Artemis II mission was a triumph. Now comes the hard part

BBC:

Nasa’s Artemis II mission has successfully sent four astronauts sweeping around the far side of the Moon and landed them safely back home.

The Orion spacecraft performed admirably and the images the astronauts captured have delighted a whole new generation about the possibilities of space travel.

But does this mean that the children enthralled by the mission will be able to live and work on the Moon in their lifetimes? Perhaps even go to Mars, as the Artemis programme promises?

It seems churlish to say, but looping the Moon was relatively easy. The really hard part lies ahead, so the answer is “maybe, maybe not”.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon in July 1969, many assumed it was only the beginning and that people would soon be living and working in space.

That didn’t happen because the Apollo programme was born not from a love of exploration, but from the Cold War, to demonstrate US superiority over the Soviet Union. That feat was achieved by Armstrong’s “one small step” off his lunar lander – job done.

Just a few years after he planted the American flag on the lunar surface, the TV audience figures for subsequent missions plummeted and future Apollo missions were scrapped.

This time, Nasa’s stated ambition is different. Administrator Jared Isaacman has set out plans for one crewed lunar landing per year, beginning in 2028, with the fifth Artemis mission – planned for later that same year – marking the start of what the agency calls its Moon base.

It sounds like science fiction, but here are the words of a serious space player dealing in science fact: “The Moon economy will develop,” Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), tells me.

“It will take time to set up the various elements, but it will develop.”

But as the commander of Apollo 13 famously said when his spacecraft malfunctioned on the way to the Moon: “Houston, we’ve had a problem…”