Lunar exploration runs in the family for the Petros. NASA lunar scientist Noah Petro interviews his father, Denis, about his work as an Apollo program engineer. In a heartfelt conversation, Noah and his dad examine the human impact of the momentous Apollo 11 mission and their shared passion for science and learning.
Ginny from Danville, Kentucky, tells a story about celebrating the Moon landing with her childhood friends and a secret lemonade stand.
This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13204
The primary objective of Apollo 11 was to complete a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961: perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth. The success of the mission was celebrated globally and united all humankind. This video shows the parades that celebrated the successful return of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent more than two hours outside their spacecraft on the Moon. They studied the surface. They collected rocks. After almost a day, they blasted off. They docked with Michael Collins in orbit around the Moon.
On July 20, 1969, humans walked on another world for the first time in history, achieving the goal that President John F. Kennedy had set in 1961, before Americans had even orbited the Earth. After a landing that included dodging a lunar crater and boulder field just before touchdown, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the area around their lunar landing site for more than two hours.
When the lunar module landed at 4:17 p.m EDT, only 30 seconds of fuel remained. Armstrong radioed “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Mission control erupted in celebration as the tension breaks, and a controller tells the crew “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we’re breathing again.”
A European drill and sample analysis package will search for water ice and other chemicals under the lunar surface onboard the Russian-led Luna-27 mission to the South Polar region of the Moon.
Operating at temperatures of less than –100 °C and drilling over one metre down, Prospect first needs to penetrate the lunar surface. This video features a series of drilling tests carried out at the Leonardo facilities in Italy in 2019.
Prospect includes a miniature laboratory called ProSPA which will analyse the soil samples retrieved by the drill. Precise measurements will help unearth the secrets of the Moon’s history and indicate whether future explorers could use lunar resources on their missions to help set up a lunar base.
The lunar south polar region is of great interest to lunar researchers and explorers because the low angle of the Sun over the horizon leads to areas of partial or even complete shadow. These shadowed areas and permanently dark crater floors, where sunlight never reaches, are believed to hide water ice and other frozen substances that could be analysed to better understand the natural processes that formed them, and used to produce resources such as oxygen and propellant in the future.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Join us for a trip down memory lane! Starting at 4:02 p.m. EDT on July 20, 2019, NASA TV replayed the original footage of the 1969 Moon landing. Relive the moment:
We Go: To the Moon and on to Mars. Our generation, the Artemis generation, will explore farther than we’ve ever gone before. The Artemis program will send the first woman and next man to walk on the surface of the Moon and build a sustainable base to prepare for missions to Mars and beyond.
Which camera to send to the Moon? The iconic images taken with the Hasselblad 500 series captivated the world. Today, Hasselblad cameras are synonymous with the Apollo missions. We visited Gothenburg to find out how a Swedish camera made it to the Moon.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
NASA Explorers: Apollo is an audio series that tells stories of the Moon and the people who explore it. During the Apollo program, the Moon became a part of the human domain. Twelve astronauts walked on the lunar surface, conducted research there and collected Moon rocks to bring back to Earth for study. Fifty years after humanity’s first steps on the Moon, today’s lunar scientists are searching for answers to the big questions: How did the Moon form? How did our solar system evolve? Did the Moon help life on Earth get its start?
Meet a Moon detective, scientists who study space rocks and people from all over the world whose lives were shaped by the epic adventures of the Apollo program. You can listen to NASA Explorers: Apollo on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Google Play and Facebook Watch.
Kaliah Hobbs (GSFC Interns): Lead Producer
Haley Reed (ADNET): Lead Producer
Katie Atkinson (GSFC Interns): Narrator
Katie Atkinson (GSFC Interns): Producer
Micheala Sosby (NASA/GSFC): Producer
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Technical Support
Music credits: “Tycho’s Daydream” by Daniel Wyantis
This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13204
Overview of the Heracles mission. We are leading an alliance of international space agencies to prepare a robotic mission to the Moon to retrieve samples and return them to Earth.
The video shows a launch on an Ariane 6 rocket, separation from the rocket boosters over Earth and a transfer to the Moon.
The Heracles lander will target a previously unexplored region near the lunar South Pole as an interesting area for researchers. A lander with a rover inside and ascent module on top will land there.
Monitored and controlled from the lunar Gateway, the rover will scout the terrain in preparation for the future arrival of astronauts, and collect samples.
The ascent module will take off from the surface and fly to the Gateway with the samples taken by the rover.
When the ascent module carrying the sample container arrives, the Gateway’s robotic arm will capture it and extract the sample container. The sample container will be received by the astronauts via a science airlock and pack it in NASA’s Orion spacecraft that is powered by the European Service Module.
Orion will fly to Earth with astronauts and land with the Heracles lunar samples for analysis in the best laboratories on Earth.
Other goals of the mission include testing new hardware, demonstrating technology and gaining experience in operations while strengthening international partnerships in exploration. Its development will provide an Ariane 64-based lunar cargo lander available for commercialisation by European and partners’ industry.
Heracles is an international programme to use the Gateway to the fullest and deliver samples to scientists on Earth using new technology that is more capable and lighter than previous missions.
Credits: ESA – Ducros – ATG/medialab
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
We are building a coalition of nations that can help us get to the Moon quickly and sustainably. Together.
We have a bold vision to go back to the Moon by 2024. As we work towards this goal, we welcome a growing list of international and commercial partners.
It is the partnerships over the last 60 years that have ensured the steady progress. With Mars on the horizon, together we can explore more of our solar system and share in the advances and the knowledge that will come.
NASA is going to the Moon and on to Mars, in a measured, sustainable way. Working with U.S. companies and international partners, NASA will push the boundaries of human exploration forward to the Moon. NASA is working to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon within the next decade to uncover new scientific discoveries and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy.
Right now, NASA is taking steps to begin this next era of exploration. #Moon2Mars
On the latest Watch This Space, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine looks back at 15 years of discoveries by our Opportunity rover on Mars, and forward to new commercial partnerships for missions to the Moon. Learn how we’ll work with American companies to design and develop human lunar landers and reusable systems so we can return to the Moon — to stay.
This video is available for download from NASA’s Image and Video Library: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2019_0221_Watch%20This%20Space%20with%20NASA%20Administrator%20Jim%20Bridenstine%20with%20the%20latest%20from%20the%20Moon%20and%20Mars.html
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Juice, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, is set to embark on a seven-year cruise to Jupiter starting May 2022. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant planets now known to orbit other stars.
This animation depicts the journey to Jupiter and the highlights from its foreseen tour of the giant planet and its large ocean-bearing moons.
An Ariane 5 will lift Juice into space from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou. A series of gravity-assist flybys at Earth (3), Venus (1) and Mars (1) will set the spacecraft on course for its October 2029 rendezvous in the Jovian system.
It is expected that a number of instruments will be activated during the gravity assists (indicated by the different coloured beams scanning across the planets) and measurements will be taken for calibration and to check the health of the instruments. The visualisations of the Earth flybys show the closest approaches over the planet according to current planning – over the South Pacific Ocean, Argentina and Peru, respectively. Throughout the animation, the instrument beam colours correspond to example observations by JANUS (green), MAJIS (red), UVS (purple), Gala (Blue) and RIME (grey), which are cameras, spectrometers, laser altimeter and radar.
During the Venus flyby, limited observations can be made because the spacecraft will be oriented to protect it from the heat of the Sun experienced in the inner Solar System. The Mars flyby will see Juice fly over the planet’s south pole to make scientific observations.
Juice will start its science mission about six months prior to arriving in orbit around the gas giant, making observations as it approaches its destination. Once in the Jovian system, a gravity-assist flyby of Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede – the largest moon in the Solar System – helps Juice enter orbit around the gas giant 7.5 hours later.
While in Jupiter orbit, the spacecraft will study the Jovian system as an archetype for gas giants, making observations of its atmosphere, the magnetosphere, its rings and satellites.
During the tour, Juice will make two flybys of Europa, which has strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water under its icy shell. Juice will look at the moon’s active zones, its surface composition and geology, search for pockets of liquid water under the surface and study the plasma environment around Europa.
A sequence of Callisto flybys will not only be used to study this ancient, cratered world that may too harbor a subsurface ocean, but it will change the angle of Juice’s orbit with respect to Jupiter’s equator, making it possible to investigate the polar regions and environment at higher latitudes.
During the tour there will also be unique periods to observe events such as moon transits. The example in this animation shows Europa and Io passing in front of Jupiter on 27 January 2032. This type of event is rare, with less than 10 expected to occur during Juice’s tour of the Jovian system.
A sequence of Ganymede and Callisto flybys will adjust the orbit of Juice to enable it to enter orbit around Ganymede, marking it the first spacecraft to orbit another planet’s moon (aside from our own). The elliptical orbit will be followed by a 5000 km altitude cicular orbit, and later a 500 km circular orbit.
Ganymede is unique in the Solar System in that it is the only moon to have a magnetosphere. Juice will investigate this phenomenon and the moon’s internal magnetic field, and the interaction of its plasma environment with that of Jupiter. Juice will also study the moon’s atmosphere, surface, subsurface, interior and its internal ocean, investigating the moon as a planetary object and possible habitat.
Over time the 500 km orbit will naturally decay – eventually there will not be enough propellant to maintain it – and it will make a grazing impact on the surface. The animation concludes with an example of what the approach to impact could look like.
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ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
50 years after the first human landed on the Moon, what is next? The exploration of our Moon is a global endeavour with Europeans and commercial actors playing a large role. The European Space Agency has developed an exploration programme based on four main missions.
Luna Resurs is a partnership with the Russian agency Roscosmos that will carry European technology to land precisely and safely on the Moon (PILOT) and to extract and analyse samples of the lunar terrain (PROSPECT).
Orion and the European Service Module will return humans to the Moon and take advantage of the new technology for human space transportation. Orion, the NASA spacecraft, will bring humans farther than they have never been before. ESA is providing the service modules that will provide propulsion, life support, power, air and water, and control the temperature in the crew module.
ISRU aims to extract and process resources on the Moon into useful products and services: “In-situ resource utilisation”. A mission to explore lunar resources could be a reality from 2025. The goal is to produce drinkable water or breathable oxygen on the Moon.
The Heracles mission could take of in 2028 to allow us to gain knowledge on human-robotic interaction while landing a spacecraft on the Moon, collecting samples with a rover operated from the lunar Gateway and send samples back to Earth.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The Moon has been circling the Earth for over four billion years, but where did it come from?
In this video, Ralf Jaumann, planetary geologist at the German Aerospace Centre, DLR, discusses the four theories that could explain the origin of the Earth-Moon system.
There are four theories about the origin of the Earth-Moon system.
The first is that Earth captured a celestial body in its orbit. Another possibility is that a rapidly rotating Earth could have thrown material out to form the Moon around it. A third theory is that Earth and the Moon formed at the same time out of the same material. Today, most scientists believe the Moon is ‘Earth’s child’ – a large body collided with Earth, destroying our planet’s mantle and sending material into orbit from which the Moon formed. This ‘big splash’ theory would explain why the Moon’s rocks are similar to those on Earth.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 arrived at the Moon and began orbital insertion. The Apollo spacecraft flew most of the way to the Moon sideways,pointed toward celestial “north” for guidance purposes.
NASA astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit and orbit another celestial body.
They were also the first humans to see the far side of the Moon, and Earth as a whole planet, taking the famous Earthrise photo.
On this 50th anniversary of the historic flight of Apollo 8, NASA wishes Season’s Greetings to everyone on the good Earth.
50 years ago, three NASA astronauts embarked on a journey that would take them “Round the moon and back”. The Apollo 8 mission proved the performance of the command and service module. This historic mission launched on December 21, 1968 to demonstrate a lunar trajectory and was the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket. On Christmas Eve, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were the first humans to orbit the Moon and the first to see an Earthrise above its surface.
Over the last two decades, space agencies have created more comfortable conditions on the International Space Station, but we need to explore the concept of ‘living in space’ much further if humans are to ever live and work on another world, such as the Moon or Mars.
ESA’s Discovery and Preparation Programme works to prepare ESA for the future of space exploration. As part of this programme, ESA has worked with academic and industrial partners on a huge number of studies that lay the groundwork for living in space.
The technology that exists today could easily take us to the Moon and beyond, but it is studies like those carried out under the Discovery and Preparation Programme that will make a trip resourceful, sustainable and productive.
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ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
With our Moon to Mars effort underway, a new administrator takes over to lead the charge, and – oh yeah – we stuck another nearly flawless landing on Mars! All that and more as we look back at what happened This Year @ NASA!
This video is available for download from NASA’s Image and Video Library: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2018_1217_NASA%20Begins%20America%E2%80%99s%20New%20Moon%20to%20Mars%20Exploration%20Approach%20in%202018%20-%20The%20Year%20@NASA.html
A week full of Moon to Mars and more for administrator Bridenstine, seeking ideas for future cargo deliveries to our Gateway, and an oddity of an iceberg … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!
This video is available for download from NASA’s Image and Video Library: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2018_1026_Talking%20Moon%20to%20Mars%20and%20more%20on%20This%20Week%20@NASA%20%E2%80%93%20October%2026,%202018.html
This visualization uses a digital 3D model of the Moon built from global elevation maps and image mosaics by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. It was created to accompany a performance of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune by the National Symphony Orchestra Pops, led by conductor Emil de Cou, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on June 1 and 2, 2018, as part of a celebration of NASA’s 60th anniversary.
Clair de Lune (moonlight in French) was published in 1905, as the third of four movements in the composer’s Suite Bergamasque, and unlike the other parts of this work, Clair is quiet, contemplative, and slightly melancholy, evoking the feeling of a solitary walk through a moonlit garden.
The visuals were composed like a nature documentary, with clean cuts and a mostly stationary virtual camera. The viewer follows the Sun throughout a lunar day, seeing sunrises and then sunsets over prominent features on the Moon. The sprawling ray system surrounding Copernicus crater, for example, is revealed beneath receding shadows at sunrise and later slips back into darkness as night encroaches.
This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4655
Följ med Paxi då han utforskar månen. I den här filmen förklarar Paxi månens faser och månförmörkelser. Filmen vänder sig till barn i åldern sex till tolv år.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, speaking from the European Astronaut Centre near Cologne in Germany, has a message of thanks to all those who’ve entered our Lunar 3D printing competition so far. A new lunar analogue test facility, called Luna for short, is currently being set up at EAC to test the technologies and techniques needed for any future Moon base – with 3D printing high on the list. And a team ESA’s technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, is overseeing a project to research in detail how 3D printing could be used in such a Moon base. We’re also interested in the human factor: what would you 3D print to make the Moon feel like home? That’s why we’re crowdsourcing your ideas through this competition. The closing date is 23 September 2018.
ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
What is a lunar eclipse? What is a solar eclipse? This short video explains the difference between these regularly occurring events that can be observed from Earth.
The video uses a mix of ground- and space-based imagery of eclipses, including footage from the International Space Station, ESA’s Proba-2 satellite and the Japanese-led Hinode satellite.
Remember: never look directly at the Sun, even when partially eclipsed, without proper eye protection such as special solar eclipse glasses, or you risk permanent eye damage.
Credits: ESA, ESA/CESAR (graphics, ground-based observations), NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (partial lunar eclipse sequence) ESA/NASA (ISS footage), ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium (Proba-2 footage), NASA/Hinode/XRT (Hinode image).
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida hosted a meeting of the National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, Feb. 21. This was the second meeting of the council, which President Trump reestablished last year. “Moon, Mars, and Worlds Beyond: Winning the Next Frontier” included testimonials from leaders in the civil, commercial, and national security sectors about the importance of the United States’ space enterprise.
January 31 brings a lunar trifecta: the super blue blood Moon! Starting at 5:30 a.m. Eastern, NASA TV will offer a livestream of the Moon. This full moon is the third in a series of “supermoons,” when the Moon is closer to Earth in its orbit — known as perigee — and about 14 percent brighter than usual. It’s the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a “blue moon.” The super blue moon will pass through Earth’s shadow to give viewers in the right location a total lunar eclipse. While the Moon is in the Earth’s shadow it will take on a reddish tint, known as a “blood moon.” More: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/super-blue-blood-moon-coming-jan-31
The Moon is a destination, a laboratory for science, a place to learn the skills of planetary exploration, and a source of materials and energy for use on the Moon and in space to create new spacefaring capability.
Advocate of a human return on the Moon, Paul D. Spudis, Senior Staff Scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston (Texas, USA), takes us on a journey to rediscover the value of lunar exploration, a topic on which he has spent more than 40 years of study, thought and publications.
Space Bites hosts the best talks on space exploration from the most inspiring and knowledgeable speakers from the field. Held at the technical heart of the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, the lectures are now also available on YouTube. If you want to know about the present and future challenges of ESA, stay tuned for more.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
2017: A year of groundbreaking discoveries and record-setting exploration at NASA. The Moon became a focal point for the agency, we brought you unique coverage of the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in the U.S. in 99 years, we announced the most Earth-size planets ever found in the habitable zone of a star outside our solar system, and more!
A series of nighttime photos were taken by ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli to create this time-lapse of the Earth as seen from the Space Station and the Moon rising above the horizon.
ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli in currently working and living on board the International Space Station as part of the Italian Space Agency’s long-duration VITA mission.
ESA’s vision for human spaceflight and robotic exploration is part of humanity’s road to the stars. Exploring is about visiting new places and coming back with new experiences and knowledge to help us on Earth.
Our strategy includes three destinations where humans will work with robots to gather new knowledge: low-Earth orbit on the International Space Station, the Moon – our closest neighbour, and our third destination Mars.
The exploration programme includes Europe’s service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft around the Moon, a landing on the Moon with Roscomos’ Luna lander and ESA’s Exomars rover on Mars.
A deep-space gateway farther afield than the International Space Station is considered as a springboard for exploration beyond the Moon.
Bricks have been 3D printed out of simulated moondust using concentrated sunlight. This ESA project took place at the DLR German Aerospace Center facility in Cologne, with a 3D printer table attached to a solar furnace, baking successive 0.1 mm layers of moondust at a temperature of 1000°C. A 20 x 10 x 3 cm brick for building can be completed in around five hours. DLR Cologne’s solar furnace has two working setups: as a baseline, it uses 147 curved mirror facets to focus either actual sunlight into a high temperature beam, employed to melt together the grains of regolith. But this mode is weather dependent, so a solar simulator was subsequently employed as well – based on an array of xenon lamps more typically found in cinema projectors.
‘The Moon – ESA’s interactive guide’ is a web documentary with over 40 videos narrated by scientists involved in lunar research. The platform allows you to explore your own path and discover the science, technology and the missions around our moon. An engaging space to satisfy your curiosity, learn and be inspired.
Former NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, following ongoing health issues, according to a statement from his family.
“It is with very deep sadness that we share the loss of our beloved husband and father,” said Cernan’s family. “Our family is heartbroken, of course, and we truly appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers. Gene, as he was known by so many, was a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.”
“Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation’s leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon,” the family continued.
Cernan, a Captain in the U.S. Navy, left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon. He also holds the distinction of being the second American to walk in space and the last human to leave his footprints on the lunar surface.
The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the passing of the Gemini and Apollo astronaut:
“Gene Cernan, Apollo astronaut and the last man to walk on the moon, has passed from our sphere, and we mourn his loss. Leaving the moon in 1972, Cernan said, ‘As I take these last steps from the surface for some time into the future to come, I’d just like to record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.’ Truly, America has lost a patriot and pioneer who helped shape our country’s bold ambitions to do things that humankind had never before achieved.”
According to the family, details regarding services will be announced in the coming days.
Almost 50 years since man first walked on the lunar surface, the head of the European Space Agency explains his vision for living and working on the Moon.
Johann-Dietrich Woerner believes the next giant leap for humankind could be an international collaboration of space faring nations in the form of a Moon village. This village would be a permanent lunar base for science, business, tourism or even mining.
Woerner explains how using the Moon’s own natural resources could help build and sustain a base by 3D printing a structure or building element. Robotic rovers could inflate protective domes for astronauts. He also discusses the potential hazards of living on the Moon as well as the possible locations of he lunar base and the advantages of a new global space project.
Jan Woerner, Director General of the European Space Agency, has a bold new vision for space exploration. “My intention is to build up a permanent base station on the Moon,” he tells Euronews from the agency’s main control room in Darmstadt. “Meaning that it’s an open station, for different member states, for different states around the globe.”
Mankind has never had a permanent lunar presence, and so this new vision, that Woerner likes to call the ‘Moon village’, would represent a giant leap in space exploration.
