Back to the Dry, Young Moon?
NASA chose to name their new lunar project after Artemis, goddess of the moon — and a number of other things. The spacecraft it is carrying is named after Orion the hunter. It has been fifty years since Gene Cernan of Apollo 17 left the last footprints on the moon. The goal of the Artemis program is to eventually setting up a lunar base. Quite a few science fiction stories have been written and filmed about those, but there are several serious problems involved that the writers gloss over. Artemis/Orion launch, NASA / Bill Ingalls (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Apollo astronauts were up there for days, and NASA wants a permanent station. The moon is outside the protection of Earth's magnetic field, so if the sun got ornery and shot off a flare, the solar wind could be fatal very quickly. There are also temperature extremes, which the Apollo missions minimalized. Light and dark cycles are very long. Another problem remains, and it's a biggie. Water. Coo