WASHINGTON, Apr 11: With Artemis II successfully completing its historic lunar mission on Friday, NASA is banking on billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for the next step: landing astronauts on the Moon.
The Apollo program -- which sent the first and only humans to the Moon's surface between 1969 and 1972 -- was designed so that only two astronauts could land on the lunar surface for a maximum of a few days.
More than 50 years later, American ambitions and expertise have grown, with NASA hoping to send four people on a mission lasting several weeks and eventually building a lunar base.
For the second phase of its mission, the space agency is looking to commercial landers designed by Musk's SpaceX and Bezos's Blue Origin to get its astronauts on the Moon.
After Artemis II splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after its record-breaking journey, NASA officials urged all hands on deck for a crewed landing in 2028.
"We need all of industry to work and come along with us, and they need to accept that challenge and come with us and really start the production lines that are going to be required in order to achieve that goal," Lori Glaze, the acting associate NASA administrator, told a press conference.
The Apollo program relied on a single rocket, the Saturn V, which carried both the lunar lander and the capsule carrying the astronauts. �"AFP
