Humans will live on the Moon full-time within the decade, says NASA official

Fancy a change of scene? How about a change of planet?

NASA says humans will be living on the Moon this decade, with scientists and astronauts spending extended stints of time on the lunar surface.

The US space agency is currently testing the Orion spacecraft, a reusable space capsule designed to carry astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The Orion just entered lunar orbit for the first time today.

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Off the back of the launch, NASA's Orion boss Howard Hu believes humans will have a permanent presence on the Moon by 2030.

Howard Hu told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg: "Well, certainly in this decade we're going to have people living there.

"They will have habitats and rovers on the ground, that's what we're also working on at NASA."

Hu explained that the objective of people living on the Moon is mainly scientific, meaning you won't get to go on a holiday there any time soon.

He said: "That's what we're going to be doing, we're going to be sending people down to the Moon's surface and they're going to be living on that surface and doing science."

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NASA launched the Orion craft towards the Moon last week as part of its first Artemis mission.

It just successfully completed its first flyby of the Moon, paving the way for future manned Moon landings in subsequent Artemis missions.

The Artemis 3 mission is scheduled to take place in 2025, with the first crewed landing on the Moon in decades.

That will be followed by the Artemis 4 mission in 2027 which will help establish a lunar base for annual Moon landings every year afterwards.

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