-Source-The Business Insider-
Landing 12 people on the moon remains one of NASA's greatest achievements, if not the greatest.
Astronauts collected rocks, took photos, performed experiments, planted some flags, and then came home. But those week-long stays during the Apollo program didn't establish a lasting human presence on the moon.
More than 45 years after the most recent crewed moon landing — Apollo 17 in December 1972 — there are plenty of reasons to return people to Earth's giant, dusty satellite and stay there.
Researchers and entrepreneurs think a crewed base on the moon could evolve into a fuel depot for deep-space missions, lead to the creation of unprecedented space telescopes, make it easier to live on Mars, and solve longstanding scientific mysteries about Earth and the moon's creation. A lunar base could even become a thriving off-world economy, perhaps one built around lunar space tourism.
"A permanent human research station on the moon is the next logical step. It's only three days away. We can afford to get it wrong, and not kill everybody," former astronaut Chris Hadfield recently told Business Insider. "And we have a whole bunch of stuff we have to invent and then test in order to learn before we can go deeper out."
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