A senior NASA official told the BBC that in the coming years the American space organization not only has in mind the goal of returning humans to the Moon, but of having some live there.
A milestone that would mark new historic goals for civilization, all "children" of the ambitious hopes that NASA has for its Artemis program.
Live on the Moon by 2030
Howard Hu is the person who oversees the Orion spacecraft used in the Artemis program. And in an interview given to the BBC he stated that NASA is already aiming to bring humans permanently to our satellite during “this decade”.
It will take a lot of effort if the goal is just that: the unmanned mission Artemis 1 it launched this week after months of delays. In the test flight (which will lead to lunar orbit) 3 "dummies" are involved which will allow the exposure to space radiation to be assessed.
Unforeseen circumstances permitting, in just over a year (in 2024) Artemis 2 will bring humans into lunar orbit, and in a year Artemis 3 other humans will set a foot and a flag on the Moon once again. 2025, in short, like a new year zero. How long will it take from there to a lunar base?
And further still, on the journey of human beings to Mars?
Humans haven't set foot on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission. It was 1972, and I hadn't been born yet.
The mammoth Artemis program (with an estimated cost of 93 billion dollars) has been ongoing for years with the aim of establishing a human presence on the moon before travel to mars.
Hu told the BBC that a main goal will be to explore the moon's south pole to determine whether there is water there. Helium-3, water and Regolith they may be the 3 pillars that will found human exploration of the cosmos, starting from the red planet.
And when the Orion capsule of the Artemis 1 mission returns to Earth (or, if you prefer, lands in the ocean) on December 11th, it will already be time to think about what's next.
The new space race, more open than ever
The renewed interest in space missions has unleashed a new space race, no longer just public, on the contrary: with massive injections of money and private activities.
Leaving aside Elon Musk and its SpaceX already involved in these important months, also the founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, visited the space on July 11 last year. A few days later, on July 20th, too Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon e Blue Origin, went up there.
Who knows if this competition will really make us burn the steps, not just the fuel, to also plant the first "home" of human beings on the Moon.
