The Mission to the Moon was an astronomical feat to society, occurring in 1969. In July of that year, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. This rocket had a crew that consisted of three: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin. The crew landed on the moon just four days after the launch date, July 16. Armstrong was the first person to ever walk on the moon.

The moon landing brought more interest to other planets, such as Mars. In 2011, NASA launched a rocket to mars with a rover, the size of a car. After years of research, trial and error, the world is taking a pause on the Mission to Mars. Now space companies such as Blue Origin, SpaceX, and the most well known, NASA, have teamed up to start building rockets, like Artemis 1, 2, and 3. The idea of the Artemis mission started in 2017. The goal of these missions is to make the moon have a facility where humans can study the moon. 

The Artemis 1 launch has been delayed twice, once on August 29 and again on September 19. The launch has now been rescheduled to September 27. This mission is scheduled to last about 40 days. In that time period, the Artemis 1 will be orbiting around the moon and the earth. After talking about this mission to two of Edgewood’s grade 8 students, Amelia Krenn and Ashritha Vuddharaju, they had nothing but agreeing good thoughts about it.

“I support the mission to the moon because we need another planet to go to if we destroy this one,” said Amelia Krenn.

In 2024, Nasa plans to launch Artemis 2, which should orbit the moon for about 10 days. This mission will contain a crew of four. There are currently 18 candidates that will be chosen from to undergo this upcoming mission. They will be training for about a year to prepare for the walk of life time. They will be trained for the worst outcome in order to know what to do in every possible situation.

The last rocket out of the group is Artemis 3, which will be the first crewed spaceship to land on the moon since 1972. The mission will last 30 days from start to finish. It is aimed to launch in 2025, but based on the Artemis 1 launch, it won’t launch until at least 2026. The series of the Artemis missions will be very interesting to follow along with over the next few years.