Man could soon return to the moon
In 1972 the Apollo 17 mission saw the last man to step on the moon, commander Eugene Cernan entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt. To this day he remain the last man on the moon. But this is set to change.
Backed by Nasa and SpaceX under its Artemis program Nasa will be sending the first woman and the 13th person to the moons lunar surface in 2025. This was original planned for 2024 but partially due to a lawsuit on contacts for the lunar landing vehicle this has been put back to 2025.
Artemis 3 will be the first mission to return to the surface of the moon since Apollo 17 and is set to land at the south pole of the lunar surface. It is thought the south pole has vast amounts of ice in craters. The ice in these craters could be used to make rocket fuel on the moon to help bring down the costs of lunar exploration.
Nasa officials have said they want to create something permanent for the long run, Artemis aims to create an sustainable human presence on the moon by the end of the 2020's and this will act as a stepping stone towards Mars where Nasa wants to send astronauts in the 2030's
The Artemis base camp has been planned for the south pole as we know there is vast amounts of water there. As water is H2O this means and abundant supply of oxygen, Liquid oxygen is also the rocket propellant allowing spaceships to refuel for deeper space exploration.
The south polo of the Lunar surface has sun light approximately 90 percent of the time this makes it ideal for a lunar outpost dependant on solar power.
