Colonization of the Moon to reach the moon, to offer a hand . . . . The idea is to spread the costs, but also spread the wealth." In 2016, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, the Chief of ESA, proposed the International Moon Village as a non-governmental organization (NGO), and in November 2017, the Moon Village Association was created. This organization aims to promote international discussions to foster the implementation of a permanent human settlement near the lunar south pole. Exploration of the lunar surface by spacecraft began in 1959 with the Soviet Union's Luna program. Luna 1 missed the Moon, but Luna 2 made a hard
Surveyor program time that NASA tested such systems in the challenging thermal and radiation environment near the Moon. Each Surveyor mission consisted of a single unmanned spacecraft designed and built by Hughes Aircraft Company. The launch vehicle was the Atlas-Centaur, which injected the craft directly into trans-lunar flightpath. The craft did not orbit the Moon on reaching it, but directly decelerated from impact trajectory, from 2.6 km/s relative to the Moon before firing retrorockets to a soft landing about 3 minutes 10 seconds later. Each craft was planned to slow to about 110 m/s (4% of speed before retrofire) by a main