Where We'll Camp When We Return to the Moon

Advocates for manned moon explorations have been sorely disappointed by U.S. space politics in recent times. Charles Bolden, president of NASA, declared last year that NASA “will not take the lead on a human lunar mission … probably in my lifetime.” Of a possible return, President Obama has quipped: “We’ve been there before.”

But new observations and extrapolations from NASA’s robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter offer a glimmer of hope for the lunatics out there. After scanning thousands of new high-resolution images, researchers found over 200 steep-walled pits on the moon that might be used to shelter future explorers. The pits—most of which were found inside larger craters—range in size from about 5 meters to more than 900 meters in diameter.