We Are Going to the Moon

Photo+credit%3A+Joel+Kowsky

(NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Photo credit: Joel Kowsky

Nevaeh Adame, OwlFeed News Reporter

3…2…1… Blast off! As the Artemis rocket takes off from Kennedy space center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It opens a new chapter in space exploration and helps preserve the future for mankind itself. Blazing through the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, exiting the earth’s gravitational pull and making its way to the moon. The rocket starts parting away from the boosters that helped it reach space. Once it’s close to its final destination, it links up with the lunar station that is orbiting the moon. Then sending its lunar lander into the surface of the moon. From there they will make contact with the moon and 4 astronauts will be standing foot on the moon in the 21 century. 

We all the infamous statement from Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the moon.“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969. The Apollo rocket helped achieve this historical moment for mankind. NASA sent 9 Apollo Missions to the moon, out of the 9 only 6 successfully made it to the moon. This allowed 12 men to walk on the lunar surface. 

  The Apollo mission stopped in 1972. The reason why is that many people thought that it was too expensive to keep the program running. National air and space museum states “For many citizens, beating the Soviet Union to the Moon ended the Space Race. Public support for expensive programs of human space exploration, never very high, declined considerably; enthusiasm was further eroded by the expense of the Vietnam War, the serious problems in the cities, and a growing sense of environmental crises.”

For more than 50 years, we have not done anything on the moon, nor even thought about going back. However, in December 2017 NASA started the Artemis Program, and its main mission is to go back and revolutionize space exploration. The promise that the Artemis Program made is “With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.”

NASA’s number one priority is the astronauts. They want to keep them safe and comfortable through the 3-day space voyage. That’s where the Orion spacecraft comes to play. The Orion spacecraft is meant to take astronauts further than ever before! This is what NASA has to say about Orion, Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.” 

The next major thing that is making this mission possible is SLS (Space Launch System). The SLS is NASA’s biggest and most powerful rocket ever to be built. The SLS is helping get the astronauts to get to space. The SLS’s main mission is to get the astronauts up into the exosphere and get them off Earth’s soil. 

Now one of the main things that are making this mission different from the Apollo missions is the brand new Gateway. NASA is planning to send out a station to orbit the moon. This station would help with making sure that we get to choose where we land on the lunar surface. It would also help ensure better communication with people here on Earth. “The Gateway, a vital component of NASA’s Artemis program, will serve as a multi-purpose outpost orbiting the Moon that provides essential support for a long-term human return to the lunar surface and serves as a staging point for deep space exploration. NASA is working with commercial and international partners to establish the Gateway.”

Now instead of Orion landing on the moon. The Gateway will have a Human landing system attached to it. This would guarantee the success and safety of landing on the surface of the moon. “Built by American companies, human landing systems are the final mode of transportation that will take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back to orbit.”

With all those steps we can ensure that we will be getting on the moon. The future is here and it’s not that far away to reach.