In an interview with the BBC, NASA official Howard Hu said humans might live on the moon this decade if the present Artemis mission was successful.
According to the NASA official in charge of the Orion lunar spacecraft programme, humans could stay on the moon for long periods of time this decade.
Howard Hu told host Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC that the launch of the Artemis rocket on Wednesday, which is carrying Orion, was a "historic day for human space flight."
Orion is currently about 134,000km (83,300 miles) from the Moon.
The 100m-tall Artemis rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center as part of Nasa's mission to take astronauts back to Earth's satellite.
Sitting atop the rocket is the Orion spacecraft which, for this first mission, is uncrewed but is equipped with a 'manikin' which will register the impacts of the flight on the human body.
Wednesday's flight followed two previous launch attempts in August and September that were aborted during t...
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