artemis programme to put humanity back on the Moon.
NASA had initially planned for the Artemis 3 mission to land humans on the Moon in 2025, around 52 years after the last Apollo mission landed astronauts in 1952. But now, the United States Government Accountability Office says the space agency will not be able to do that until 2027 at the earliest. But why does NASA want to send astronauts to the Moon again when it has already proven that it can do that more than half a century ago?
If you share that sentiment, you are not in poor company. Former American president Barack Obama felt the same. During a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2010, he turned NASA’s attention away from the Moon and towards Mars and deep space asteroids. “I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.”
But fast forward thirteen years and two other men ruling the country, and NASA is back with the Artemis programme to put humanity back on the Moon. The uncrewed Artemis 1 mission launched on November 16, 2022, before flying around the Moon and landing back on Earth safely. Artemis 2 will do the same but with a crew before Artemis 3 eventually lands humans on Mars again. What changed in that time since Obama seemingly redirected NASA’s attention to other celestial targets? Or, to be more accurate, what has been changing over all these years since the last Apollo mission to make us focus on the Moon again? In an interview with the Washington Post in 2022, Thomas Zurbuchen, then associate administrator for NASA’s Science Directorate, put it quite succinctly, “It’s important to recognize that we’re going back to a moon that’s really different than the moon we left when we took off during Apollo. It was a moon that was dry. … Our understanding of the moon is massively different.”
Since the Apollo programme ended, our understanding of the Moon has drastically changed with new scientific revelations. Crucially, we have now confirmed the presence of frozen waters in certain parts of the Moon. The presence of water on Earth’s lone natural satellite opens up a whole world of possibilities that we could not have imagined before.
For one, we might be able to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon. Water and the oxygen that can be harvested from it will be crucial to astronauts’ lives there. Also, water can be turned into hydrogen and oxygen, which can be used as rocket fuel.
The Moon’s gravity is about one-sixth as powerful as that on Earth. This means that it will be a lot easier and will consume a lot less fuel to launch rockets from the Moon than from Earth. Essentially, the Moon can be a great springboard for missions to Mars and beyond.
And that is one of the most important reasons why there are many countries trying to improve their Moon exploration capabilities. China announced in 2022 that it plans to launch three additional uncrewed missions to the Moon this decade. India has had great success with the Chandrayaan-3 mission that landed a lander and a rover near its South pole. Now, ISRO is also planning to launch a mission that will retrieve samples from the Moon.
The United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this year announced a ten-year plan to develop a “lunar economy.” DARPA has been referred to as the “agency that shaped the modern world” by The Economist and its 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) capability study is aimed at developing the technology foundation to move towards shareable, scalable and interoperable systems to create services that can be monetised.
The Moon’s gravity is about one-sixth as powerful as that on Earth. This means that it will be a lot easier and will consume a lot less fuel to launch rockets from the Moon than from Earth. Essentially, the Moon can be a great springboard for missions to Mars and beyond.
And that is one of the most important reasons why there are many countries trying to improve their Moon exploration capabilities. China announced in 2022 that it plans to launch three additional uncrewed missions to the Moon this decade. India has had great success with the Chandrayaan-3 mission that landed a lander and a rover near its South pole. Now, ISRO is also planning to launch a mission that will retrieve samples from the Moon.
The United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) this year announced a ten-year plan to develop a “lunar economy.” DARPA has been referred to as the “agency that shaped the modern world” by The Economist and its 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) capability study is aimed at developing the technology foundation to move towards shareable, scalable and interoperable systems to create services that can be monetised.
