Return to the moon

On the 40th anniversary of the first man on the moon, NASA is looking 11 years into the future to the next men — and women — on the moon.

Since initiating its Constellation program in 2005, the space agency has planned to return to the moon in 2020, in part, to prepare for future manned missions to other parts of our solar system, such as Mars, said NASA spokeswoman Lynette Madison.

A key element is developing the technology to help people to work and live on the moon for up to 180 days — an ongoing effort that had its genesis in the Apollo program that put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 and has continued through the space shuttle program and the International Space Station project.

“Before you can go someplace like Mars, you really need to be able to establish an understanding of how to live off the planet, and this is the next step,” Ms. Madison said of the 2020 moon mission.

She noted that a mission to Mars would be lengthy: six months to get there, a year on the Red Planet and then six months to return to Earth.

Consequently, the moon will become a steppingstone to the rest of the solar system, a proving ground for new technologies and a training facility for a new generation of space explorers, NASA officials said.

“What we envision is having a … sustained U.S. presence on the moon … being able to live off the land, to get oxygen for lunar regulators,” said John Olson, a manager in NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. “We will explore to see if there’s water, ice at the poles. We can use the sunlight to power our systems.”

In every way the Apollo program’s methods and machinery will be eclipsed by Orion — the heavenly name given to the crew exploration vehicle that will investigate the moon’s surface. On the first return trip to the moon, astronauts will stay seven days — more than twice the Apollo astronauts’ three-day record.

What’s more, Orion is considerably bigger than Apollo’s modules to accommodate a larger crew, with three- or four-man teams replacing the two-man groups that explored the moon’s surface in the 1960s and early ‘70s.

“When it comes time for a Mars mission, we will look at increasing the seats,” said John Connolly, a vehicle engineering manager in NASA’s Constellation program.

However, Mr. Olson said NASA’s plan for a “sustained U.S. presence on the moon” does not exclude international partners in the mission.

The U.S. will build the transportation system that will transport the astronauts from Earth to the moon and back, but other countries are open to help in other ways, Mr. Olson said, adding that NASA always has intended to have international involvement in the project.

“It will be an international effort,” Ms. Madison said. “We have no firm commitments, but we are beginning to work with them. … It will take an international effort to do something as large as this project is.”

The sharing of resources, data and technology will be important to the next moon mission’s success, officials said.

In fact, much of the technology that NASA has developed to help moon explorers live and work on the lunar surface already has been tested, approved and shared — in various commercial markets.

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