Will future missions to the Moon be sustainable? It may depend on whom you ask |
There’s a new space race to the Moon, and this time the ambitions are not just to visit but to stay. NASA’s Artemis program aims to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface in the 2030s. China, India, Japan and a number of private companies all have lunar mission programs of their own.
As of now, the human footprint on the Moon is small. That could change with the planned increase of lunar missions.
National space agencies are focused on science and exploration, while private companies aim to develop a lunar economy – potentially with mining operations. In the coming years, these groups will test technology and build some initial infrastructure on the Moon. From 2030 onward, Moon bases could become a reality.
But what are the long-term consequences of lunar missions for the Moon itself? The Artemis program’s goals are sustainable exploration and setting up a sustainable presence on the Moon. However, sustainability is a broad concept with a variety of definitions and uses when it comes to space exploration. As a sustainability scholar, a space systems engineer and a planetary scientist, we’ve been trying to pin down what sustainability means in a lunar context.
The delicate lunar environment
Unlike Earth, the Moon has no biodiversity, climate as we typically think of it, or oceans. But it does have its own active environment. While the Moon may seem unchanging and indestructible, it........