Artemis

NASA’s biggest mission in over 50 years will put boots back on the Moon and bring us one step closer to Mars

Reported by Ailsa Harvey

The Moon has captured the attention of humankind for as long as we have gazed upon the stars. Reflecting the Sun’s light each dark night, its presence reminds us of worlds beyond our own. But astronauts have done much more than simply look upon it. On 20 July 1969 the first humans landed on the Moon. As part of a series of missions dubbed the Apollo program, NASA astronauts returned to Earth with more knowledge of the rocky orb than our species had ever acquired before. But to think that a handful of missions to this world would make us experts of this foreign terrain would be a mistake. We have only explored a tiny portion of the Moon, and there is still so much more to learn.

It’s been half a century since we last visited the Moon, and NASA has made clear its plans to place the next astronauts on its surface by 2025. At least two more people will follow in the few dusty footsteps of the Apollo program’s moonwalkers. When the Apollo program was launched, we knew few details about the silvery sphere that graces our skies. Upon the astronauts’ successful return to Earth with samples from the Moon, we were able to learn the majority of what we know today about our planet’s natural satellite. We learned that the surface of the Moon has a dust covering and the structure contains a core, mantle and crust just like Earth’s. For Apollo, putting humans on the Moon was the main and final goal.