NASA is going back to the Moon, but this time around, there will be a woman stepping foot on the lunar surface.
Recently, the American space agency formally outlined its $28 billion plan to return to the Moon in 2024, with the mission being called Artemis. The plan involves sending both a man and a woman to the lunar surface, marking the first time humans have gone back to the Moon since 1972. There, they will extract valuable deposits of water-ice from the lunar South Pole.
We don’t know who will be the first woman astronaut to walk the Moon in 2024, but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said back in 2019 it will be someone “who has been proven, somebody who has flown, somebody who has been on the International Space Station already”. When asked about the timeline for choosing crew members for Artemis, the NASA chief said he hoped to pick a team at least two years prior to the first mission.
Looking beyond 2024, NASA outlined further plans to establish a base for humans later in the decade. The idea is that with a base, which would be called Artemis Base Camp, NASA will have the infrastructure needed for the long-term exploration of the Moon.
