Nell Greenfield Boyce

So in addition to these NASA astronauts, there's a Canadian Space Agency astronaut named Jeremy Hansen who's going.

So for a landing, you need a lander, right?

You need a vehicle that can actually go down to the moon and then get astronauts up off it again.

And that's in development.

So there's two companies working on it.

NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Blue Origin.

And the new administrator of NASA is this guy, Jared Isaacman.

He's a

wealthy entrepreneur, a private astronaut, and he's been pushing those two companies to speed up development of the lunar landers.

And he actually added a new Artemis mission next year that's supposed to test out one or both of them in orbit.

So, you know, Isaac Min has said that there could be a moon landing as soon as 2028, assuming those tests of the lander go well.

But, you know, people I talk to think that that seems pretty optimistic.

So NASA has said that it doesn't want just flags and footprints, right?

It says that it wants to establish a near continuous human presence on the moon, sort of like we have a presence in Antarctica, right?

So it's laid out this fairly ambitious plan that includes all these robotic missions, you know, development of a power station and a lunar base where astronauts could live.

And

You know, Jared Isaacman has said recently that the goal is that there would be lunar landings of various kinds on a near monthly basis.

The question is, is there going to be the money for that and the appetite for that?

You know, I mean, they're saying they're going to do it cheaper than the days of the Apollo program because they're going to use commercial partners and stuff.

But still, I mean, he's got a three phase plan and phase one alone would cost like, you know, $10 billion.