The Moon: A Second Home in the Solar System
* The Moon: A Second Home in the Solar System* The Moon will be the first place where humans learn to live on another celestial body. Just three days from Earth, the Moon has low gravity and natural resources that make it an ideal location to prepare people and machines for venturing farther into space. As a repository of four billion years of solar system history and as a place to observe the Earth and the universe, it has great scientific potential. Exploration of the Moon will also reveal whether the resources available in space will allow humans to live off the land. In the 1960s, robotic spacecraft from the United States and the Soviet Union began exploring the Moon. The first soft landing was made in 1966 by the Soviet spacecraft Luna-9. It was followed by several more Soviet and U.S. lunar missions, including orbiters, sample-return missions, and rovers. During this period, six Apollo crews also landed on the Moon and returned samples to Earth. Thanks to these dr