There is a big difference between NASA’s current Artemis program and its Apollo program of five decades ago. This time, there is a long-term plan for humans on the moon. “We don't want to just touch it and come back and say we're done. We want to go there and stay there,” says NASA astronaut Raja Chari. He adds, “To do that, we need to go where there's resources.”

In the latest episode of Next Giant Leap, a podcast produced in partnership between GZERO and Canadian space company MDA Space, Raja Chari tells host Kevin Fong that the most valuable known resource on the moon is water ice, which could be used to sustain life in lunar bases. Water ice is most abundant in craters around the moon’s south pole. NASA is enlisting commercial companies such as SpaceX, Astrobotic Technology, and MDA Space to help get its astronauts to the polar region and in a position to ‘live off the land’ there.

One of MDA Space’s chief contributions to the Artemis program will be the robotic arm on a space station called the Gateway, which will orbit around the moon. The Gateway will be a transfer point for crew and cargo traveling to and from the lunar surface. MDA Space’s Holly Johnson is confident that the commercial space sector will be an essential enabler of the vision of a sustained human presence on the moon.

For a deeper dive into the private space industry’s part in the return to the moon, Kevin talks to Chad Anderson of venture capital firm SpaceCapital. Anderson explains why people are now talking about the rise of a ‘lunar economy’. He says, “Who controls the early infrastructure is set to control things and make a lot of money.”

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