Yesterday, I was that 10 year old kid again who eagerly watch as an Apollo rocket launched from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center headed for the moon – our closes celestial neighbour.
As I watched Artemis II head for the shies, I was filled with emotion and a bit of trepidation; it has been so long since we put a human in space and heading for the moon.
Artemis II is on a 10 day journey that will take them on a few orbits of Earth before heading for a trip around the moon on their way back to Earth.
The Artemis Project is a series of planned launches over the next few years that will eventually put humans back on the moon.
Artemis I was a robotic launch. Artemis II will be filled with experiments on how the human body reacts to space travel. Unlike the Starship Enterprise that has gravity, astronauts today operate in zero gravity.
Artemis III, IV, and V will all launch over the next two to three years; testing new equipment like a lander for travel on the moon with plans to land human kind on the moon again but this time instead of landing on a flat spot near the equator, the crew will be heading for the south pole – a much rockier landscape – moonscape – that will require great skill to accomplish.
The current Artemis crew included four people – three men and a lady – three Americans and one Canadian. But the most surprising fact about the current astronaut crew is their age; they are much older – at least a decade – than previous crews. This crew is in their upper 40’s to 50.
The kid in me that witnessed over a decade of Apollo and Shuttle launches is excited to see us headed into “The Final Frontier” once again. The “Star Trek” fan in me hopes that one day it becomes a reality.