Artemis 1 Is Nasa’s Test to Return Humans to the Moon
Richard Ward, CTO & Founder, OrbitsEdge, shares his comment on NASA’s Artemis mega-rocket launching the agency’s Orion spacecraft to the moon. Orion will travel approximately 40,000 miles beyond the Moon and return to Earth over a period of 25.5 days following launch, according to NASA. As part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, Artemis I is a critical part of the agency’s exploration campaign. This test remains crucial to the agency’s plans for the Artemis II mission.
Richard’s Thoughts:
“Last night’s launch was the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of tremendously dedicated people. Our return to the moon depends on the momentum building from success to success. Artemis one was the first of many steps that leads to a sustainable, permanent human presence on the moon.
It’s going to require a lot of different partners, both us and international. And it will require building new capabilities that we don’t currently have. It’s not just about the science of how to get there, it’s about how to get there sustainably. And part of that means doing it affordably and frequently.
Doing it at a scale that allows us to benefit from all economies of scale, figuring out how to do it safely and in a commercially viable way so that we actually have business cases that exist on the Moon, and figuring out ultimately how to live off the land.”
