NASA Weighs Meteor Strike Hazards as It Plans Permanent Moon Base by 2032

At a briefing at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on a Friday, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman was asked a pointed question: what does a newly revealed asteroid strike on the Moon mean for the agency's plans to build a permanent base there? His answer was that NASA is "giving a lot of thought" to meteor impacts as it designs the outpost.

The question came out of a discovery disclosed the previous month. A comet or asteroid roughly the size of a building, up to six storeys high, hit the lunar surface in 2024. It left a crater about 728 feet wide and 141 feet deep. Scientists have called the collision a "once-in-a-lifetime" event, one that happens around once a century.

Isaacman leaned on that rarity. He described it as a once-in-a-century event and said the agency was fortunate in that regard. But he added that far smaller strikes happen on the Moon much more often. The Artemis II mission earlier this year supplied some evidence. While circling the far side of the Moon, the astronauts saw several flashes as small space rocks, known as meteoroids, struck the surface at high speed. The Moon has no atmosphere to burn them up first. Isaacman said the crew's observations, relayed back during the mission, gave NASA additional data.

The timeline is ambitious. NASA plans to land people on the Moon again in 2028 and to have a base running by 2032, with a continual human presence and routine crew rotations. The project is also meant to develop the technologies needed for deeper voyages, including to Mars. Artemis III is scheduled to launch next year, with four crew members testing low Earth orbit docking between the Orion spacecraft and commercial lunar landers built by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Isaacman said the hazards are part of why the agency is not rushing its designs. A fleet of lunar rovers will scout and map the surface to inform where and how the outpost is built. "We're going to learn and we're going to gradually scale up capabilities," he said, adding that he guaranteed surface improvement would be needed. NASA is not locking in the design of habitation modules today. Instead it is doing what he called its "science of survival", with many uncrewed robotic landers and demonstrations. He acknowledged that environmental factors could be hazardous and said they would be addressed in a logical, iterative way.

Blue Origin was also on his mind. The company has a key role from the outset, and the plan relies heavily on its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, which exploded on the launchpad during an engine-firing test at the end of May. Isaacman said he was impressed with the team's progress. He noted the company has been open about targeting the end of the year, and said that whether it hits December or slips to January, "they're breaking everyone's records."

Pressed on whether he would put money on landing astronauts in 2028, he said NASA is putting taxpayer money on it, but in the most efficient and responsible way possible. He acknowledged "a monumental effort is ahead" and said the agency is "eyes wide open." The immediate priority, he said, is getting ready to launch Artemis III while also launching many Moon-based missions in parallel. He called the current path achievable, saying NASA has the mandate, the resources and the support from stakeholders to execute.

What to watch: whether Blue Origin gets New Glenn flying again by the turn of the year, and what the rover and robotic lander missions reveal before NASA commits to a habitat design.