Hi guys!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today, I have some exciting news to share: we’re going back to the moon!
Well, not at this moment, but the time is approaching.
On November 16th, 2022, Nasa Launched the Artemis I rocket. Though an unmanned craft, its true goal is to return humanity to the moon.
At 322 feet tall, the Artemis I rocket one of the largest rockets in history - only topped by the fearsomely tall Saturn V, which brought Neil Armstrong to the moon. It’s easily the most powerful spacecraft to ever go to space, powered by two ginormous thrusters that each hold 733,000 gallons of propellent. The Artemis’s mission was to go unmanned around the moon and back, a first test for an eventual manned flight to the Earth’s largest satellite. 40 billion dollars have thus been invested into the Artemis project, and it began to pay off this week. The launch had to be scrubbed (canceled) twice, due to a rocket being “too warm” and a hydrogen leak but on Wednesday, the Artemis came through and the two monstrous booster rockets did their job. The Artemis rushed upward in a torrent of flame, and made night day for the nearby area.
Then, a little over a day ago, the Artemis I reached the moon, marking NASA’s reentry into the space race.
That “space race” may be no joke, considering China’s lunar ambitions. They are currently in the lead when it comes to spaceflight technology. They currently are the only country that has a robotic spacecraft on the lunar surface, are building a space station, and plan to have a moon base in the 2030s. NASA administrator Bill Nelson has warned that China could become the “dominant lunar superpower.” Now, the Americans have returned to the skies, and it seems that the space race 2.0 has begun.
Where is NASA going from here?
Once the Artemis I completes their round-the-moon mission, NASA will begin work on the second test. This will be the final preparation before mankind returns to the moon, in 2025. That’s right. Three years from now, we may return to our lunar cousin. The project plans to put the first woman and African American person on to the moon. The launch director of the mission, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, described how significant this first launch was:
We are all part of something incredibly special…
The first launch of Artemis. The first step in returning our country to the moon and on to Mars.