Context

NASA is forging ahead with its ‘Artemis program’ to land humans on the moon by 2024, but the agency has also just offered its first plan for what a U.S. lunar presence may look like after that milestone.

About

• NASA is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman and the next man, on the Moon by 2024.
• Through the agency’s Artemislunar exploration program, NASA will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before.
• With the Artemis program NASA will:
  • Demonstrate new technologies, capabilities, and business approaches needed for future exploration including Mars
  • Establish American leadership and a strategic presence on the Moon while expanding our U.S. global economic impact
  • Broaden our commercial and international partnerships
  • Inspire a new generation and encourage careers in STEM

The new plan:

• The new plan comes from the report, titled "NASA’s Plan for Sustained Lunar Exploration and Development".
• It summarizes the vision NASAhas laid out for justifying and accomplishing the 2024 moon landing.
• But the report also looks farther out to focus on what a long-term presence on the moon and in lunar orbit would permit the U.S. to accomplish.

Artemis Base Camp 

• The star of the report is what NASA has dubbed Artemis Base Camp, meant to be a long-term foothold for lunar exploration, perhaps in Shackleton Craterat the moon's south pole.
• Artemis Base Camp itself would be a lunar foundation surface habitat that could host four astronauts at the south pole for visits of perhaps a week.
• In the long term, the facility would also require infrastructure for power, waste disposal and communications, as well as radiation shielding and a landing pad.
• The base could also be a site for testing new techniques for dealing with pesky lunar dustand the long, cold lunar nights, turning local materials into resources like water, and developing new power and construction technologies.
• The camp would be accompanied and supported by two mobility systems:
  • a lunar terrain vehicle to facilitate astronaut movement across the surface
  • a habitable mobility platform that could support trips away from base for up to 45 days.
• Mobility is a major part of the Artemis Base Camp. Robust mobility systems will be needed to explore and develop the moon.
• The same is true for Mars, making the habitable mobility platform a particularly important element as we will need a similar type of vehicle to explore the Red Planet.

Conclusion:

In the long term, the base camp will need infrastructure for power, waste disposal and communications, besides radiation shielding and a landing pad. The base camp will demonstrate the US’s continued leadership in space and will eventually help them prepare to undertake humanity’s first mission to Mars.