from The Washington Post via MSN
The moon beckons once again, and this time NASA wants to stay
by Christian Davenport
In 2010, during a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, President Barack Obama directed NASA away from its primary target, the moon, to focus its human exploration missions beyond the lunar surface to an asteroid and Mars.
“I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before,” he said. “There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do.”
The United States has since reversed course, with the moon once again the centerpiece of NASA’s exploration goals. Under its Artemis program — born during President Donald Trump’s tenure and embraced by the Biden administration — NASA has real momentum and bipartisan political support for one of the most ambitious human space flight efforts in decades. It began with the launch of its massive SLS moon rocket and Orion spacecraft on Nov. 16, a mission without any people on board. The Artemis I mission will be followed by subsequent flights with astronauts — first orbiting the moon and then eventually landing on the surface.
But despite the progress, the concern raised by Obama still hovers over the space program: We’ve been there, done that. Why return to the moon?
The answer, said Thomas Zurbuchen, the recently retired head of NASA’s science mission directorate, begins with the presence of water.