Ultimately, it’s likely that lunar missions will proceed just as they did in the Apollo era: with many health questions unanswered and few protective medical procedures fully worked out. That situation may sound frightening to some would-be moon-trotters, but the uncertainties don’t faze Bill Paloski, director of NASA’s Human Research Program.
“I’m actually not terribly concerned about health and physiology issues,” he says. “We’ll be able to monitor closely enough the overall health and performance of crew members and then provide near-real-time support from Earth for most things.” In the worst-case scenario, astronauts could fly home in a matter of days—a rescue plan that won’t be possible as the mission moves on to Mars and beyond.
That’s what makes the moon such an “interesting stepping stone,” Paloski says. “It’s a way of testing a lot of the concepts we have for how to do things on the Mars surface.”
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