Can’t go to the moon with NASA? Mistastin crater in Canada is the next best

Much like most of my dating life, the remote location of the crater is isolated from most humans and mimics the aloneness felt on the moon; the structure is similar to what you’d find for many lunar craters; and the area contains rare rocks that are eerily similar to what astronauts find on the moon.

Those qualities make it a suitable training ground for potential astronauts of NASA’s Artemis mission, which plans to land astronauts on the moon as early as 2025. On Wednesday, NASA took a significant step toward returning to the moon and launched an un-crewed test flight called Artemis I, which will not land on the surface but stay in lunar orbit for up to 25 ½ days to demonstrate the rocket and spacecraft can fly safely.

“This crater in Labrador wasn’t even known to be a crater during the Apollo missions,” said Gordon Osinski, a planetary geologist at Canada’s Western University who has guided astronauts around the crater. “I’d love to see every astronaut who eventually walks on the moon come to Mistastin.”

Mistastin, known locally as Kamestastin, lies on the spiritual and traditional hunting grounds of the Mushuau Innu First Nation and requires approval from them to visit.

NASA begins U.S. return to the moon as its huge SLS rocket finally flies

The crater is essentially in the “middle of nowhere” said planetary geologist Cassandra Marion, who has been to the site six times. There’s no formal runway strip, and visitors usually land in a small unpressurized cargo plane on a shrubby gravel area — if there’s not a large boulder in the way. It’s often rainy and windy. When it’s not windy, it’s buggy with loads of biting black flies.

Located in the Canadian Arctic, the rugged terrain is a mix of taiga and tundra. Black spruce and Alder trees live at lower elevations, while moss appears near riverbeds and at higher elevations. And then there’s small delicious blueberries everywhere in the tundra. If you don’t watch where you sit, Marion said you may get up with “purple butt.”

“She’s a cruel mistress, in a sense, but I would go back” Marion said. “It’s one of the most beautiful places that I’ve been to. You feel like you’re the only ones there for kilometers at a time.”

In September, Marion and Osinski took two astronauts to the Mistastin…