NASA revealed the members of its 2025 astronaut class, the 24th group in the agency's history — some of whom may be among the first people to set foot on Mars.
Space agencies like NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), and others are working to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. Mounting missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), something that has not happened in over 50 years, presents several major challenges. One of the biggest is that resupply missions take much longer to send to the Moon and require heavier launch vehicles. Whereas the International Space Station can be resupplied in a matter of hours by a Falcon 9, missions bound for the Moon take about three days and require a Space Launch System (SLS) or the Starship.

