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Why We Explore
Why Do We Explore?
From the time of our birth, humans have felt a primordial urge to explore -- to blaze new trails, map new lands, and answer profound questions about ourselves and our universe.
Exploration History
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Conferences and Speeches
Find past speeches and conference materials here!
Find past speeches and conference materials here!
NASA Analog Mission Field Test Videos
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NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations
Similar in size to the International Space Station's living quarters, Aquarius is the world's only permanent underwater habitat and laboratory. Long-duration missions provide astronauts with a realistic account of what they will likely encounter on the moon while carrying out daily operations.
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NASA Tests Inflatable Lunar Habitat Concepts in Antarctica
In a 13-month test beginning in January 2008 at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, NASA, in cooperation with the National Science Foundation and ILC Dover, collected information about various aspects of an inflatable lunar habitat concept.
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NASA's Haughton Mars Project
Haughton Crater's rocky polar desert setting, geological features and biological attributes provided an optimal opportunity to gather requirements for possible future robotic and human missions to Mars. During the Haughton Mars Project, scientists and engineers from NASA, Mars Institute, and SETI Institute performed multiple representative lunar science and exploration surface activities using existing field infrastructure and surface assets.
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NASA's In-Situ Resource Utilization
The terrain, rock distribution, soil materials and permafrost in Hawaii provide an ideal simulation for In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), a necessary element in NASA’s current lunar exploration architecture. ISRU is a process that uses hardware or employs an operation to harness local resources for use in human and robotic exploration. The ISRU demonstrations in Hawaii include end-to-end oxygen extraction, separation and storage from the volcanic material.
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NASA's Mobility Field Test Phase 1
NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Lunar Architecture Team conducted studies of the possible scenarios that may be encountered on the moon. The sand dunes of Moses Lake, Washington provided an ideal landscape for testing.
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NASA's Mobility Field Test Phase 2
NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Lunar Architecture Team conducted studies of the possible scenarios that may be encountered on the moon. The desert-like landscape in Black Point Lava Flow, Arizona provided an ideal landscape for testing.
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NASA Tests Rovers at Black Point Lava Flow, Ariz.
NASA is currently conducting Analog Field Tests at Black Point Lava Flow, Ariz.
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 "NASA Extreme Environment Missions Operations")
 "inflatable Habitat Field Tests in Antarctica")
 "Haughton-Mars Analog Video")
 "In-Situ Resource Utilization Video")
 "Mobility Field Tests, Phase 1")
 "Mobility Field Tests, Phase 2")
 "Analog Mission at Black Point Lava Flow")