"I'd like to go to the moon," says French astronaut Thomas Pesquet

The astronaut spoke at the Paris Air Show Aeronautics and Space.

TheFrench astronaut Thomas Pesquet would like to "go to the moon because it is really another world," he said at the Paris Air Show and Space. "The International Space Station is already a bit of a different world but it's still close. The moon is completely crazy, there is no life, it's completely different, "he told AFP on the sidelines of a press briefing by the European Space Agency ( ESA).

The United States has the ambition to send Americans again – including a woman for the first time – to the Moon as early as 2024, and plans to mount a mini-space station around our natural satellite.

"Sustainable" installation

In a second time, from 2028, the Americans plan a "sustainable" installation. For this, the station around the Moon will be called to grow and open to international partners, as is the case for the current International Space Station (ISS).

The European Space Agency (ESA), which provides the service module of the Orion capsule that will bring astronauts into orbit around the moon, hopes that a European astronaut will go to the moon in this second phase. A member of the European Astronaut Corps, Thomas Pesquet, 41, spent nearly six months in the ISS between November 2016 and June 2017.