Astronauts are on course to be living and working on the moon before the end of the decade, according to a Nasa official. Howard Hu, the head of the US agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft programme, said humans could be active on the moon for “durations” before 2030, with habitats to live in and rovers to support their work.
“Certainly, in this decade, we are going to have people living for durations, depending on how long we will be on the surface. They will have habitats, they will have rovers on the ground,” he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme. “We are going to be sending people down to the surface, and they are going to be living on that surface and doing science,” he added.
Hu was put in charge of Nasa’s spacecraft for deep-space exploration in February, and on Sunday he was speaking as the 98-metre (322ft) Artemis rocket powered towards the moon on its first uncrewed mission.
The giant rocket, which is topped with the Orion spacecraft, launched on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral in Florida after a series of delays owing to technical glitches and hurricanes.
Credit: theguardian.com
