On April 1, 2026, NASA launched four astronauts on a flyby around the moon for the first time since Apollo 17, nearly 54 years ago. The mission, Artemis II, carries astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The mission is estimated to be a 10-day endeavor, looping the astronaut around the moon and back. Yet this mission is more than a simple loop around the moon: it’s a rebuttal to cynicism, a testament to human collaboration, and evidence that ambition can still produce something to believe in.
We live in an era of endless cynicism: skepticism about large institutions, anxiety about the job market, and a somewhat unenthusiastic outlook of our future. Even within STEM, the romanticized image of breakthrough or discovery has been replaced with a more mundane and nuanced reality, one where AI and clerical work supplements scientific investigation. Though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can overshadow the beauty of collaborative human ingenuity. That’s why I’m excited about Artemis. Every rocket that lifts off, every crew that leaves Earth’s orbit, is a testament to our strength as a collective.
There are, of course, other reasons why I’m excited. Among Artemis II’s objectives is to demonstrate life support systems for the first time with a crew aboard, laying the foundation for an enduring human presence for future Moon and Mars habitability missions. This is Artemis’ key distinction with its close cousin, Apollo. Apollo was a flashy mission with stunning achievements, but they were also, in a sense, stunts—flag placed, pictures taken, astronauts returned. Instead, Artemis is a sustained, multi-decade-long mission building the framework for interplantery human habitation. In that sense, the Moon is not the final destination, but rather one piece of the puzzle, a recharge station.
As a prospective scientist, this framing matters to me. Whether or not you believe in multi-planetary human colonization—which is a loaded ethical question in its own right—it’s difficult to disregard the positive impacts of Artemis in our day-to-day life. The infrastructure being built to support Artemis is bringing real advancement in material science, life support engineering, radiation biology, and propulsion. Furthermore, the diversity of astronauts aboard Artemis has great significance. Victor Glover became the first person of color, Christina Koch the first woman, and Jeremy Hansen the first non-US citizen to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Representation in spaceflight tells young people from underrepresented backgrounds that space isn’t this elite, untouchable frontier for them. That’s critical to convey in our rapidly expanding world of STEM.
Still, despite the symbolic implications of the mission, space investigation continues to be a controversial topic in our present. Private companies compete alongside NASA for public attention. Billionaires fund rockets as a hobby. The line between commercialization and scientific integrity has grown increasingly blurry. We may be entering a “Golden Age” of scientific exploration, but the existence of a Golden Age requires questioning who benefits and who bears the cost. The practical cost of space exploration is not small. Each NASA launch mission has a price tag estimated in the billions, which could be alternatively allocated to climate research, expanding domestic infrastructure, or innovative healthcare technology. I bring up these points to paint the practical implications central to the problems scientists and policymakers alike grapple with. In a world of increasing disparity, it’s difficult to contextualize where spaceflight sits on our scale of importance.
The sheer scientific innovation attempted by Artemis is astounding. During the planned lunar flyby of April 6th, the astronauts will photograph areas of the Moon’s far side never seen before. These areas have shadowing conditions that make them undetectable under full illumination. There’s something deeply poetic about humans finally seeing something technology has only been able to approximate.
The Artemis II crew is expected to break the Apollo 13 record for farthest distance from Earth, roughly 252,021 miles from the Earth. It’s a difficult number to visualize—a quarter million miles away from home. No human has been that far since 1970, and yet there are four aboard a small capsule, floating through darkness, staring back at the blue dot we’re living in.
As a student interested in science, this mission has given me perspective about my future prospects. I’m reminded that aerospace engineers who designed the spacecraft were also once high school students struggling through their calculus problem sets. The astrophysicists charting the crew’s return path were once like us, unsure if their scientific aptitude would amount to anything practical.
Artemis II is more than a moonshot. It’s a snapshot of what’s to come, laying the groundwork for exciting future possibilities in space. The generation of future engineers and scientists that will land on Mars, and perhaps even build a permanent lunar base, is sitting in classrooms right now, perhaps agonizing over a particularly difficult physics problem. Artemis II is evidence of an expanding future. Isn’t that exciting?
