NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon on a mission called Artemis. The astronauts who are going there are currently being trained rigorously, even if they look scary looking at this one photo.
NASA's official Twitter account showed off a glimpse of how the exercise went. Several astronauts were seen training in the dark depths of the water, as a simulation of conditions on the Moon.
"In the dark, we simulated walking on the Moon. Divers at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory turned off the lights to simulate what astronaut Artemis might experience at the Moon's South Pole," NASA said.
Apparently the area on the Moon is indeed dark. "At the Moon's South Pole, the Sun remains a few degrees above the horizon, casting a very dark and long shadow," they added.
"To prepare astronauts for these challenging light conditions, our team began evaluating solutions for deep pool bottoms," NASA continued.
NASA's ambition to land astronauts on the lunar surface again in 2024 had to be put on hold. The US space agency has announced that the Artemis mission, which will take astronauts to the Moon, has been postponed until 2025.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the delay was due to several factors. One of them is a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin to NASA because of the Human Landing System (HLS) contract problem.
Due to this delay, the series of Artemis missions were also postponed. The Artemis-1 mission, which is an unmanned mission to test Space Launch System rockets and the Orion capsule, will launch as scheduled in early 2022.
Artemis-2, which is the same as the previous mission but carries a crew of astronauts, will be launched in May 2024. Meanwhile, Artemis-3, which will carry astronauts to the Moon, will be launched in 2025.