NASA first took astronauts to the Moon in 1969, and then did so five more times. So why in 2026 is NASA returning to the Moon but without landing on it?
Landing people on the Moon is difficult, and no one has done it since 1972.
This is because, after Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon during Apollo 11, many Americans felt that the space race with the Soviet Union had been won and that further lunar exploration was not worth the cost. In the following decades, NASA focused on low Earth orbit, with the space shuttle and the International Space Station.
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But now the United States wants to go back to the Moon (and China wants to go for the first time). President Donald Trump made returning to the Moon a priority during his first term, and the program has continued under President Joe Biden.
The Moon is a logical place to send people, both as a place for scientific exploration and as a place that could be mined for resources — like frozen water for future space missions and helium-3 for futuristic energy technologies.
But with a task as complicated as establishing a presence on the Moon, it’s wise not to try to do too many things at once, especially when human lives are at stake.
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Things have changed since the last time humans traveled to the Moon in 1972. Today’s technology, especially computing, has advanced far beyond what existed in the Apollo era. Inevitably, something will not perform exactly as designed, and it will be wise to identify and correct these problems before attempting a landing.
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This is part of the purpose of the Artemis II mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon, but without landing there.
Furthermore, NASA can’t land on the Moon without a lander, and there isn’t one ready yet.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, has a contract to build this spacecraft. Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon creator Jeff Bezos, also has it. Under the current schedule, NASA wants to attempt two landings by the end of 2028.
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The Artemis II contract went to older NASA contractors. Boeing, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance built parts of the Space Launch System rocket that launched Wednesday, and Lockheed Martin built the Orion capsule that the SLS rocket carries.
There’s something else NASA needs before it can fly people back to the Moon: new spacesuits for astronauts to wear when they exit the lander. They are being developed by a Houston-based company called Axiom Space.
c.2026 The New York Times Company
