No human has set foot on the Moon for nearly four decades.
But Earth will have a colony there within the next 30 to 40 years, one of the International Space Station's most respected astronauts has claimed.
Commander Chris Hadfield, who captured the public's imagination by tweeting thousands of pictures from space and recording David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' at zero gravity, has predicted that a lunar base will be fully functional within his lifetime.
And within the next 70 years, he believes we could establish a base on Mars.
Commander Hadfield, 54, believes both goals are the next logical steps in human exploration.
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"It's a pattern we have been following for the last 70,000 years. We gradually made our way around the world. In the last 100 years we have got to Antarctica and now there are people who live there for months at a time.
"I think within my lifetime we will see a permanent lunar base. Setting up a permanent habitation on the Moon will help make space exploration better."
Commander Hadfield retired earlier this year following a 35-year career which saw him travel to space three times. He has flown two space shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS).
He believes the station only has around 15 years left before it will be need to be decommissioned. It is already venting ammonia into space, a crucial chemical which is needed to cool the structure.
Plans are being prepared to forcibly crash-land the ISS back on Earth, probably into an ocean to avoid out-of-control debris falling onto populated areas.
"You wouldn't want it crash landing over Wales for example," he told an audience at the Science Museum in London.
Once the ISS has been decommissioned, Commander Hadfield believes a base will be established on the Moon.
"The International Space Station currently is an extension of our self-awareness beyond Earth. One small step away from our own planet.
"The next logical step is to go the Moon. I am really hoping that within my lifetime we will start living on the Moon.
"We have found out in the last couple of weeks that there is water in the soil of Mars. So I am also really hoping that in the lifetime of our children we will be able to start digging that up that on Mars as well."
Commander Hadfield believes a lunar base of the future will include China and India, who are both forging ahead with their space programmes.
On Saturday the Chinese became the first country in 37 years to make a soft landing on the Moon.

Chinese officials have already stated that they are keen to send humans to the Moon, in what would be the first manned lunar missions since the US Apollo programme in the 1960s and 1970s.
China first sent an astronaut to space in 2003 and currently conducts around 18 space launches a year. The Chinese government has expressed a wish top open a permanent space station within the Earth’s atmosphere in the next decade.
Commander Hadfield praised China's mission as a "great step forward.
"It's extremely complex and demanding to land something on the Moon," he said.
The Soviet Union's Luna 24 probe was the last space mission to land on the Moon in August, 1976 -- four years after the United States launched the manned Apollo 17 mission.
The last manned mission was by the US in 1972.