RETURNING TO THE MOON
NASA’S plans for a more ambitious follow-up to Project Apollo go back a long way. In 1992 the agency produced a mission concept called Future Lunar Outpost which would have put a habitat on the Moon’s surface capable of supporting astronauts for a 45-day stay. However, NASA chose to focus on an Earth-orbiting space station instead: the ISS. The idea of a similar station in lunar orbit first arose around 2012 in the form of a relatively small deep-space habitat. But it was only with the advent of the Artemis program in 2019 that the full Lunar Gateway concept and its role in supporting a long-duration surface outpost emerged in its present form.