17/04/2026
The Grand Vision Behind the Artemis II Mission
The 10-day lunar flyby was the first domino of NASA’s international movement to go back to the moon and establish a base before communist China.
HOUSTON—After more than half a century of abandonment, humanity’s first pathway to another world has been rediscovered, and a traffic jam of dreams and ambitions has begun to pile up awaiting its full reopening.
From April 1 to April 10, NASA’s Artemis II mission took NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, around the moon and back for the first time since December 1972.
They traveled farther from Earth than anyone else in human history, and they saw things no human eyes had seen. Aside from a few nuances, their flight plan arguably appeared less ambitious than the Apollo missions in many ways. The crew spent a couple of days in the lunar sphere of influence, but they did not park in lunar orbit or attempt to land.
It was just a flyby. That flyby laid the foundation for a NASA-led effort to return to the lunar surface and establish a permanent human presence there, with international partners, before the Chinese communist regime.
