Alex McColgan

Also, as part of the mission, two members of the crew will remain in orbiting Gateway

while the other two will land at the south pole of the Moon, where they will remain for about one week.

They too will be expected to perform several moonwalks, again to examine samples of water ice and perform other scientific observations around the pole.

It is proposed that included in this team will be the first female astronaut on the Moon, although names have not yet been picked.

The spacesuits they use will be a vast improvement over the Apollo counterparts.

They incorporate a new design to grant much more mobility.

If you remember the videos of the first Apollo missions to the moon, you will remember that the astronauts moved around very awkwardly, jumping around like rabbits.

In this mission, they can walk and flex their legs.

So thanks to this greater mobility and the use of modern cameras, we can expect a series of epic videos of these astronauts walking on the moon.

Building on the Artemis III mission, NASA is planning to start construction on the Moon itself to build a lunar colony that they hope will one day be self-sufficient.

Everything that is learned in this colony in the relative proximity to Earth will be valuable experience which can be used eventually on the Red Planet.

This includes oxygen production systems, water recycling, plant cultivation, and in general, making the room suitable for a long-term human presence.

Going to the moon may be more economically viable than going to Mars, at least in the short term, because not only are the costs of sending something to the moon lower, but the moon can be a source of rare materials, for instance helium-3, which would be useful in a future nuclear fusion generator on the moon, and it might have more uses on Earth too.

This element is exceptionally rare on Earth, and at one point it reached the price of $2,000 per gramme.

In addition, the Moon could be used as a steel plant for the manufacture of metal foams.

On Earth, this is achieved by injecting pressurised air into cast metal, but the process is tricky because bubbles can be produced that rise and explode, making the manufacturing of metal foams on Earth very difficult and expensive.

On the other hand, in the low lunar gravity, this process would be much simpler, and the spongy structure of the metal much more uniform and of a higher quality.

Once the material is ready, it is very easy to send it to Earth, since you don't need a large rocket due to the weak lunar gravity.

One possibility is that it could be launched back to Earth with a magnetic catapult, something like a railgun, launching the order back to Earth or into orbit around the Moon to be picked up by a spacecraft later on.

Again though, that's something for the far future.