To the Moon (Published 2022) (2024)

Human beings will soon walk on the moon again, if NASA gets its way.

NASA plans to launch an uncrewed spacecraft, part of the Artemis I mission, as soon as this weekend to orbit the moon and then return to Earth after about a month and a half. If everything goes as planned, a future mission could land astronauts on the moon in 2025.

Today’s newsletter will explain why NASA is doing this now and what it means for the future of space travel.

Why the moon?

Several factors are driving NASA to get astronauts back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. One is a long-running desire to get human beings on Mars. The Artemis missions will test some of the technology and logistics required to do that.

“If you believe that the future of humanity is spreading across the solar system, the first stop has to be the moon,” my colleague Ken Chang, who covers NASA, told me. “If you can’t figure that out, you’re certainly not getting to Mars.”

But a mission to the moon also has some scientific value on its own. Rocks collected in previous missions, for example, revealed the moon’s origin: It likely formed from debris after an object the size of Mars hit Earth more than four billion years ago.

In the Artemis missions, NASA is especially interested in studying ice in lunar craters. Depending on how long it’s been there, the ice and its characteristics could provide a history of the solar system. The ice could also be used to establish permanent bases on the moon, if it can be turned into drinking water, oxygen or spacecraft fuel (as Ken explained in The Times).