For the first time since the last Apollo landings of 1968s, scientists are planning to explore the dark side of the moon using a manned spacecraft.
Engineers with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin want to send up astronauts into stationary orbit above the planet to study it further.
The American firm hopes to use remote controlled robots dispatched from their spacecraft to collect samples and explore the South Pole-Aitken basin on the moon — one of the oldest craters in the solar system, the Daily Mail reported.
Scientists hope the mission will serve as a test for a future possible mission to Mars as the six month trip would help study whether the equipment and the astronauts are able to endure long-term space travel.
Nasa has in the past estimated that it could take around a year to complete a round-trip to the Red Planet and back, allowing a few months to collect samples. Lockheed’s plan involves using the combined gravity of the earth and the moon to ensure that its craft hovers on the same spot, within sight of both planets. It has pitched what it is calling the L-2 Farside Mission Orion spacecraft to do the job, which would house both astronauts and probes.
If Nasa approves the mission, it will allow to see how humans respond to lengthy doses of deep space radiation, a key problem on a longer Martian trip.
“We have come up with a sequence of missions that we’ve named ‘Stepping Stones,’ which begins with flights in low earth orbit and incrementally builds towards a human mission to the moons of Mars in the 2030s,” said Josh Hopkins of Lockheed Martin’s Human Spaceflight Advanced Programmes department.