COULD PAVE WAY TO RED PLANET

SHOOT FOR THE MOON... & THEN MARS

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Launch System NASA Kennedy

(NASA Kennedy)

Nasa hopes to land on the Moon by 2030 but, to misquote Star Trek, they will be going where many men have gone before: 12 Apollo astronauts, to be precise, between 1969 and 1972. It became so routine the public and politicians lost interest and scrapped the project.

But while Nasa aims for the Moon, its eyes are firmly set on Mars as the big prize, using the heavy lift Space Launch System rocket that powers Artemis II.

Elon Musk’s Space X is also developing a separate programme for Nasa to build a crewed base on Mars. The world’s richest man envisions the planet as a self-governing colony - though that raises complex questions about a technocrat-funded independent government on another world when current law dictates that space, like international waters on Earth, is the “province of all humanity”.