Lunar exploration
Sending robotic or crewed missions to the Moon's surface to study it, extract resources, or establish a staging point for deeper space activity.
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The Moon sits roughly 385,000 km away — three days by current spacecraft. Its surface holds water ice in permanently shadowed polar craters, which can be split into hydrogen and oxygen for propellant, making it a potential fuel depot for missions beyond Earth orbit. The hard parts are landing precisely on uneven terrain, surviving the two-week lunar night when temperatures fall below −170°C, and building supply chains across a distance where round-trip radio signals take two and a half seconds. After the Apollo era ended in 1972, the Moon sat largely unvisited; falling launch costs have reopened it as a commercial and scientific destination.
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Around the Moon again
On April 6, four astronauts swung around the far side of the Moon and reached 252,756 miles from Earth — the farthest any human crew has ever traveled, and the first lunar voyage since 1972.
The $4-billion launch Congress wouldn't kill
The White House budget called the Moon rocket SLS 'grossly expensive' at $4 billion a flight and moved to cancel it; Congress refused, and the rocket it tried to kill still launches the next crew to lunar orbit.
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