NASA's Artemis program plans to return humans to the moon in 2027. Key figures involved in the initiative and future uses of the Moon explain how it's going to happen and what a lunar future might look like.

NASA plans to send four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon as part of the Artemis program, with a crewed lunar landing targeted for 2027, though delays are possible. Unlike the Apollo missions, Artemis aims to establish a long-term presence at the lunar south pole, seeking resources like frozen water to support future exploration and potential missions to Mars.

The program involves commercial partners such as Firefly Aerospace and Interlune, which are exploring economic opportunities on the moon, including resource extraction. The Artemis program has a projected cost of $93 billion through 2025 and faces both budgetary and ethical questions, particularly regarding the commercialization of lunar resources and the cultural significance of the moon.

When will NASA return humans to the Moon, and why?

NASA will send four astronauts on a 10-day voyage around the moon in 2026, the latest step in a mission to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time in more than five decades. But the current Artemis program has different goals and methods to the Apollo landings of the 60s and 70s, involving moon bases and missions to Mars. Artemis, named after the twin sister to Apollo, was spawned by U.S. President Donald Trump's first presidency. There are also other plans to land humans on the moon. Most notably, China, which has in recent years invested heavily in its space program, wants to achieve the feat by 2030. But at present, Artemis is likely to be first. It's a series of missions, including Artemis III, which currently expects to return humans to the moon in 2027, though space analysts expect that date to slip. The plan is to land astronauts at the Lunar South Pole, a place where humans have never previously set foot. The choice of location is significant, says Dr. Laurie Glaze, the acting administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, which oversees Artemis. That's a place that, as we explore, we may be able to find resources like frozen water that could be used in place. We could turn that frozen ice into liquid water for drinking and then convert it, split it into oxygen and hydrogen for breathing and for fuel. And that would be significant, she said, for establishing a longer-term NASA presence on the moon. In addition to scientific discovery and exploration, that longer-term presence is part of another goal, as humans take further steps into our solar system. And that's going to prepare us to send astronauts to Mars. One of the companies working with NASA on Artemis is Firefly Aerospace. In February, it became the second U.S. company to land on the moon, using its Blue Ghost lander propelled by a SpaceX rocket. Firefly CEO Jason Kim. The gravity on the moon is, you know, much lighter than on Earth. And because of that, you know, taking things and taking off of the moon's surface and taking resources to Mars is actually more straightforward than doing it from Earth. The involvement of commercial partners such as Firefly is one way, Glaze said, in which Artemis differs from Apollo. But she also sees a commercial future for the moon's surface through what she described as a lunar economy. So we very well could see commercial activities going on at the moon with other companies visiting on a routine basis. The Interlune harvesting system involves... One business hoping to profit is Interlune. It wants to extract Helium-3 from the lunar regolith, the loose layer of rocks and debris on the moon's surface. Helium-3 has a variety of uses on Earth, including in national security, healthcare and quantum computing. It's rare on Earth, but abundant on the moon, says co-founder and CEO Rob Meyerson. Helium-3 sells for $20 million a kilogram, so it is the only resource in the universe that is priced high enough to warrant going to space and bringing it back to Earth today. Meyerson said Interlune's method is mindful of protecting the lunar surface and that the regolith is replaced so that what is left looks like a tilled field. Asked about a private company profiting from what is seen as a global asset, he said Interlune would never claim any part of the moon as its own, and that it was serving customers in important areas. According to a report from the NASA Office of Inspector General, the Artemis programme was expected to cost $93 billion from 2012 through to 2025. However, cuts proposed to the NASA budget by the Trump administration would axe key parts of the programme. Glaze said NASA has suppliers across the U.S. and that the funding for the Artemis programme is invested in every state. So we are generating jobs and for every dollar that we spend on this hardware, $3 comes back into the U.S. Treasury. Glaze says the moon could look like a very different place in the next 50 to 100 years, citing the commercial activities there and the sustained NASA presence. Myerson said the reusability of rockets, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9, has been a key step in lowering the cost of access to space. What's next, he predicts, is building things in space using resources sourced in space, removing the need to launch materials from Earth. Then you can start to think about really long-term practical things, building out giant space stations where people live that rotate to simulate gravity. Once you have fusion reactors on Earth, you can start to think about building direct fusion drive propulsion that gets us between the Earth and Mars in 30 to 60 days instead of six to seven months. However, such plans raise ethical questions, says Dr David Jeevan Jampalai, a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Manchester, who specialises in outer space. So if you're building infrastructure on the moon, if you're taking the moon's resources, is that enabling a transition of resources to the wealthy? Is it enabling a transition of moon territory and sovereignty and the moon as a cultural object to the few? Almost every culture, Jeevan Jampalai said, has some form of moon myth or relationship with the moon. Therefore, he argued, such space programmes should feature more international dialogue around their cultural implications. What if one person's future building, he asked, is another person's denigration of a sacred space?

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