The United States plans to send astronauts to the Moon later in this decade, aiming toward a permanent lunar base. But experience shows that plans come and go. In fact, if all the plans for lunar exploration had actually come about, we’d be skittering all across the Moon today.

In 1958, for example, the Air Force developed Project LUMAN, a comprehensive plan for human spaceflight. It would culminate with a single astronaut landing on the Moon. Later, the service developed another plan – LUMEX. It called for three astronauts to travel to the Moon using a giant new booster and a streamlined spaceship. The Army developed its own plan, involving a space station and other steps.

All of those plans died – in part because human spaceflight was turned over to a new civilian agency: NASA.

And NASA had its own false steps. It studied using its two-man Gemini spacecraft for lunar missions before settling on Apollo. And even then, some of its plans were scuttled; the final three Apollo missions were scrapped, in 1970.

President George W. Bush proposed lunar missions as part of the Constellation program. It was nixed by President Obama. But some of its hardware has been kept for Artemis – which plans to send astronauts to the Moon in the next few years.

Look for the Moon in the west at nightfall. The twin stars of Gemini stand to its lower right, with Mars to its upper left – another planned destination for human explorers.

Script by Damond Benningfield