HOUSTON (AP) – Never-before-seen views of the far side of the moon. Check. A total solar eclipse creates a lunar landscape. Check. New distance record for humanity. Check.
With NASA’s return to the moon a galactic-scale breakthrough thanks to Artemis II, the world is wondering: What’s next? And how do you achieve that?
“For those around the world who are looking and dreaming of what’s possible, the long wait is over,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said as he introduced Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilots Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen at Saturday’s jubilant homecoming celebration.
Now that the first lunar voyagers in more than half a century have returned safely to Houston with their families, NASA has set its sights on Artemis III.
“The next mission is just around the corner,” commented entry flight director Rick Henfling after the crew’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday.
In a mission recently added to next year’s plans, unnamed Artemis III astronauts will practice docking their Orion capsule with one or two lunar landers in orbit around Earth. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to get their companies’ landers ready first.
Musk’s Starship and Bezos’ Blue Moon are competing for the all-important Artemis IV moon landing in 2028. The two astronauts will head for the south pole, the preferred location for Isaacman’s $20 billion to $30 billion lunar base. Large amounts of ice are almost certainly hidden in permanently shadowed craters there – ice that could provide water and fuel for rockets.
The docking mechanism for Artemis III’s close-to-home test is already in place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The latest Starship model is about to launch on a test flight from South Texas, and a scaled-down version of the Blue Moon will attempt to land on the moon later this year.
NASA promises to announce the Artemis III crew soon. Like Apollo 9 in 1969, Artemis III aimed to minimize the risks of the subsequent moon landing.
Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart loved flying the lunar module in low Earth orbit — “a test pilot’s dream.” But he noted that there is no doubt that the “real astronauts” at least in the public mind are the ones who walked on the moon.
Wiseman and his crew fully express their passion and emotion as they circle the moon and back, choking up over lost loved ones as well as those left behind on Earth.
During the nearly 10-day journey, they tearfully requested that a new, bright lunar crater be named after Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, who passed away from cancer in 2020. They also publicly shared their love for each other and Planet Earth, a subtle yet delicate oasis in the black void that they said needed better care.
Artemis II included the first woman, first person of color and first non-American to fly to the moon.
“Great communicators, almost poets,” Isaacman said from the rescue ship while waiting for their return.
The macho, business-minded Apollo lunar crews of the 1960s and 1970s certainly didn’t hug each other in groups.
For those old enough to remember Apollo, Artemis – Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology – can’t come fast enough.
Author Andy Chaikin said he felt like Rip Van Winkle had just awakened from a nap of nearly 54 years. His 1994 biography “A Man on the Moon” led to the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon.”
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come and how different this experience is from back then,” Chaikin said from the Johnson Space Center last weekend.
According to NASA Deputy Administrator Amit Kshatriya, the hardest part was becoming so close to the crews and their families and then sending them to the moon. He anxiously watched Friday’s return flight with the astronauts’ spouses and children.
“You know what’s at stake,” Kshatriya confided later. “Exploration comes with risk, but you have to make sure you find the right line between being paralyzed by it and being able to manage it.”
Calling it “mission accomplished” only after being reunited with his two daughters, Wiseman issued a rallying cry for astronauts to wear blue flight suits in Saturday’s celebration.
“It’s time to go and get ready,” he said, pointing at them, “because it takes courage. It takes determination, and you’re all doing your best and we’ll be there supporting you every step of the way in every way we can.”
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