On December 19th 1972, the Apollo 17 module re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and landed safely in the Pacific Ocean, returning all three of its passengers home safe and sound and concluding the US’ sixth crewed mission to the moon. At the time, no one knew that it would be the last crewed mission for the next 50 years, but it indeed had been.
For the past five decades, no man – or woman – has set foot on the moon.
However, all of that is about to change. With the Artemis mission, NASA will land both the first woman and first person of color on the moon. They will travel as part of the four-person crew of the Orion spacecraft to explore more of the lunar surface than has ever been explored before.
This mission will only mark the beginning of a series of missions – collectively making up the “Artemis Generation” – that will contribute to establishing a long-term presence on the moon. “We will build an Artemis Base Camp on the surface and the Gateway in lunar orbit. These elements will allow our robots and astronauts to explore more and conduct more science than ever before,” NASA explains.
However, the Artemis missions are also part of a far vaster dream: sending humans to Mars.
The aforementioned Gateway space station is part of NASA’s larger plan of developing a transportation system that can facilitate payload deliveries between Earth and Mars, by way of the Moon. It will also pave the way to establishing power stations on Martian soil that will be instrumental in enabling prolonged human stay on the Red planet.
Consisting of “docking points for various spacecraft, a module called the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) — serving as the station’s living and work areas — and scientific equipment,” Gateway will be a pivotal component of sustained presence on the Moon and for deep-space crewed missions. The space station will also provide “refueling for extended trips into space,” which will be integral for missions to Mars as the distance from Earth is too vast to cross without any fuel replenishment.
And why go to Mars in the first place? According to the European Space Agency, the answers include the “search for life, understanding the surface and the planet’s evolution, and preparing for future human exploration. Understanding whether life exists elsewhere in the Universe beyond Earth is a fundamental question of humankind.” Mars is the key to understanding this fundamental question as it is a planet that evidence shows once beared the most similarities to our own home, including presence of water and a warmer, thicker atmosphere.
All of that being said, NASA does not estimate a mission to Mars until the 2030s or 2040s, when they will be armed with far more experience and knowledge from a multitude of lunar operations as they venture into territory that no one has ever explored before. Project Artemis is the pathway to all of this, starting with Artemis I (the initial test) this year to Artemis 3 (humans on lunar soil!) estimated no sooner than 2025.
Artemis I will be the first uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft that will later carry four passengers to the moon. The vessel contains technology that will be used to collect data during “the 42-day, 1.3 million-mile mission that will take the uncrewed spacecraft as far as 280,000 miles away from Earth, circling the moon before heading home.” Artemis I was originally slated to lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida on Monday, August 29th before it was canceled two hours before launch due to an identified temperature issue in one of the four liquid-fueled engines.
The launch was rescheduled for Saturday, September 3rd before being canceled again after a hydrogen leak was detected. Artemis I remains on the ground today in October, safely shielded in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center, due to the onslaught of Hurricane Ian, but NASA scientists are currently considering dates between November 12th and November 27th to finally launch the mission.
Keep an eye out this November for the latest updates in order to witness the beginning of a new era of space exploration.
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