With crewed Artemis launches on the horizon, NASA is searching for sustainable solutions for waste management during long-term missions on the moon. 聽An initiative called LunaRecycle, under the space agency’s Centennial Challenges Program, aims to incentivize the design and development of recycling solutions for use on the surface of the moon and/or inside pressurized lunar habitats. The program aims to reduce solid waste streams during long duration lunar missions under the Artemis Program, as well as to improve the sustainability of future space exploration.
With so many missions heading to the moon, both private and governmental, some scientists argue that humanity has entered a new “lunar anthropocene” marked by an age in which humans are beginning to alter the moon forever. After all, previous crewed moon missions left landers, flags, scientific experiments, golf balls, and even human excrement on the lunar surface.