The year is 2027, and NASA is finally ready to return humans to the surface of the moon. The Space Launch System and Orion have demonstrated their ability to send a crew to the moon, while SpaceX has put Starship through extensive testing to take astronauts down to the lunar surface and back. There’s just one problem.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...