Advertisement

NASA Plans To Send First Woman To The Moon In 2024

Never miss a thing. Sign up to HuffPost Australia’s weekly newsletter for the latest news, exclusives and guides to achieving the good life.

NASA revealed this week that it plans to send a woman to the moon for the first time in 2024.

The space agency this week shared the Artemis Plan, describing the first lunar mission since 1972 aimed at sending a man and the first woman to Earth’s nearest neighbour.

“Sending human explorers 250,000 miles to the Moon, then 140 million miles to Mars, requires a bold vision, effective program management, funding for modern systems development and mission operations, and support from all corners of our great nation as well as our partners across the globe,” NASA said in the plan’s introduction, which explained that the agency has been “fine-tuning” moon exploration methods over the years.

NASA said the multi-pronged Artemis plan shows it is “focused on achieving the goal of an initial human landing by 2024 with acceptable technical risks, while simultaneously working toward sustainable lunar exploration in the mid- to late 2020s.”

The choice for 2024 is not “arbitrary,” but rather the “most ambitious date possible, and our success at the Moon, and later, at Mars, will be grounded in our national goals and robust capabilities,” NASA explained.

NASA’s first modern lunar mission, Artemis 1, is slated for 2021 sans astronauts, and Artemis II is planned to fly in 2023 with a crew. Artemis III aims to land the first woman and a man on the moon in 2024.

Related...

Continue reading on HuffPost