In April 2024, NASA selected three finalists to design, build, and pitch their own Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) for the Artemis program within 12 months. Ever since, Intuitive Machines, Venturi Astrolab, and Lunar Outpost have raced to meet the impending deadline to deliver the best moon car plan possible. Lunar Outpost's Lunar Dawn team revealed its latest high-fidelity prototype, the Lunar Outpost Eagle, on April 8. The vehicle will officially debut at Space Symposium 2025 in Colorado Springs and provide attendees with the closest look yet at the Artemis program hopeful. Eagle is the fourth prototype iteration so far, and was built in collaboration from General Motors, Goodyear, MDA Space, and Leidos, the Eagle is envisioned as the "quintessential Space Truck," according to AJ Gemer, Lunar Outpost CTO.

In an effort to inspire the next generation of space explorers, NASA has partnered with Minecraft to develop "worlds" that are based on its ambitious Artemis Program. Minecraft gamers can now try taking part in NASA's Artemis Program with new Artemis-themed worlds. They were developed through a partnership between NASA's Office of STEM Management and Microsoft, which actually owns Minecraft. Gamers can experience the various tasks that are required for the mission, from building a rocket and launching it to establishing a lunar base. It starts with "Artemis: Rocket Build" mission, where kids will learn about rocket engineering by building and launching a rocket.

Vice President Kamala Harris' Office released a new framework for US space policy on Wednesday, showing how the Biden Administration plans approach to civil, commercial and national security-related use of space amid growing commercial interests and concerns about Chinese and Russian competition. The seven-page document, titled the'United States Space Priorities Framework,' includes many of the same space priorities from the Trump administration, such as the Artemis program, but cites using space to fight climate change and the importance of investing in STEM education. Harris, set to convene the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council at 1:30pm ET, plans to ask members of the government body'to accelerate, expand, and develop rules and norms for responsible behavior in space,' the White House said. 'We are on the cusp of historic changes in access to and use of space - changes that have the potential to bring the benefits of space to more people and communities than ever before,' the administration said in a report outlining its space priorities. Vice President Kamala Harris' Office released a new framework for US space policy on Wednesday, showing how the Biden Administration plans approach to civil, commercial and national security-related use of space amid growing commercial interests and concerns about Chinese and Russian competition This will mark the first meeting of the National Space Council during the Biden Administration.

NASA's Artemis program will mark a significant milestone in US space flight history when it lifts off in late 2024. Not only will it be the first time that American astronauts have travelled further than LEO since the 1970s, and not only will it be the first opportunity for a female astronaut to step foot on the moon. The Artemis mission will perform the crucial groundwork needed for humanity to further explore and potentially colonize our nearest celestial neighbor as well as eventually serve as a jumping-off point in our quest to reach Mars. Given how inhospitable space is to human physiology and psychology, however, NASA and its partners will face a significant challenge in keeping their lunar colonists alive and well. Back in the Apollo mission era, the notion of constructing even a semi-permanent presence on the surface of the moon was laughable -- largely because the numerous lunar regolith samples collected and returned to Earth during that period were "found to be dry as a bone," Rob Mueller, Senior Technologist in Advanced Projects Development at NASA said during a SXSW 2021 panel.

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Elton John might have said it best in his iconic song "Rocket Man" – "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids." More than 50 years after we sent humans to the moon – the closest celestial body to Earth – the plan is still to head to Mars, something many astronauts who have flown in space thought we would have already accomplished. "I just assumed by the time I got to be old enough to go into the space program, you know we'd be living on Mars or I'd be working on Mars just as a scientist," Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, told university students at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in December 2019. But despite the fact humankind has been unable to send anyone to another place in the universe besides the moon, there are still many with the hopes and expectation that we will become a multi-planetary species in the near future, starting with our red next-door neighbor. Billionaire entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and aspiring young astronauts like Alyssa Carson, a sophomore studying astrobiology at Florida Tech, hope to one day live on Mars. "Eventually the sun will run out of fuel to burn … and conditions on Earth are going to be very different from our normal regular life now," Carson told Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network.

It has been more than two years in the making, but 13 new astronauts have finally joined NASA under the mission that will bring the first female to the moon -and some may be the first humans to step on Mars. The candidates, who have been training since 2017, participated in the first public graduation ceremony for astronauts on Friday at the American space Agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The group includes six women and seven men, two of them were Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronauts, and all were chosen from record-setting pool of more than 18,000 applicants. During the ceremony, each of the bright-eyed graduates were given a silver pin that symbolizes the Mercury 7 – NASA's first astronaut group that was selected in 1959. They will then be awarded a gold pin once they completed their first spaceflights.