Who thought Mars was the place to be, couldn’t be more wrong. In 2024 humans will go to the Moon again! NASA is the only organisation that has put humans on the Moon. 1969 was the big first and 1972 was the last time. The Apollo program brought 12 humans to the surface of the Moon. So it will be more than 50 years later when they start doing it again. But this time they can’t do it alone. Together with SpaceX humans will soon walk again on the surface of the Moon.
During the space race in the sixties NASA was competing with the Russian space agency. This time it is not NASA that is competing: the company SpaceX itself is competing with other companies. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk: the person behind the Tesla cars. SpaceX has competition from Blue Origin, which is a company also owned by a billionaire: Jeff Bezos from Amazon. But it is SpaceX that won the contract with NASA. It’s also not the first time that SpaceX worked together with NASA: already two times a rocket of SpaceX has brought people to the International Space Station.
It’s not that NASA will just sit back and relax. It is still responsible for bringing the astronauts into an orbit around the Moon in a spaceship called the Orion. SpaceX will use its Starship spaceship to bring the astronauts to the surface of the Moon. It has built 10 of these prototypes since 2010. The astronauts can enjoy a comfortable week on the Moon, after which the Starship combines with the Orion that will bring all people back to Earth.
The use of a commercial spaceship for space exploration marks the next step in companies taking over the tasks of the bigger space agencies. Apart from SpaceX and Blue Origins there are also other organisations that will provide commercial space travel and it will include space trips like: Earth’s orbit, a trip around the Moon or even a space hotel. So hang on for your next trip that will be out of this world!
