'We're really on a different trajectory': How NASA's Artemis moon missions aim to prepare us for Mars

Artistic depiction of NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole carrying out early work to establish an Artemis Base Camp. .

As NASA prepares to put astronauts on the moon in the next few years, the agency is thinking about "how to live and operate away from the Earth, on other planets" — especially Mars.

Those comments were delivered during a virtual Artemis 4 landing site science workshop on Sept. 10 by Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA. Bleacher, a planetary geologist by training, has a mandate from NASA for "technology and architecture development to enable human exploration of the moon and Mars," his agency biography states.