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NASA is set to return to the moon. Here are 4 reasons to go back

NASA's Apollo missions already sent astronauts to the moon from 1969 to 1972. But scientists say there's still lots of good science to do there. The moon also could be an ideal stepping stone to Mars.
Astronaut Charlie M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, is photographed collecting lunar samples during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity at the Descartes landing site.

President John F. Kennedy delivered a famous speech in 1962 outlining his administration's challenge to land Americans on the moon. "We choose to go to the moon," he declared, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

As difficult a technological feat as the Apollo moon program proved, within seven years NASA had met Kennedy's challenge and ultimately sent a dozen astronauts to the surface on six missions between 1969 and 1972 at a cost of about $25 billion — roughly $250 billion in today's dollars.

Sixty years after Kennedy's speech, NASA is again . The uncrewed Artemis I, the first test flight of the hardware that will be used to send astronauts later, is set to

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