{"id":42441,"date":"2026-05-14T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42441"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:20:24","slug":"will-future-missions-to-the-moon-be-sustainable-it-may-depend-on-whom-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/will-future-missions-to-the-moon-be-sustainable-it-may-depend-on-whom-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Will future missions to the Moon be sustainable? It may depend on whom you ask"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marco A. Janssen<\/a>, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em>; Afreen Siddiqi<\/a>, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)<\/a><\/em>, and Parvathy Prem<\/a>, Johns Hopkins University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a new space race<\/a> to the Moon, and this time the ambitions are not just to visit but to stay. NASA\u2019s Artemis program<\/a> aims to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface in the 2030s. China, India, Japan and a number of private companies<\/a> all have lunar mission programs of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of now, the human footprint on the Moon is small. That could change with the planned increase of lunar missions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National space agencies are focused on science and exploration, while private companies aim to develop a lunar economy \u2013 potentially with mining operations<\/a>. In the coming years, these groups will test technology and build some initial infrastructure<\/a> on the Moon. From 2030 onward, Moon bases<\/a> could become a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what are the long-term consequences of lunar missions for the Moon itself? The Artemis program\u2019s goals are sustainable exploration and setting up a sustainable presence<\/a> on the Moon. However, sustainability is a broad concept with a variety of definitions and uses when it comes to space exploration. As a sustainability scholar<\/a>, a space systems engineer<\/a> and a planetary scientist<\/a>, we\u2019ve been trying to pin down what sustainability means in a lunar context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delicate lunar environment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Earth, the Moon has no biodiversity, climate as we typically think of it, or oceans. But it does have its own active environment<\/a>. While the Moon may seem unchanging and indestructible, it is surprisingly sensitive to human activity. Without the wind, water or other natural forces that reshape the Earth, things that happen on the Moon tend to leave a mark \u2013 sometimes for thousands, or even millions, of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a rocket lands on the Moon, its engines blast the surface with exhaust gases and send fine dust particles flying at enormous speeds. A single landing by a large modern spacecraft, such as SpaceX\u2019s Starship, could disturb an area of the lunar surface two to five times larger<\/a> than the Apollo missions did in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of those ejected dust particles can travel tens of miles across the surface<\/a>, and the finest grains can reach the Moon\u2019s orbit, potentially threatening other spacecraft. Images from satellites in lunar orbit show<\/a> that changes to the uppermost layer of the surface from a single landing can remain visible for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Landings can also release water vapor, carbon dioxide and other gases<\/a> into the lunar exosphere \u2013 an extremely thin layer of atoms hovering above the surface \u2013 and create a temporary atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all these effects can come from just one mission. Future missions will focus on the polar regions, which have ideal spots for collecting solar energy atop peaks, as well as water in the form of ice<\/a> in craters. Scientists don\u2019t yet understand what the cumulative effects of the dozens of missions planned over the coming decade on the lunar environment \u2013 its surface, its thin atmosphere and its scientifically precious polar regions \u2013 will be, and whether they\u2019re reversible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Without weather, footprints from human missions to the Moon last much longer than on Earth. NASA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The concept of sustainability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On Earth, the concept of sustainability<\/a> balances protecting the environment, maintaining economic well-being and caring for society \u2013 current as well as future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what does sustainability mean on the Moon? To find out, we sent out a survey<\/a> asking people with a demonstrated interest in space and lunar exploration to define sustainability in this new context. We received 277 complete responses from academics, space industry professionals, space agency staff and engaged members of the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found that people mean very different things when they talk about lunar sustainability \u2013 and those differences often track closely with who they are and where they work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People working in the space industry tended to think about sustainability in financial and operational terms: keeping missions affordable, making infrastructure reusable, and developing the Moon\u2019s resources to support a self-sustaining economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academics, on the other hand, related lunar sustainability to environmental and ethical concerns more frequently. A significant portion of all respondents \u2013 roughly 1 in 5 \u2013 were opposed to large-scale human activity on the Moon altogether. Their responses echoed a \u201cleave no trace<\/a>\u201d philosophy: Don\u2019t disturb natural conditions, don\u2019t commercialize what belongs to all of humanity, and don\u2019t plant flags in places that shouldn\u2019t be owned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of respondents fell somewhere in between, calling for a careful balance of scientific, commercial and environmental interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Human activity, from robotic landers to crewed missions \u2013 such as Apollo 15, shown here \u2013 has the potential to reshape the surface of the Moon. NASA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A continuing conversation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This diversity of perspectives on what sustainability means on the Moon is not a surprise. Even for the Earth, people do not have a universally agreed-upon perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the shared cultural significance of the Moon calls for conversations between many groups of people, from space agencies to communities living near rocket launch sites<\/a>, and from space industry professionals to amateur lunar enthusiasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Moon has always been Earth\u2019s closest celestial companion in our planet\u2019s journey through space. As it becomes a destination for space agencies and some companies, the decisions made now will shape what the lunar surface looks like, and what the Moon means to people, for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of those decisions may be irreversible. Researchers are only beginning to explore the cumulative effects of human activity on the lunar environment. And policymakers are even further behind<\/a> in developing the governance frameworks needed to make collective decisions about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversation about what sustainability means for lunar missions is becoming increasingly relevant as plans for lunar bases move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marco A. Janssen<\/a>, Professor of Sustainability, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em>; Afreen Siddiqi<\/a>, Research Scientist in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)<\/a><\/em>, and Parvathy Prem<\/a>, Planetary Scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marco A. Janssen, Arizona State University; Afreen Siddiqi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Parvathy Prem, Johns Hopkins University There\u2019s a new space race to the Moon, and this time the ambitions are not just to visit but to stay. NASA\u2019s Artemis program aims to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1862,46,10,118,296,4,3410],"tags":[13851,13849,144,885,891,886,860,1103,17762,4492,187,724],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42443,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441\/revisions\/42443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}