The Lunar Exploration Summer Intern Program: Plugging Students into the Lunar Science and Exploration Pipeline

Introduction: After a long hiatus, NASA is returning humans to the Moon. The agency and its partners in academia, industry, and the international community are engaged in an exciting new exploration initiative designed to study the lunar surface robotically beginning in 2008 and with crewed landers before 2020. At the request of NASA, the National Research Council (NRC) has developed a set of science priorities for this lunar exploration initiative. In 2007, the NRC released a report that summarizes The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon (Figure 1).