After over 50 years, hype is building once more for astronauts to set foot on the moon.

Since Eugene Cernan traversed the lunar surface on December 14, 1972 (the last of twelve people over nine Apollo missions to do so between 1969 and 1972) no human footprints have been left there.

In the half century that stretches between then and now, the moon has been a lonely figure, lighting up our night sky every evening as a reminder of its presence and proximity, with the occasional flypast its only real contact with humankind.

However, as astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen preparing to fly around the moon on the Orion spacecraft in just over a years’ time, it is hoped that shortly afterwards, people will be visiting the moon once more.

That’s because Artemis II, currently scheduled for April 2026 is the precursor for a third Artemis mission, which intends to actually land on the moon.

All being well, Artemis III will deliver its astronauts – including the first woman and the first person of color to walk on the moon – in 2027.

Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when the Apollo programme sent 24 humans to the moon (12 of whom would embark on moon walks), it took the astronauts a few days to reach the moon, with the exact length of time varied due to a number of factors, but – as NASA explain in a recent blog – one launch standing out as the clear winner:

“The fastest was Apollo 8, which took just under three days to go from Earth orbit to orbit around the Moon.”

But with new technologies crafted by space agencies worldwide in the 50+ years that have elapsed since Apollo, we might expect that travel to our moon would be much more efficient now.

And, while that is true, other factors have become important too.

Just like Apollo, it is expected that Artemis will take several days to reach the moon.

However, for future missions, this could be longer rather than shorter, and for good reason:

“Now it’s possible to save some fuel by flying different kinds of trajectories to the Moon that are shaped in such a way to save fuel. And those trajectories can take more time, potentially weeks or months, to reach the Moon, depending on how you do it.”

Given that efficiency is about more than just time – with the environment, the safety and welfare of the astronauts, and other factors to consider too – we could see moon missions of various lengths in our future.

Apollo III, however, is expected to take around 30 days from launch to the moment the astronauts splash down on Earth once more.

That time period accounts for their space travel, lunar orbit, time on the surface including the collection of vital data, and the time it takes to travel back home.

And with plenty of other spaceflight programmes in the making, space could be closer that we ever imagined in the not too distant future, with possible commercial flights into space on the cards one day too.

We are fortunate to be so close, in relative terms, to the moon.

As we set our sights further out, the travel time – and, thus, the amount of fuel and other consumables onboard spacecraft – will be much more significant, as the NASA blog confirms:

“So to get to the Moon takes several days. To get to Mars takes seven to ten months. And getting to Jupiter takes between five and six years.”

So, if flying to another country for vacation is more travel time than you can handle, you might want to think very carefully before you consider a holiday in space.

And for the astronauts that head out on those journeys, that is quite an extreme commute.

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