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10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 SEPTEMBER 2026 FEATURE The moon is 'pretty much' inevitable. For a generation raised on grainy footage of astronauts bouncing across the moon, the promise of going back, and on to Mars, has always felt just out of reach. Is this finally about to change? THERE was a time when almost every child who looked up at the night sky imagined, at least once, that they might end up out there. More than 50 years on from the last time a human being actually did, that promise keeps resurfacing, and just as often fading again. Ask Connor Sant Fournier and Jackson Levi Said whether this time will be different, and the answer comes without much hesitation. "The eventuality that we'll make it to the moon, no mat- ter what ethical grey lines we have to cross, will happen," Sant Fournier, executive at the Xjen- za Malta Space Unit, says. Mars, both researchers agree, is a different story altogether. Why the moon feels close again Part of the confidence that hu- mans will be back on the moon comes down to who is paying for it. Unlike the original moon landings, driven by political and scientific rivalry, today's push is different, Sant Fournier says. "Now it's for marketing and commercial reasons," he adds and with more private compa- nies involved, "the motivation is much higher". Jackson Levi Said, a professor at the University of Malta's In- stitute of Space Sciences and Astronomy, highlights asteroid mining as a key commercial angle. He explains that while reaching an asteroid directly is complex, going from the moon to an asteroid is much easier. Establishing a base on the moon, he adds, "opens a lot of commercial aspects as well", on top of continuing political com- petition between the US, China and India. That confidence stems from NASA's Artemis II mission in April this year, when four as- tronauts orbited the moon and returned to earth. It was the closest anyone has been to the lunar surface since the Apollo mission ended in 1972. The crew, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glov- er, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, spent about 10 days in space before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. NASA's Artemis III mission was initially set for 2025 but has been delayed. The first crewed landing on the moon since Apollo is now anticipated on Artemis IV, targeted for 2028, though that date might shift again. Levi Said says the delays are not unusual for missions of this scale, citing the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which also began operating years later than originally planned. "It's a normal thing in broader science," he says. "It's not a sign of things about to fail." Space missions, by contrast, can slip by a year or two "and they'll get there", he says. Sant Fournier also points to the Trump administration in the US as a factor pushing time- lines back, saying it wants "to define science". Asked what a human presence on the moon adds that robotic missions cannot, Sant Fournier points to Artemis II itself. Un- like its uncrewed predecessor, the crewed flight produced ob- servations "that the data would not have ever suggested". Astro- nauts bring a subjective element that instruments alone cannot, he notes. "Humans are best for inspirational reasons." Levi Said describes says it's like a traffic jam of rockets prepar- ing for landing. The first would establish camp, but people need to be sent beforehand. A one-way ticket, sort of The picture is less settled re- garding Mars. Nothing in NA- SA's current plans commits the agency to a launch date, and of- ficials have spoken of a crewed mission "in the 2030s" for years The Artemis II crew captured a portion of the moon the boundary between lunar day and night—where shadows across the surface (Photo: NASA) Left to right: Connor Sant-Fournier and Jackson Said 'The eventuality that we'll make it to the moon, no matter what ethical grey lines we have to cross, will happen' JULIANA ZAMMIT jzammit@mediatoday.com.mt