NASA Has Big Plans for the Moon. Here Are Some of Them.

Leave it to the U.S. government to take a concept like "as easy as one, two, three" -- and make it confusing.Last week, NASA held a press conference to lay out to the public its plans for establishing a Moon Base that will one day see astronauts residing more or less permanently on Earth's biggest satellite. Running just over an hour, the conference kicked off with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman outlining three stages, starting now and continuing through 2032 and "beyond," during which NASA will build a Moon Base encompassing hundreds of square miles of lunar surface.That same day, NASA announced precisely three new Moon Base contracts, dubbed Moon Base I, II, and III, hiring private space companies to send lunar landers to the moon. But Isaacman's Moon Base Phases 01, 02, and 03 are not the same thing as the Moon Base I, Moon Base II, and Moon Base III contracts.Continue reading