On July 20, 1969, hundreds of millions of people around the world watched Neil Armstrong take the first steps humanity has ever taken on the moon. NASA continued its journeys onto the lunar surface for the next four years, visiting six times in a four-year period between July 1969 and December 1972. So, why did a program that accomplished the most daring, scientifically challenging, and profound journey “for mankind,” run for only four years?
The answer varies. Government funding decreased in the Nixon administration, public perception shifted toward civil rights, and the U.S. was still fighting wars in Vietnam and against the Soviet Union. The moon was an afterthought, but 57 years later, NASA will be returning to our moon- sort of. A 10-day flight plan will take them around the moon- the farthest humans will ever be from Earth.
Artemis II was announced in April 2023 by its crew of four members: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, the only Canadian onboard and the first to fly around the moon. Wiseman, Glover, and Koch all have experience in space, with the bulk of their time spent on expeditions to the International Space Station.
The launch of Artemis II hasn’t gone without a hitch, however, as engineers experienced trouble in early February, when a liquid hydrogen leak and pressure valve forced the launch date back until March.
“Engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket’s core stage,” NASA stated in a press release. “In addition to the liquid hydrogen leak, a valve associated with Orion crew module hatch pressurization, which recently was replaced, required retorquing, and closeout operations took longer than planned.”
Both failures caused engineers to fall behind in their mock countdown of launch day.
“With March as the potential launch window, teams will fully review data from the test, mitigate each issue, and return to testing ahead of setting an official target launch date,” NASA stated. “Crew safety will remain the highest priority, ensuring NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, return home at the end of their mission.”
