After more than 50 years from the Apollo missions that brought man to the moon for the first time, “now, with the Artemis missions, we return to stay there, not to walk only on the lunar soil”. It is the CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia, Massimo Comparini, who remembers, in conversation with Adnkronos, the broad horizon of NASA’s new Artemis moon missions of which the first, Artemis 1, is on the launch pad with the countdown again set for September 3, at 20.17 Italian time, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After the stop on 29 August due to a problem with the 3 Rs25 engine, NASA therefore tries again to launch Artemis 1 and to kick off the new lunar season with the new missions carried out in collaboration with Europe, through ESA, and who see Italy with ASI in an important role. “They will bring astronauts and astronauts back to our natural satellite this time to work on the Moon in the coming years, to build infrastructures, to install a real space laboratory around the Moon”, says Comparini. “‘Moon to Mars’ is the slogan of NASA and it speaks clearly: return to the Moon in order to then ‘attack’ the colonization of Mars”. To indicate one of the basic objectives of the new Artemis moon missions is the CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia, Massimo Comparini, in conversation with Adnkronos on the eve of the new launch date of Artemis 1 set for tomorrow, Saturday 3 September, at 20, 17 Italian time, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Among the objectives of the Artemis missions, the CEO Comparini explains that they will serve to teach us how to “learn to work even with limited resources” on other planets. “And this means, among other things, learning to use more systems with a view to sustainability that will be strategic not only in the colonization of the red planet but above all to protect life on our planet Earth”. “We will apply on earth, for example, the technology for low water consumption crops and the Artemis missions will thus give new technological elements for sustainability on Earth” indicates the top manager. With the lunar missions of NASA’s new Artemis program “we will learn to live in another world, in worlds that will not be our Earth”. And “in this match we are not spectators, we are protagonists” the CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia is keen to say. “If for the Apollo missions we were ‘kidnapped’ by the Moon but only spectators, now – with the new Artemis moon missions – Europe and Italy are an important partner, Italy is the actor and protagonist of this mission”. “The Artemis 1 mission is very exciting also because it gathers years of work by thousands of engineers, very high skills, people: it is a mission that will be significant for all humanity. And the most important thing is that, regardless of who he will physically return to lunar soil, this time there will also be European astronauts “adds Comparini. (by Andreana d’Aquino)