Ask for the Moon: Artemis II may revive humanity's path beyond Earth orbit

When Gene Cernan took his final steps on the Moon on December 14, 1972, he expected humanity to return soon. “We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind,” said the commander of Apollo 17.

 

More than 53 years later, his footprints remain untouched in the lunar dust as the last human marks there. Between July 1969 and December 1972, starting with Neil Armstrong, 12 Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon’s surface.

 

In the years since, space exploration has leapt ahead: Spacecraft on comets; telescopes capturing black-hole shadows; a small helicopter (nicknamed Ginny) flying on Mars. Yet getting humans back to the Moon has been surprisingly tough.

 

Part of the explanation lies in why Apollo happened at all. The lunar race was driven primarily by geopolitics. Determined to beat the Soviet Union, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) mobilised resources on a scale rarely seen in civilian programmes, hitting nearly 5 per cent of the federal budget at peak. Engineers pushed hard, launches came fast, and risks that we wouldn’t take today were accepted.

 

With the race over, that drive faded. The world of Saturn V — the powerful launch vehicle developed for the Apollo programme — faded, too. Dedicated factories closed, suppliers left, and engineers moved on. Recreating that capability decades later has proved much harder and costlier.

 

But now the United States is attempting a return with the Artemis programme, which aims to not only revisit the Moon but also to establish a longer-term presence. Plans include regular trips to lunar orbit, reusable landers, and crews near the south pole, where shadowed craters might hold water ice.

 

In this, the next milestone is Artemis II, targeted for an April 1 launch. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will fly in the Orion spacecraft on the space launch system (SLS) rocket, loop the Moon, and head home.

 

Even this upcoming flyby has taken years to prepare. 

 

Artemis I revealed unexpected heat-shield erosion on re-entry. So, life-support systems had to go through more tests; and batteries, avionics, and controls were checked again. A rehearsal this year found operational issues, and engineers later flagged a helium-flow problem in the rocket's upper stage.

 

This scrutiny shows how human spaceflight has changed. After disasters involving space shuttles Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003), space agencies have significantly reduced their risk tolerance. Every issue triggers a full probe before crews fly, making things slower, more cautious, and expensive. SLS launches cost about $4 billion each.

 

But the real challenge lies in the landing mission. Originally slated for Artemis III in 2027, it has been pushed back. As Nasa tackles glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon, Artemis III, under the revised plans, will now be a low-Earth orbit mission, testing docking operations with commercial lunar landers.

 

If everything goes as planned, Artemis IV will then aim for the first landing in 2028 near the lunar south pole, with Artemis V following later that year, or in 2029.

 

Those missions are expected to rely on commercial landing systems being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, which must first demonstrate critical technologies, including cryogenic fuel transfer, autonomous docking and uncrewed lunar landings.

 

Recent robotic missions have shown the risks. Russia’s Luna-25 crashed into the Moon after a navigation error. Japan’s SLIM, short for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, reached the surface, but tipped over. The US private mission, Peregrine Mission One, failed shortly after launch because of a propulsion leak, while the Odysseus lunar lander (nicknamed “Odie”) made contact with the surface but toppled during touchdown.

 

For all its benign demeanour, which has inspired many a song, the Moon isn’t exactly welcoming. Approaching it demands precision. Landing on it even more so. With no atmosphere to slow a spacecraft, rockets must provide all the braking while navigating terrain that can confuse sensors. Fine dust interferes with instruments, radiation threatens electronics, and communication delays require spacecraft to operate with significant autonomy.

 

Against this backdrop, Chandrayaan-3 stands out as a rare success. Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover successfully touched down near the Moon’s south polar region in 2023 and analysed the soil, detecting elements, including sulphur.

 

In ancient Indian thought, the Moon is often associated with soma, the nectar of immortality. In the success of Chandrayaan-3, there was a sense that the dream of lunar exploration had indeed been granted a second life.

 

If Artemis II unfolds as expected, its crew will be the first to go past low-Earth orbit since Apollo 17. And that journey alone will reopen a path closed for over half a century, making Cernan’s words feel less like a farewell and more like a promise still alive.

 

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