NASA's Moon exploration missions have been on hiatus for so long and speculations are saying that the organization is yet to fly another team to the Earth's satellite to conduct further studies. However, the exploration that is expected to take place in 2018 will serve as a prelude for NASA's Mars exploration which might happen in 2035.
A manned mission to the Moon has been planned since former U.S. president George Bush's time carried up to former Barack Obama's era. The latter has however paid less attention to the proposed mission, putting the focus on a Mars mission instead. While the exploration is yet to take place sometime in the 2030's, NASA is hoping to get the approval of another launch for the Moon where the organization is still waiting for president-elect Donald Trump's approval.
Former president Obama had an ambitious goal of sending a team to Mars for an exploration which he declared in October. The Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton then expressed her support but calls out to NASA to gather resources and funds needed to make the plan possible. Although he expressed his faith in NASA's objectives, it still remains a mystery whether the current president will push through with the plan as he points out his desire to look into the organization's spending priorities.
Despite the talks on the Mars mission, the second man to reach the Moon, Buzz Aldrin, says there should be more Moon exploration missions before heading to the red planet 20 years from now. He advises that space agencies from different parts of the world to work together to arrange a manned mission to Moon. This way, the organizations can see how it is to work with each other so that they can come again together for the Mars mission which he believes cannot be done by America alone as noted by The Daily Mail.
As a part of the Constellation project of Bush, the Orion was created originally for a lunar project until it was diverted by Obama, planning to send it to Mars. The Orion spacecraft is almost done and NASA is hoping to see a crew stepping on it towards the Moon sometime in 2018.
Plans are to install the Orion with 30 flight systems which can go miles beyond the Moon. As for other commercial companies looking forward to growing awareness among humans about Earth's only natural satellite, Google has initiated the Lunar Xprize, challenging several companies to create a land rover that can work on the moon. This only proves that more and more organizations are showing interest on Moon exploration missions.
