Humans could stay on the Moon for lengthy periods during this decade, a Nasa official has told the BBC. Howard Hu, who leads the Orion lunar spacecraft programme for the agency, said habitats would be needed to support scientific missions.

He told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Wednesday’s launch of the Artemis rocket, which carries Orion, was a “historic day for human space flight”.

Orion is currently about 134,000km (83,300 miles) from the Moon.

The 100m-tall Artemis rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center as part of Nasa’s mission to take astronauts back to Earth’s satellite.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63688229