"We are on our way."
That is the catch phrase that NASA is using in the lead up to the debut flight of its new moon rocket, which could launch as early as Monday. The time is eastern. It is a phrase repeated by agency officials, added as a # on social media postings and proclaimed on banners at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It might seem like a big yawn if you're not a space buff.
What's the reason? We already got to go.
NASA will have spent about $100 billion by the time astronauts step on the moon, so why should they repeat what they did 50 years ago?
The Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972 were a part of NASA's human spaceflight program.
Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference that NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon. The first humans to Mars will be sent on these increasingly complex missions, where astronauts will live and work in deep space.
In 2010, President Barack Obama spoke at the site where Americans launched to the moon and said NASA should aim for more ambitious destinations such as asteroids and Mars.
Mr Obama said they had been there before.
During the Trump administration, the program was called Artemis. Artemis was one of the twin sisters of Apollo. The first step in the program will be the upcoming test flight of the moon rocket, known as the Space Launch System. The uncrewed flight, where the spaceship will swing around the moon before returning to Earth, is to make sure there are no problems with the craft.
If the rocket can't get off the ground on Monday, it can try again on Friday or the next day. There was a 70 percent chance of good weather for the launch.
Mr. Nelson said that they explore because of that.
NASA wants to go to the moon, as well as many other organizations. Three robotic missions have been successfully landed on the moon by China. Both India and Israeli nonprofits sentlanders in 2019. There is a South Korean space vehicle on its way.
The motivation for Artemis was provided by China's expanding space ambitions, which include a lunar base in the 2030s. They would say, 'This is our exclusive zone.' He told the person to stay out. That is something that we look at.
There will be a lot of new data in the coming years.
The Apollo missions changed the understanding of the solar system. Various regions of the moon's surface were dated using analysis of radioactive isotopes. The moon is thought to have formed from debris thrown into space when a Mars-size object slammed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
After Apollo 17 the last moon landing, NASA turned its attention away from the moon, which to many seemed to be a wasteland. Mars is one of the places in the solar system that it shifted its focus to.
The scientific interest in the moon remained. It's desolate nature means that the rocks that hardened billions of years ago are still in good shape.
David A. Kring is a scientist at the lunar and planetary institute. It's the best place in the solar system to look at the origin and evolution of planets.
The moon is not as dry as they thought.
The water is frozen at the bottom of the craters. Water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen for future astronauts to drink.
Oxygen and hydrogen could be used to make rockets. A station on the moon could serve as a stop on the way to the solar system.
If the ices were ancient, they could provide a history of the solar system.
There was renewed interest in the moon. Anthony Colaprete, a planetary scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., used to think about the moon only in passing.
NASA put out a call for proposals for a mission that would tag along with the upcoming lunar mission. The LCROSS satellite was proposed by Dr. Colaprete as a way to confirm the presence of water ice on the moon.
LCROSS would direct the upper stage of the rocket that launched the mission into one of the polar craters at 5,600 miles per hour.
The method was crude according to Dr. Colaprete.
The idea was picked by NASA. The rocket carrying the LCROSS was launched in June of 2009. There is a crater near the moon's south pole.
Dr. Colaprete said that there was water at the bottom of Cabeus.
Scientists used state-of-the-art techniques to find water locked up in the minerals of Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 rocks.
Barbara Cohen is a planetary scientist at NASA.
There are cold regions with ice and also cold regions with no ice. There are places that are cold at the surface and others that have ice below the surface. She said that they don't know when or how the water got there.
Scientists don't know how much water is in the area or how easy it will be to get it out.
The moon is still being worked on by Dr. Colaprete. He said that the community has grown in the last 20 years. He is the principal investigator for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, a robotic vehicle that is to land near the south pole in late 2024 and venture into some of the dark craters to get a close-up look.
Understanding the origin and forms of water on the moon is one of the goals of the organization.
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