A Small Step Toward Another Giant Leap

By Sean McVeigh

Here’s not much of a hot take for you: space is cool. There is something inherently awe-inspiring about space travel. Astronauts have been the idols of children across generations, and space exploration has been the subject of countless books and movies. And last week we watched as NASA sent its most powerful rocket ever into space with four brave humans on board.

The Artemis II launch was really the first time I can remember being interested in a space program event. I’m a millennial — the last time we sent humans to the moon was 22 years … before I was born. Many people from previous generations have those “Where were you when…?” moments tied to the glory days of the space program. And on the flip side, the Challenger disaster is an event that has stayed with those who were watching ever since.

But since that golden age, NASA has been in the midst of an all-time slump, driven by both a lack of incentive (there is no Soviet Union to race against anymore) and partisan politics (one administration sets a goal, the next scraps it before anything meaningful can be accomplished). But from the looks of it, the Artemis program may be different.

It’s not like we need to prove it to anyone, but there is nothing that demonstrates America’s dominance on the world stage quite like our space program. Twelve people have walked on the moon in the history of mankind … and all twelve were Americans. Europe has a space agency. Do you know what it’s called? Me either. NASA, on the other hand, is synonymous with space travel.

Artemis II may not send people to land on the moon just yet, but its real significance is less about the destination and more about the fact that it is a crewed spaceflight. Shooting things into space is something we’ve become quite good at. The number of satellites orbiting Earth is a little frightening (there are an estimated 15,000). And while we’ve sent landers and rovers to Mars for years, none of those missions have involved actual humans. There is just something different about having one of our own in the mix.

Watching the launch itself was a blast (pun 100% intended). The excitement in every broadcast was palpable. This mission stirred so much emotion that more than a few tears were shed, both by those involved and those watching. I was completely swept up in all the hoopla.

The highlight for me, though, was the videos that surfaced afterward. Videos of people going about their everyday lives until someone points out a tiny dot in the sky, and suddenly everyone stops to watch in awe.

In one such video, a college softball game in Florida came to a standstill when a player spotted the Artemis rocket overhead. Both teams left their dugouts and came onto the field together to watch in amazement this display of our nation’s greatness. I don’t know if there’s anything more American than that.

If all goes according to plan, Artemis III — the first crewed lunar landing since the last Apollo mission in 1972 — is scheduled to launch in mid-2027. The ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent lunar base on the moon. And I can’t wait. I’ll be watching the entire time as we take another giant leap for mankind.