Not every venture beyond Earth is driven by profit or secrecy. In the quiet shadow of corporate platforms and classified payloads, public institutions and civilian initiatives continue their work — slower, less glamorous, but no less meaningful.   Luna City, though still small, now rotates university researchers and civilian engineers alongside government specialists. Its utility grows with each cycle. Greenhouse experiments, radiation exposure studies, and long-term habitation modeling are all underway — fragile steps toward something resembling permanence.   International consortia, cobbled together from national science agencies, public-private partnerships, and academic bodies, continue launching low-orbit telescopes, radiation monitoring arrays, and microgravity experiments. The Ares Program’s remnants, though mostly sealed behind Project HESPEROS, have left a legacy of Martian data that universities still mine for insight.   There are hurdles. Launch budgets shrink. Public attention wanes. And yet, the idea remains: that space is not just a frontier for power, but a domain for understanding.   If humanity is to live beyond Earth, someone must test the soil, track the microbes, study the bones of those who stay aloft too long. Someone must keep asking questions without a profit margin attached.