50 Years After Walking on the Moon, an Astronaut Anticipates Our Return
In 1972 — half a century ago — Charles Moss Duke walked on the moon. Now 86 years old, he's ready for America to get back to exploring the moon, reports the Associated Press: Duke said he does not begrudge NASA for ending the Apollo program to focus on space shuttles, the international space station and other missions in more remote parts of space. But he looks forward to future missions that build off of what he and others have learned from their time on the moon, which called "a great platform for science." Duke also noted that he's encouraged by the commercial partnerships that have developed around space exploration, like Space X and Blue Origin [and the companies he describes in their video as "the others"]. Those options, he said, "make space available for more people and more science and engineering and unmanned stuff." "That compliment is going to be really important in the future," Duke went on. The article notes the first of NASA's huge Space Launch System rockets is scheduled to blast off later this year, "with crewed flights planned subsequently." In the video interview, Duke adds that "With Artemis, NASA is going to be focused on deep space, to the moon and beyond, and I'm excited about that..." "The more people we get into space, and can see the beauty of the earth — and the incredible emotion that you [feel] when you see the earth hung in the blackness of space — it's going to affect a lot of people."
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