posted 07-22-2026 10:13 AM               

"If you want to go fast, go familiar," he said. "We want to get to the surface. If we want to land soon, familiar, daylight, equator."

One reason he preferred equatorial regions is the ease of getting there and back. NASA's plans for landings at the lunar south pole had involved the use of a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a highly elliptical orbit that would also have been used by the Gateway. However, that orbit would have required astronauts to spend up to a week on the lunar surface before Orion or the Gateway would be in position for them to depart.

Glover cited a hypothetical case of an astronaut who suffers a burst appendix during an Artemis landing mission. "If it ruptures on landing day, you're stuck for a week. That's a big deal to me, and I don't like that plan," he said. "The equator gives me opportunity to save that person."

Polar landing sites pose other challenges. The sun is low on the horizon there, casting long shadows that can hamper landings and also make it difficult to walk or drive in the direction of the sun.

"You think driving home into the sunset is challenging? Imagine being on another celestial body and going from this room to low sun angle in a suit," he said.

He advocated for a more stepwise approach that would start with landings closer to the equator to build up experience toward polar landings, comparing it to test flight programs that incrementally expand the envelope in speed and altitude. "You have a process for accepting risk more and more, but also retiring it right," he said.

"I think we need to be realistic and work our way to the south pole, and maybe not try to go there first," he said.