Op-Ed | Supporting America’s plan to lead on the moon

For nearly half a century, America has led some of the most complex missions with robotic landers throughout our solar system, including bold landings on Mars and asteroids. But most Americans are surprised to hear that since 1972 we haven’t had a crewed or robotic lander conduct science and exploration on the moon. Although NASA has placed the occasional orbiter around the moon and even intentionally impacted a spacecraft into the surface, the nation has not had a lander capable of advanced surface science and exploration since Apollo. In retrospect, it’s striking that the global leader in space exploration went...