NASA is preparing to launch a mission to the moon — and it’s making history for more reasons than one.

The space agency’s Artemis II launch marks the U.S.’s first journey back to the moon in more than 50 years. It will also carry the first Black astronaut and the first female astronaut to travel to the moon, though the mission will be a flyby without a touchdown on the surface.

The launch, originally scheduled for early February and now delayed, will carry four astronauts around the moon and back, including Victor Glover and Christina Koch, the first Black and first female astronauts, respectively, to make the flight.

The mission follows the success of the Artemis I launch in 2022, which was uncrewed, and marks NASA’s next step toward eventually sending astronauts to Mars.

“The benefits of the Artemis program are technological, but they’re also cultural,” Glover, who is a decorated U.S. Navy captain and has traveled to the International Space Station, said in a 2024 NASA video. “What really means something to me is the inspiration that will come from it, inspiring future generations to reach for the moon, literally to reach for the moon.”

Koch began her career at NASA, starting as an engineer and going on to conduct scientific research before becoming an astronaut in 2013, also traveling to the International Space Station.

“The one thing I’m most excited about is that we are going to carry your excitement, your aspiration, your dreams with us on this mission,” Koch said at the 2023 press conference when the mission’s astronauts were announced.

Danielle Wood, a professor in the astronautics department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said this mission builds upon decades of NASA’s work, including lessons learned from its previously failed endeavors.

“NASA’s been thinking through this whole process, two decades’ worth, of what we’re going to do is prepare the government to focus on these harder, next-generation missions and be able to do things that are not already demonstrated,” Wood told CNBC.

Wood said she’s also thankful that NASA has created a commitment to sending more diverse astronauts to space who “represent society in a more broad way.” Though the space agency initially emphasized military training for astronauts, she said opening up those requirements has led to exciting developments.

“It is still the case that there are many firsts, many glass ceilings, that need to be broken by Black women and Black men and women in general — that’s still real,” Wood added.

The mission will encompass more than just an exploratory journey to the moon too, she said. NASA will be conducting scientific research on the astronauts’ health, the rocket and the science of the moon. The mission is also working in conjunction with other countries, like Saudi Arabia and Germany, as part of “goodwill” agreements to pool together resources for moon research, Wood said.

“That’s just one step for this bigger, new form of operation,” she said.

Space historian Amy Shira Teitel, who’s been studying space for more than two decades, said Artemis II is the beginning of NASA’s next chapter of research.

“It’s marking a new era of leaving low Earth orbit, which we haven’t done since 1972,” she told CNBC. “It’s still a significant step because at the end of the day, we’re still going to gain some information that can be applied to whatever the next step is.”

Still, Teitel has her doubts about whether this launch will be the first step toward a lasting presence on the moon. Between budget restraints, multiple launch delays and complicating political factors, Teitel said the rocket launching this mission is “widely regarded as a huge boondoggle.”

That comes even as the space sector — and the journey back to the moon — has become more crowded.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced earlier this month that it was shifting its efforts from Mars explorations to moon explorations. Texas-based rocket and spacecraft builder Firefly Aerospace and Houston-based space startup Intuitive Machines have both sent spacecraft to the moon.

And NASA plans to retire the International Space Station in favor of smaller space stations focusing on the moon and Mars, with costs adding up. The U.S. Senate has also advanced legislation to support NASA’s advancements and create thousands of aerospace jobs, especially in Alabama, where the Marshall Space Flight Center is located.

Though the Artemis II launch will mark a significant step in NASA’s history, Teitel said she is choosing to remain cautiously optimistic about the future of space exploration, despite the hurdles.

“There’s so many challenges with this program right now stemming from policy, not from the astronauts or the engineers, just stemming from the fact that space is so complicated and so rooted in politics and so expensive that it’s hard to be that thrilled about this as the next step when everything else feels so tenuous,” Teitel said. (CNBC)

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