(Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

In less than a decade, humans will establish living and work quarters on the moon, a top NASA official yesterday told the BBC.

NASA’s 2030 target follows the successful launch (third time lucky) of its uncrewed (aside from three mannequins kitted out in space suits) Artemis I rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida last Wednesday. Onboard was the Orion spacecraft which is to be put to a 25-day test — including “re-entry, descent, splashdown, and recovery” — before Artemis II takes off with real humans on board. The crew will include the first woman and first person of colour to travel to the moon.

“We’re going to be sending people down to the surface and they’re going to be living on that surface and doing science,” NASA’s program manager for Orion Howard Hu said about the moon mission.

“It’s more than living, it’s really about science.”

NASA has dedicated its “deep-space exploration” to “the Artemis generation” — a “new generation of explorers” — and pitched the program as a win “for the world”, not just the US.

Japanese astronauts will live and work alongside American ones on both robotic and lunar missions as part of the Artemis program. They will take residence on the soon-to-be constructed Lunar Gateway space station and are set to be included in an Artemis moon landing mission once it’s up and running.

But NASA and co are not the only ones with lunar ambitions. China recently announced that a new rocket for manned missions to the moon could be ready for a test flight by 2027.

In the interim, NASA’s Artemis I will get within 100km of the moon, do a little fly-around, and then head back to earth for a Pacific Ocean landing on December 11. The 2.1 million kilometre journey is the farthest distance travelled by any spacecraft with the capacity to carry humans.