Less than two weeks after NASA’s Artemis II mission, the crew’s observations from their lunar flyby are already providing insights into what it might take to build a base on the moon, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Thursday.In a live conversation with NBC’s Lester Holt and former NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Isaacman said that findings from Artemis II are shaping the agency’s plans to build infrastructure for long-term stays on the lunar surface. The panel discussion was part of an event for Common Ground, an NBC News franchise bringing together leaders with different perspectives to focus on solutions to pressing issues.The Artemis II mission launched April 1, sending NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day trip around Earth and the moon. The crew reached their closest point to the moon on April 6, when they spent seven hours taking photographs and making observations during their flyby. The astronauts were the first ever to see the entire far side of the moon with their own eyes.AdvertisementAdvertisementIsaacman described a moment at the tail end of the lunar flyby as being particularly revelatory: While witnessing a solar eclipse, the astronauts reported seeing multiple flashes of light on the moon. The flashes were caused by rocky objects smacking into the lunar surface, and the astronauts’ observations of them caused scientists in Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center to erupt in cheers.“Everybody got excited because there was a question of whether or not they’d be able to see it,” Isaacman said. “I mean, you just look at the surface the moon, it takes a beating, right? But they actually saw it, and that allows us to maybe update our models of how often is it taking a beating. And if you know that, it might inform your roof design when you build a moon base.”Lester Holt with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and former NASA astronaut Sunita Williams in Washington on Thursday. (Caroline Gutman for NBC News)(Caroline Gutman for NBC News)Last month, Isaacman announced that NASA had canceled a plan to build a space station in orbit around the moon and will instead repurpose the components of that station to construct a $20 billion base on the lunar surface.That announcement followed an even bigger announcement in February, when Isaacman overhauled NASA’s Artemis return-to-the-moon program with the goal of increasing the pace of launches ahead of a targeted moon landing in 2028.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe changes included adding a mission, Artemis III, in mid-2027, to test rendezvous and docking …
