Plans for a future moon baseCourtesy of ESA/RegoLight, visualisation: Liquifer Systems Group, 2018
In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission saw the first humans step foot on the moon, marking the end of the space race and the beginning of a new era of exploration. Six more trips followed, five of them ending in successful spacewalks.
But then, in 1972, we abruptly stopped visiting. Numerous space-based milestones have been reached since then – from the assembly of the International Space Station, to the ongoing exploration of Mars – but nothing has captured the public imagination quite like moonwalking.
So… why did we stop? Maybe unsurprisingly, the main reason was money. The cost of sending astronauts to the moon was (and still is) quite literally astronomical. Plus, since the space race was already won, there wasn’t much political incentive to fund efforts over the last 50 years. Now, though, that’s all set to change.
Last week, NASA unveiled a next-generation spacesuit for a new mission to the lunar surface, scheduled to take place before the end of the decade. The buildup is already underway. Artemis 1, a mission that saw the space agency’s newest technology fly around the moon and back, was successfully completed in December.
Artemis 2 is set to do the same thing as early as next year, with a crew of four astronauts. If all goes well, the Artemis 3 mission will see space boots on the lunar surface before the end of the 2020s. For the first time, human beings will visit the moon’s south pole. The astronauts will also include the first-ever female moonwalker, with NASA promising that the first person of colour on the moon will be sent up in following Artemis missions.
Artemis isn’t just a mission to diversify the moon, though (wait until the moon landing conspiracists found out that spaceflight’s gone woke). As technology improves and spaceflight becomes increasingly viable, NASA is finding new incentives to visit the moon in person, and it isn’t alone. Last month, China unveiled a new lunar lander and announced its hopes to put the first Chinese astronauts on the surface by 2030.
This week, the UK backed Rolls-Royce in the development of a nuclear power source for a potential future moon base. The European Space Agency (or ESA) is pouring resources into helping NASA get back to the moon, developing modules for its crew transportation system as well as critical parts of its Lunar Gateway. The ESA also has its own lunar lander under development, which is expected to launch in the early 2030s.
Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the cheese. Why now? Well, for a long time the main focus of the space community was the International Space Station, says ESA’s Bernhard Hufenbach. However, when the ISS was deemed a success in the 2000s, they began to look beyond it. “It was simply a question of what’s next for human spaceflight.” This led to the publication of the Global Exploration Strategy in 2007, which lays out a roadmap for what comes next: “The moon, and then Mars, as a long-term goal.”
Today, establishing a fixed presence on the moon is considered “the next step in human spaceflight”, Hufenbach explains. “But it’s always seen as a step to prepare for the Mars mission. The Mars mission is still the holy grail of human spaceflight because it’s scientifically interesting and would be the first other planet we visit. And there’s consensus among the expert community that [we] need to learn a lot to go to Mars, and the moon is a good stepping stone.”
Source: Man on the moon: are we ready for the age of lunar tourism? | Dazed
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