Back to the Moon Back to the Moon Back to the Moon is a science fiction novel and Homer Hickam's first fictional book. Published in June 1999, Hickam wrote Back to the Moon using insider information he learned from NASA. The prologue of the novel begins with a dramatized account of the second EVA of Apollo 17. Astronaut Jack Schmitt discovers orange soil in Shorty Crater at the very end of the EVA and gathers samples in a race against time to get back to the LEM. Meanwhile, Wernher von Braun is watching the end of the mission on TV with other NASA engineers.
Exploration of the Moon made a Moon flyby on a night of 28 October 2014, after which it entered elliptical Earth orbit, exceeding its designed lifetime by four times. China launched on 7 December 2018 the Chang'e 4 mission to the lunar farside. Since the Chang'e 3 mission was a success, the backup lander Chang'e 4 was re-purposed for the new mission goals. Following the abandoned US Constellation program, plans for manned flights followed by moonbases were declared by Russia, Europe (ESA), China, Japan and India. All of them intend to continue the exploration of Moon with more unmanned spacecraft. China planned to conduct