NASA is finally just hours away from launching its massive new rocket to the moon. It’s the first uncrewed test flight from NASA’s Artemis Moon program, which aims to return humans to the moon within the decade — and the space agency’s leadership is extremely excited about it.
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“Get ready for Artemis I – here we go!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson tweeted after the space agency’s moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), reached the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The SLS and the Orion spacecraft it carries will soon “embark on a test flight that will go further than any human-built spacecraft has ever gone,” he added.
NASA plans to launch the Artemis I mission, as the test flight is called, at 8:33 a.m. EDT on Aug. 29, with backup launch windows on Sept. 2 and 5.
“It feels surreal because we’ve been waiting for this moment for so long and now it’s finally here,” Laura Forczyk, founder of space analytics firm Astralytica and author of the book, Getting Out of the World: Learn from Astronauts to Prepare for Your Journey in Space said The Independent.
But if NASA officials and space fanatics are excited about the SLS taking to the skies, it’s unclear whether the American public at large shares their enthusiasm.
“Most of the United States is not paying attention to NASA’s plan to put people back on the moon,” Ms. Forczyk said.
But she expects that to change, and soon.
The SLS will be the largest rocket ever to fly, a super-heavy launch vehicle “the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Saturn V,” says Ms. Forczyk.
At 322 feet tall, with a central main stage flanked by two solid rocket boosters in a configuration similar to the now-retired Space Shuttle, the SLS is slightly shorter than the Saturn V but more powerful, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust at Saturn V is 7.6 million.
“It’s going to be something that will blow people’s minds if they see it in person.” It’s going to be spectacular,” Ms. Forczyk said. “I think it’s going to be bigger than just a blip on CNN. I think it will be something that will make the world take notice.”
And if the world continues to pay attention, NASA has quite a show planned for them.
Artemis I’ll see SLS launch 21St century equivalent of the Apollo spacecraft, the Orion vehicle, to, around, beyond and back from the Moon over the course of a 42-day mission. Orion carries lunar science experiments and cameras to document its journey to the Moon in higher resolution than the Apollo missions.
“Missiles are only transportation. And what does it transport? It conveys science. It’s a technology transfer,” Ms. Forcyzk said. “It will be tested for radiation and observations of the moon will be made.”
Radiation levels are just some of the measurements Orion will make using three dummies aboard Artemis I, each designed to study how the flight might affect human astronauts. That’s because human astronauts are the next step.
After the successful Artemis I mission, NASA plans to follow up with Artemis II in May 2024, in which four astronauts will fly a similar course as Artemis I around the Moon.
In 2025, Artemis III will see NASA land the first people on the moon since the 1970s, including the first woman and person of color.
Several generations of people, millennials, Generation Z and the upcoming Generation Alpha, have never seen a human being set foot on another world, Ms. Forczyk notes, including herself, and she believes a modern mission to the moon will capture the focus of the world in a way that huge segments of the population cannot imagine.
The U.S. and the world have already seen several generations grow up who have never seen a human set foot on another world, Ms. Forczyk said, and Artemis I is the first step in a journey that will put human spaceflight front and center. again the imagination of the world.
“If you remember in May 2020, people were so excited about SpaceX launching humans to the International Space Station, the first time Americans had returned to orbit [on their own] after the retirement of the space shuttle,” she said. American astronauts flew to the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for nine years after the shuttle retired in 2011, but “returning to the Moon is an even more significant gap in time. It’s an even more monumental achievement because it’s been so long since 1972.”
NASA would continue to operate additional Artemis missions into the late 20s, eventually building a space station in lunar orbit and outposts at the Moon’s South Pole. It’s a program designed to test technologies and operational strategies NASA wants to develop for future planetary missions, such as a manned mission to Mars sometime in the 2040s.
“We want to open up the rest of the solar system so we can continue to explore our natural environment around us,” Ms Forczyk said.
But the big visions of later Artemis missions and an eventual human mission to Mars depend on a successful test flight of Artemis I. It’s possible something could go wrong, but Ms. Forczyk doesn’t think that’s likely: Like the James Space Telescope Webb, which like SLS and Orion was delayed and more expensive than originally expected, NASA took the time to make sure the agency got SLS right. His future plans depend on it.
“All eyes are on the program,” she said. “NASA is a government agency that is well-known and popular, but also highly criticized when it comes to how much it spends. So when all eyes are on it, you have to justify those costs. You want to make sure politicians and the public know their tax dollars are going to get good results.”