NASAs moon base will be a reality and Americans will live there within 20 years, agencys chief says

Fifty-seven years after Americans first landed on the moon, NASA is going back — not to plant another flag, but to build a permanent lunar base as it pushes to make humans an interplanetary species.It is all part of a big push by the space agency’s Administrator, Jared Isaacman, 43, to develop nuclear-powered spacecraft, grow a real space economy and eventually put Americans on Mars.The ambition comes at a time when the American public has never been more excited about NASA.“We’re polling at like 70% [for] America’s support to return to the moon, which is double that of during the Kennedy era,” Isaacman told me.For NASA, the moon is foundational to any lasting presence beyond low Earth orbit.

It could serve as a proving ground where astronauts extract water ice and turn it into oxygen, hydrogen, and propellant — the basic building blocks of life and transportation.The long-term goal is greater self-sufficiency, though Isaacman is careful not to oversell it.“I don’t know who’s rushing to have the first glass of moon water,” he quipped.After the inspiring success of the Artemis II mission this past spring, which marked the first return to the moon in over half a century, NASA has an aggressive timeline in the coming years.In 2027, it will launch Artemis III, which will put commercial lunar landing systems in low orbit, and start sending robotic landers and rovers to the south pole on a near-monthly basis to begin constructing a base.  “The three most powerful rockets in the world are going to launch in a span of about a week.

It’s going to be really quite cool,” Isaacman said.In 2028, NASA will endeavor to put astronauts back on the lunar surface with Artemis IV.This will lay the groundwork for the commercialization of space, with private companies building out their presence beyond Earth.“If we do want to have that extraordinary future that many of us imagine, you have to have some sort of a space economy to fund it,” he said.That ...