NASA is headed back to the Moon, and it’s doing so sooner rather than later. The Artemis program is a complex approach, requiring the construction and deployment of a Moon-orbiting space station and crew vehicles that can come and go from that “Gateway” whenever they need.
Pulling it off is going to require the help of reliable commercial partners. In order to gain support and ultimately have the financial freedom to write huge checks to companies that can fill NASA’s needs, it makes sense for the space agency to promote its plan as much as possible. With that in mind, NASA just released a five-and-a-half-minute hype video that definitely does the trick.
The video, which is available in resolutions up to 4k, breaks down some of the more complex parts of the Artemis program and presents them in plain language with helpful animations. Check it out:
The main takeaways here are all related to just how different the upcoming manned missions to the Moon are from the “old” trips during the Apollo era. The missions will launch from Earth, stop at the orbiting Gateway station, and then land on the Moon where all the hardware, tools, and additional gear will be waiting there for the crew.
This little video does a really great job of explaining things while also revealing just how many moving pieces are involved. The companies NASA partners with for Artemis have very little wiggle room when it comes to delays and setbacks. If even one piece of the puzzle isn’t ready to roll at the moment NASA is ready to send humans back to the lunar surface, it throws a wrench in not just one mission, but the program as a whole.
We’ll have to wait and see just how things go, but NASA maintains that it will be ready for a crewed mission to the Moon by 2024. We’ll remain cautiously optimistic in the meantime.
