We’re Going to the Moon — Who’s Next?
Fifty years ago, Apollo 11 placed human beings on the Moon for the first time in history, in one “giant step for mankind.” Between 1969 to 1972, NASA landed a pair of astronauts on our planetary companion during six of their seven attempts. No one has repeated the arduous task of placing human beings on the lunar surface since that time. But, that may soon change.
The desire to send space travelers on the Moon was driven by the Cold War, as the United States and Soviet Union raced each other to be the first nation to claim their citizens walked on the lunar surface. Today, the reasons to journey back there are different, and also compelling. We now know the Moon has water, and plentiful supplies of helium-3, an atomic isotope that could provide abundant, safe energy for the inhabitants of our home world.
“Unlike Earth, which is protected by its magnetic field, the Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor, since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products,” the European Space Agency (ESA) explains.
As we start to populate the Solar System, the Moon also offers us a stopping-off point to the planets, where we may be able to harvest water, a precious resource in the harsh climate of…
