It’s been decades since the last manned moon landing, Apollo 17, which happened in December 1972.

Isn’t it time we thought about going back to our dusty satellite and maybe even staying there? NASA has made a promise on this subject.

They’re preparing to send astronauts on the moon again, perhaps by 2025.

This will all happen through a program called Aremis.

It’s also going to include the first woman ever to experience the lunar surface.

Now, you might ask, why haven’t we done this already? One former NASA administrator said something interesting on the subject.

It’s not because of scientific or technological issues.

Problem was that the potential projects took too long and were just too costly.

You see, space travel, especially when it involves humans, isn’t easy on the pockets.

It’s true that in recent years, NASA had budgets of billions of dollars.

Sure sounds like enough money, right? Well, not when you check out their to-do list.

That’s because they have to consider everything from telescopes and giant rocket projects to missions also targeting the sun, Jupiter, Mars, and beyond.

When you look at it this way, NASA needs to be very good at budgeting to achieve all those goals.

It’s not just because of finances, though.

The moon itself is quite problematic.

It poses real dangers that cannot be taken lightly.

For starters, its surface is filled with craters and boulders that aren’t easy to land on.

Then there is the moon dust or regalith if you’d like to call it by its scientific name.

It was created over many years by meteorite impacts.

It’s extremely harsh and sticks to everything.

It can potentially damage spacuits, vehicles, and systems quite quickly.

Also dealing with the lunar habitat isn’t a walk in the park either.

The moon has no protective atmosphere.

What this means is that for 14 days at a time, the lunar surface is faced with harsh rays from the sun.

That period is followed by another 2 weeks of total darkness.

All these changes create extreme temperatures which us humans are not really accustomed to.

There are solutions.

Don’t worry.

NASA is working on dust and sun resistant space suits and vehicles.

They’re even developing a system that might supply electricity during those lunar nights.

What’s even more interesting about this system is it could come in handy on Mars, too, once we get there.

NASA also needs to draw in really smart people for its projects.

Think about it.

The average age of the people working for the mission control for Apollo 13 was just 26 years old.

And these people had already been part of numerous missions by that time, which means they’d had considerable experience from a very young age.

But here’s where other individuals can help, too.

In recent years, it wasn’t just NASA who’s been working tirelessly to revolutionize space travel.

There are many successful people out there with enough resources to join in on these efforts.

Some are developing new types of rockets that can land on the moon, too.

In total, NASA landed 12 people on our satellite.

It’s definitely one of the most awesome moments in its history, if not the best.

And those astronauts did amazing things up there.

They brought back rocks, took snapshots, did science experiments, and even left flags behind.

These were all important moments of the Apollo missions, but they weren’t meant to create a safe place for humans on the moon.

Scientists have had this idea of a lunar space station for a long time now.

It’s only logical.

After all, it’s just a 3-day trip from Earth.

It means we can technically afford to make little mistakes here and there without messing up the whole project.

Plus, we’d learn so much before venturing even further into space.

A moon base could provide fuel for deep space missions.

We could also build telescopes up there and launch them way easier in space.

It could also help us in another important project.

Figure out how to make Mars habitable, too.

Not to mention, a lunar space station would help us learn more about the moon’s origin.

Who knows, it could even bring in some money because of all that fun, exciting lunar tourism.

Either way, the Apollo moon program took a lot of work.

For starters, let’s look at the sheer number of people involved.

Around 400,000 from every corner of the states.

Not everything was picture perfect tough.

There were two main unfortunate events.

Firstly, a fire mishap at the launchpad of Apollo 1.

Secondly, an oxygen tank decided to throw a tantrum on Apollo 13, causing severe issues mid-m mission.

An important part of the project was Saturn 5.

It is to this day the most powerful rocket flown successfully being 36 stories high.

Still finding it hard to picture? This rocket stood twice as tall as Niagara Falls.

Thanks to Saturn 5, NASA successfully completed 13 missions.

This included chauffeuring 24 astronauts towards the moon with half of them even having a little walk on its surface.

The existing rockets and space shuttles can’t go beyond low Earth orbit.

In simpler terms, they can’t reach the moon with all the gadgets astronauts need to thrive.

Current space vehicles are just not capable of carrying that load, at least not since the Apollo missions happened.

Regardless, we did make a lot of progress on Earth and are ready to send astronauts to our satellite pretty soon.

Here’s where the Aremis project comes in.

It’s a program overseen by NASA.

And to make sure it all goes well, NASA previously launched Orion, a spacecraft with no crew on board to orbit the moon and return to Earth.

Think of it as an automated test drive.

Before we actually send people out there again, we need to make sure all the devices work properly.

One day, Orion will be the vehicle that will take astronauts to the moon again.

It features a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe in case something bad happens during launch.

It also has a service module which is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion and keeps astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power, and temperature control.

All these future projects make one wonder life on the moon be like anyway.

We can only use our imagination for now.

Some say we’ll be living in homes straight out of a fairy tale, something like a cozy hobbit hole.

Living underground on the moon might be a must.

That’s due to the scorching temperatures and the lack of oxygen.

If you add meteorite threats and the non-stop radiation, it’s no wonder we can’t just walk on its surface.

What about transportation? Big and small companies alike are trying to create the ideal moon ride.

If current estimations are current, one type of moon taxi will take off as soon as 2024.

Unlike our current rockets, these space taxis won’t have to deal with the harsh conditions of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

It will be easier for them to make multiple round trips.

To support our lunar living, we’ll need to have a special area for space taxis to safely take off and land.

Think of it as a landing pad on a firm, flat stretch of moon surface, protected by walls to shield against moon dust.

Moving around on the moon surface will be made easier, too.

The next generation vehicles we’re talking about will have their own controlled environment, which means you won’t need a space suit while inside.

Should feel like stepping out of your space ride for a bit.

Then of course you’ll need to put on your space suit.

All right, so we’ve got our homes and our rides sorted.

But what about fuel? That’s where the moon throws us a lifeline.

The moon’s lighter gravity means we don’t need as much power to escape its pull.

Plus, the moon has ice, and that’s super handy.

We might be able to convert this ice into rocket fuel.

We’ll need dedicated space gadgets to help gather this ice.

One such tool is called Trident.

It’s like a drill, perfect for digging into the icy moon surface.

Additional robotic helpers would then turn this ice into fuel and deliver it to a space gas station.

If this works, rockets on their way to Mars could stop by for a quick fuel topup before continuing their journey.

>> That’s one small step for man.

One giant leap for mankind >> is one of the most famous quotes of all time.

But was it really what Neil Armstrong uttered on July 20th, 1969 as he set foot on the moon for the first time in human history? It looks like it both is and is not.

Thousands of people back on Earth who were following the historical event live heard the phrase without one small detail.

the indefinite article a >> that’s one small step for man step for man >> there’s no such thing as small details when it comes to grammar and the absence of a slightly changed the meaning of the whole sentence since man and mankind became synonyms in that case it basically meant that’s one small step for mankind one giant leap for mankind Neil Armstrong himself told the press after the Apollo 11 mission that there definitely was an A there, but people just didn’t hear it.

30 years later, at the events anniversary, Armstrong couldn’t hear the article while listening to the recording of that famous transmission.

>> That’s one small step for man.

>> He explained that he wasn’t the most articulate person and he left a lot of syllables out, so it could have been a suppressed sound and the voice mic simply failed to pick it up.

But he insisted that a had been intended as without it the statement wouldn’t have made sense.

In 2006, a computer programmer backed up Armstrong’s words with some digital magic.

>> That’s one small step for man.

>> He ran the audio through some software that singles out nerve impulses and saw it in the graphic form of sound waves.

It became obvious that there was a 35 millisecond long bump of sound between four and man.

It was too brief for other humans to hear, but Neil clearly did leave room for an A.

Several years later, Ohio State University studied the speaking patterns of central Ohioans like the first man on the moon and noticed that they often leave out words like for and a.

In a BBC documentary, Armstrong’s younger brother, Dean, mentioned that he had seen the quote written on a piece of paper months before the mission.

Whether it really happened or not remains a mystery because he had never mentioned it before the documentary.

Like with many famous quotes, people tried to find some symbolism behind Armstrong’s words.

>> One of his biographers suggested that the quote was inspired by the astronaut’s love for JRR Tolken’s books.

There was a similar line in The Hobbit.

Not a great leap for a man, but a leap in the dark.

He found that connection because Armstrong had a Tolken themed email address in the ’90s and after retiring from NASA, moved with his family to a farm dubbed Rivendell.

It was also the name of a valley and the home of Eland, the halfhuman, half elf from Lord of the Rings.

with the >> Armstrong himself denied that connection since he hadn’t read any of Tolken’s books before going on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

Others believe the quote was based on the NASA memo.

Going to the moon was no walk in the park, so it was important that the first person there pronounces some iconic words about it being a historic step forward for all mankind.

Again, the astronaut denied having any memo.

He later shared that it had just been the most logical and right thing to say.

Armstrong literally had to go a long way to make that legendary step.

He took his first airplane ride at the age of six in a Ford tri motor plane with his father and that’s when he fell in love with aviation.

He was an active boy scout and earned the highest possible rank, Eagle Scout.

On his 16th birthday, he became a licensed student pilot before he got his driver’s license.

He then went on to study aeronautical engineering.

His program involved two years of university studies at Purdue University, then leave for two years of flight training and one year of aviator service before returning to finish his final two years.

While at Purdue, Armstrong joined a fraternity and wrote and directed a musical for the school varsity varieties.

He was investing so much effort in his version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that he got a C that term in psychology for engineers, a C in aircraft vibrations, and a D in electrical engineering.

During his aviator service, Armstrong had to eject from the plane over the water.

The winds were taking his parachute back to land.

When he thought that was it, his friend from flight school in a service vehicle picked him up and saved his life.

Armstrong came back to Purdue, completed his degree, got married for the first time, and became a civilian research pilot right after.

The couple moved to California, and whenever he flew over their house, Neil would tip the wings for his wife and son on the ground to see it was him.

He had over 1,100 flight hours testing various supersonic planes and the X-15 rocket plane.

He wasn’t able to apply when the US Air Force was recruiting for the first man in space program in 1958 because they didn’t accept civilian test pilots.

In April 1962, NASA accepted applicants again for Project Gemini, and this time he was eligible.

Neil handed in his application past the deadline.

So, it was only thanks to a flight simulator who had known him and slipped the application in the pile that he got into the space program.

Back then, he wasn’t considered NASA’s number one pilot and flew as a backup crew.

In 1966, Armstrong became the first American civilian in space and together with David Scott pulled off the first manual space docking maneuver.

And that’s where things have gone wrong.

After docking, a rocket thruster had a meltdown and the spacecraft started spinning uncontrollably.

They had to separate from the Aena.

Armstrong took back control of the Gemini spacecraft and they managed to perform an epic emergency splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Then it was time to choose who was going to become the first human on the moon.

It had to be a civilian and the decision makers at NASA chose Armstrong for that honor.

Some people believed it was because he had a likable personality, quiet confidence, and was working hard on the way to the stars.

literally to prepare the astronauts for landing the lunar module and the reduced gravity they’d experience.

NASA ordered practice vehicles to be built.

In early May 1968, at just 98 ft above the ground, Armstrong’s vehicle started rolling without control.

He had to act quickly and eject to save himself.

Later analysis proved that if he had done it just half a second later, that would have been his final moments.

On July 16th, 1969, Armstrong along with other members of the mission took off for the moon.

NASA built the Saturn 5, the most powerful rocket that had ever flown successfully to take them there.

It was as tall as a 36story building.

4 days later, they reached their goal.

After spending 21 hours and 36 minutes there, leaving their footprints which are still visible on the moon surface, collecting surface samples, taking photos, and testing scientific instruments, and headed back to Earth.

Armstrong didn’t enjoy public attention that much, so he decided to take up a teaching career.

>> I just >> he became famous worldwide, but he still had to work hard to defend his master’s thesis at the University of Southern California.

He then retired from NASA and moved back to Ohio with his family where he would teach for the following eight years.

He didn’t cut the connections with NASA altogether and worked with them on several commissions helping the investigations into both the Apollo 13 malfunction and the tragic Challenger space shuttle incident.

In 1985, Armstrong journeyed to the North Pole with a group of fellow explorers.

It made perfect sense that he wanted to see it not only from space but from the ground level.

For his giant leap for mankind, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Okay, I officially give up on the hope that the moon is made of cheese after all.

Wow, not even Gouda.

The shiny lunar ball or a curved banana or half of a coin depending on what phase it’s in has different layers inside just like Earth.

One of these layers is called the inner core.

About 20 years ago, scientists were observing how the moon rotates.

Using that data, they concluded that it had a fluid outer core, but the inner core was hard to study.

So, they didn’t know if it was solid like a rock or molten like a hot liquid.

But things are clearer now.

Astronomers have collected data from different missions, including the Apollo missions, where astronauts went to the moon and gathered information themselves.

Plus, they’ve used a special technique called seismic data.

This method is all about studying how sound waves move through things.

Take earthquakes on our planet as an example.

When an earthquake happens, it creates waves that travel through the ground.

Scientists can detect and analyze these waves to learn more about Earth’s interior.

The same idea can apply to other objects in our solar system or planets or in this case the moon.

When quakes or moon quakes happen, they generate sound waves.

And by carefully listening to and studying these waves, scientists can create a detailed map of what’s inside the object.

They can figure out things like different layers, what they’re made of, and how they’re arranged.

To check the moon’s deep interior, scientists also use something called laser ranging.

This method measures the distance between the surface of the Earth and the moon very precisely.

And ta, our natural satellites inner core is a dense solid ball made of iron, just like Earth’s.

It’s about 310 mi wide, which is nearly 15% the size of the entire moon.

Researchers also have stumbled upon evidence that supports the theory that the layer between the moon’s surface and its core called the mantle has been moving around as the moon evolved over time.

This movement is something we call lunar mantle overturn and it could explain why we find elements rich in iron on the lunar surface.

Mantel material ends up being carried upward and the volcanic rock remains in the moon’s crust.

Some of the materials in this rock were too dense h like me, so they just sank back through the lighter crust material all the way to the core mantle boundary.

It’s like a cycle where the moon’s mantle material goes up during volcanic activity, carries ironrich elements to the surface, and then sinks back down.

There’s another mystery scientists have been trying to solve.

What caused the moon’s magnetic field to weaken and nearly disappear over time? It seems that now that we know about the iron core and the global mantle overturn, we might get some more answers about the moon’s magnetic field, knowing what the inner core is like can help us better understand the moon’s history as well as the history of our entire solar system.

Now, one of the theories that’s widely accepted about the origin of the moon says there was a massive collision between Earth in its early stages and another mysterious object in our solar system.

It’s called the large impact theory.

And this collision was so strong it ripped off a big chunk of the primitive molten earth.

I mean, not so big compared to what’s left.

If you put a US nickel next to a green pee, you get a good idea of how big our planet is compared to the moon.

Now, this chunk was set into orbit around our planet.

And this might have happened about 95 million years after our solar system formed.

The object that collided with Earth could have been about 10% the mass of our home planet and roughly the size of Mars.

Well, it makes sense.

Earth and the moon do have similar compositions after all.

Of course, there are other ideas about how the moon formed.

One says that the gravitational force of our planet captured it.

This means that the moon was just an object innocently passing by when suddenly it got attracted and pulled into Earth’s orbit.

There’s even a hypothesis that Earth stole the moon from Venus.

Ooh.

In that case, the moon shouldn’t complain.

I guess the view is way better here.

So, yeah, the moon and Earth are similar when it comes to rocks and some minerals, but the moon doesn’t have the same atmosphere as our planet.

Its atmosphere is thin and consists of some weird gases that include potassium and sodium, which is not something you can find in the atmosphere of Mars, Venus, or Earth.

And the rocks on the moon don’t contain water.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no water at all up there.

A long time ago, in the 17th century, astronomers saw large dark spots on the moon’s surface.

One of these astronomers thought these spots looked like oceans, and he called them maria, which means seas.

is in Latin.

Other astronomers also made maps of the moon and they used the term maria to describe these dark spots.

For example, mar tranquilitatus translates to sea of tranquility where Apollo 11 made its touchdown.

But it seems those dark spots are not actually oceans.

They are planes made of hardened lava that erupted long ago.

These volcanic eruptions left behind smooth, flat areas called basaltt planes.

In the late 1800s, one sky watcher studied the moon and found it didn’t have an atmosphere.

Without an atmosphere, there are no clouds and no air to keep water from evaporating.

So, scientists thought that any water on the moon would just disappear right away.

They believed the moon was totally dry.

But then in 1961, one physicist had a different idea.

He pointed out there could be water on the moon in special areas called permanently shadowed regions.

These are spots on the moon where the sun doesn’t shine, so they stay dark all the time.

Water ice could exist in these dark areas because they’re extremely cold and the ice wouldn’t evaporate.

But when astronauts from the Apollo missions went to the moon, they brought back soil samples, and scientists found no signs of water in them.

So, everyone went back to thinking that the moon was completely dry.

In the ’90s, NASA focused on these shadowed craters and found high concentrations of hydrogen, which meant there could be ice at the moon’s poles.

They still weren’t certain, so they kept digging and after a while found hydrogen trapped inside tiny beads of volcanic glass since there are no active volcanoes on the moon today, which means water probably was present on the moon when these volcanoes erupted long ago.

Plus, there could be way more water back in the early days of our moon.

In 2020, NASA’s Sophia mission showed us what we’ve been looking for for a really long time.

There is water on the moon after all.

It turns out the water is hidden within the grains of lunar dust or sticking to the surface in the sunlit areas of the moon.

So there are no oceans like we have on Earth, but at least there’s something.

The question remains, how did water even get there? It seems the moon had a chaotic history back at the time when it was forming, as probably most of the planets and moons in our solar system.

So there is some evidence that water came there from comets hitting its surface back in the old days or maybe even keeps on coming from those that are slamming into the moon right now.

We’re talking about a chaotic situation where icy micrometeorites collide with the moon surface and dust then makes an even bigger mess when interacting with the solar wind.

But we’re waiting to find out more about this because as we all know when you mention water you also inevitably talk about life.

That’s why we want to know more for instance about all that ice hidden in polar craters on the moon.

Maybe it can teach us more about how life developed on Earth.

Maybe comets brought all the necessary elements here.

Then what if there are some of those elements stuck in the ice on the moon too? Hm.

So soon we might start constructing loads of stuff on the moon.

All because India’s moon mission has recently detected sulfur near the moon’s south pole.

This chemical element can come in extremely handy for creating infrastructure on our satellite.

It’s the first time this chemical element has been discovered on Earth’s natural satellite.

This sought after element is mostly found near Earth’s volcanoes.

Its appearance on the moon speaks volumes about the satellite’s volcanic history and its past atmospheric conditions.

The mission’s rover detected this chemical element less than a week after touching down around 70° from the moon’s south pole on the 23rd of August, 2023.

This historic landing on the lunar surface made India the fourth country to safely land a mission on the moon.

It’s also the first spacecraft to touch down so close to the south pole of our satellite.

It’s an area of strategic importance because it’s believed to be home to deposits of water ice.

If it turns out to be true, future missions might be able to harvest it and turn this water ice into drinking water or even rocket fuel.

For 2 weeks, the lander carried out the data collection, mainly focused on the analysis of the moon’s soil and its extremely thin atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the solarp powered Proon rover started its quest to find frozen water on the moon.

As for the lander, it demonstrated another amazing feat on the 3rd of September.

The spacecraft fired up its engines and lifted itself for about 16 in into the air.

Then it made a tiny hop to land 12 to 16 in away from its original position.

It’s kind of a big deal.

Being able to get a lander back off the surface of the moon is essentially for future missions, showing that they can safely return soil samples or even astronauts back home after a lunar mission.

In September, the Indian spacecraft was put into sleeping mode.

The 14-day long lunar night was approaching and the spacecraft wasn’t designed to collect scientific data during this period of time.

So far, we’ve learned about a few major findings of the mission.

One is related to measuring the temperature of the moon’s top soil at different depths.

Intriguingly, the surface of the satellite in that region turned out to be hotter than expected.

It was believed that the temperature could be between 68 and 86° F on the surface, but it was around 158° F, way hotter than it should be.

The other discovery indicates the presence of several chemical elements, including oxygen.

Besides, the data received from the spacecraft confirms the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, titanium, silicon, and other chemical elements on the lunar surface close to the south pole.

The rover also used special instruments designed to measure quakes and rumbles beneath the lunar surface to detect some seismic activity.

It brings us back to the sulfur detected thanks to the rover’s spectroscope.

Scientists are currently working on figuring out whether this element formed on the surface in a natural way or whether it’s the result of volcanic activity or a meteor strike.

Another astonishing thing found on the moon is a rock, and it may be the oldest known Earth rock.

A 0.

7in wide chip included in a large rock collection brought to our planet by Apollo astronauts might actually be a 4 billiony old fragment of Earth.

This finding could help us paint a better picture of the intense pounding early Earth got at the dawn of its life.

It could go like this.

Soon after the rock formed, an asteroid impact might have blasted it from Earth.

At that time, our planet satellite was three times closer to Earth than it is today.

The collision was so powerful that this chunk of terrestrial rock found its way to the moon.

Later, this fragment got engulfed in a lunar brea, a mly kind of rock.

Eventually, the rock was brought back home to Earth by Apollo 14.

astronauts.

Even though scientists had found meteorites coming from Mars and the moon before, it was the first time a rock from the moon turned out to be a terrestrial meteorite.

They also found out that the rock had formed in a water-rich environment at temperatures and pressures corresponding to those at around 12 mi beneath the surface of our planet.

In 2019, China’s Chonga 4 mission made history by landing on the far side of the moon.

The mission’s rover helped researchers visualize structures hidden deep below the surface of the satellite, revealing billions of years of lunar history.

The U2 rover made this discovery with the help of its lunar penetrating radar.

It imaged deep into the moon’s surface and listened to echoes of sound bouncing back off structures hidden from view under the surface of the moon.

It turned out those structures were resting at depths of almost 1,000 ft.

The research suggests that the first 130 ft under the surface are made up of layers of dust, soil, and rocks.

The instruments also discovered a concealed crater that must have formed after a large object slammed into the moon’s surface.

Long, long ago, ancient lava was likely to be flowing deep underground.

Researchers believed that the broken rocks around the formation might be debris produced by the impact.

They also found that the volcanic rock layers were thinner the closer they were to the surface.

Such a thickness variation of lava flows might mean a decrease in the number and magnitude of eruptions over time.

So lunar volcanic activity gradually dwindled since the moon’s formation around 4 and 12 billion years ago.

On the far side of the moon, there is one of the largest and oldest impact craters in our solar system, the south pole atken basin.

Unfortunately, from Earth, you can only see its outer rim, which looks like a huge chain of mountains.

It’s a ginormous 8-m deep dent stretching for more than 1,500 m in diameter and covering 1/4 of the moon’s surface.

Astronomers are sure that this crater appeared when an asteroid collided with the moon around 4 billion years ago.

And now look at this gigantic chunk of metal the size of four states of Connecticut.

As for its weight in pounds, it’s enough to say that the number contains 18 zeros.

This mysterious mass is hidden about 180 m under the moon’s surface somewhere in the middle of the South Pole Aken Basin.

It was discovered when Grail, which stands for NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory Mission, gathered data about our natural satellite.

When examining this information, scientists noticed that in one place on the moon’s surface, there was a weird change in gravity.

After researching this phenomenon, they concluded that something mysterious was weighing down the basin floor there.

So far, researchers haven’t figured out the origin of the bizarre lump, but there are several theories.

One of them claims that the finding is a chunk of dense oxide, which appeared when the moon was just taking its shape.

At that time, the satellite was still covered with ancient oceans of magma, and the lump could be formed at the final stages of its cooling.

However, most scientists support another theory according to which the puzzling mass is part of the giant asteroid that once created the South Pole Aken Basin.

Since the thing is metallic, it’s probably the iron nickel core of the asteroid.

There might be a labyrinth of lava tubes on the moon.

Not so long ago, astronomers received the results of underground topography and discovered a massive cave under the surface of Earth’s satellite.

It could be the result of the lunar volcanic activity that happened more than 3 billion years ago.

Streams of lava hardened, creating a thick, hard crust on the outside, but inside it kept flowing, melting the rock and creating tunnels and caves.

Numerous small pits in the moon’s surface discovered by NASA seem to be the openings to such lava tubes.

If this theory is confirmed, the underground tunnels might serve not only as a convenient location for human crude space missions, but also as much needed water sources for astronauts.