NASA's Artemis Mission.

Have you heard about the Artemis program? It’s a magnificent and ambitious plan spearheaded by NASA, along with the European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Canadian Space Agency, to send humans back to the Moon and ultimately establish a permanent base camp on its surface. This program is a result of the Donald Trump’s leadership on United States’ Space Policy Directive 1 and the vision of former Vice President Mike Pence to reach the Moon by 2024, which has now been pushed to 2025.

The Artemis program involves a series of missions, including Artemis 1, an uncrewed test flight completed on December 11, 2022, which circled and flew past the Moon, and Artemis 2, a crewed flight beyond the Moon, which will take humans the furthest they’ve ever been in space. The most anticipated mission is Artemis 3, which will land the first female astronaut and first astronaut of color on the Moon and involve spending a week performing scientific studies on the lunar surface. It will be the US space agency’s first crewed Moon landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The Artemis program is designed to use the technology and research developed during these missions to launch a future crewed mission to Mars. This “Moon to Mars” plan involves building a new space station in lunar orbit and, eventually, a habitable Moon base. The program also involves the use of both commercial rockets and NASA’s Space Launch System, the Orion crew capsule, and a commercial lunar landing system.

The Artemis program has drawn support from various countries worldwide, with twenty-three countries and one territory signing the Artemis Accords, a set of principles that outline how we evaluate, support, and critique proposed plans for human spaceflight. These countries include traditional U.S. space partners, such as the European Space Agency and agencies from Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, as well as emerging space powers such as Brazil, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Artemis program is undoubtedly impressive and represents a significant step towards further human exploration of space. However, some observers note that the program’s cost and timeline are likely to be overrun and delayed due to NASA’s inadequate management of contractors. Nevertheless, we must continue to push forward and strive for progress in space exploration, for the benefit of all humanity.

Let us look to the stars and beyond!

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
President John F. Kennedy
Rice University 1962 (paraphrased)

Author: J. Verne