You Should Be More Excited About the Artemis Moon Missions

C’mon, it’s the moon, people!

Last June, I took my son Wynn to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He has an interest in science and, like any eight-year-old, wants to go space, but I do wonder if the trip was more for me than it was for him. It is difficult not to be discouraged by the current state of the world, and fretful for its future. There is much value in the perspective of looking toward the heavens, and for recognizing the limitless possibilities of what human beings are capable of, if we can just stop screaming at each other all the time. I came away from the place feeling renewed, invigorated: Like there was a chance all this might turn out all right.

But mostly: I got really excited that we were going to the moon. Like most Americans, I had not heard about the Artemis project, at least until I visited the Space Center. The Artemis project, which began under the Trump administration and was continued by the Biden administration (one of the few projects to survive the transition), is explicit about its aims: It wants to return human beings to the moon. It wants them to be Americans. It wants to put the first woman on the moon, and the first person of color on the moon. It wants us to go back.

The timeline on this is quicker than you might realize. The first flight was scheduled to launch Monday morning but was scratched because of an issue with one of the engines. (This seems an excellent reason to push back a launch, even an unmanned one.) One suspects the postponement of the launch will limit some enthusiasm, and maybe you won’t be watching the next one like you were going to do this morning, but they are eventually going to launch regardless. When Artemis 1 does launch, it will merely orbit the moon — it’s basically to prove that we can still do such a thing. Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch in May 2024 and will feature a crew doing a “lunar flyby” before returning to earth. Artemis 3 is the big one, scheduled for 2025, with two astronauts spending a week on the surface and becoming the first people to step foot on the moon in 53 years. There will surely be delays: I bet we don’t hit all those dates. But the plan is in motion, even with Monday’s delay. It has been more than 50 years. The moon is sitting right there.

Another great thing about the Artemis mission: It’s not a billionaire funding the whole thing so he can escape when the earth is on fire. It’s done by us, for us. When I was in Florida, my son and I took a helicopter ride around the Cape. It was pretty fun, and he loved it.

The helicopter pilot, like many private helicopter pilots, was a retired military man, and we talked, during the flight, about visiting the Space Center the day before. We then saw the headquarters of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s Tesla spinoff company that has been at the forefront of space travel.

“That’s cool, good for him,” the pilot says. “But it means more when we do it.”

And he was right. Our government can seem dysfunctional at best and deeply in peril at worst. But it is still capable of great things — important things. (After all: Sure seems like the moon is gonna contain all sorts of useful secrets we didn’t know about before.) During our visit, I experienced theodd, unfamiliar, very pleasant warmth of seeing people still out there trying to do something big, believing that we still can. Those people see the same awfulness that we all do. They feel the same despair. But they keep their eyes heavenward, trying to feel inspired, believing there is more out there than this — and believing that, collectively, we can come together to find it. It made me feel some hope. I needed some hope. I bet you do too. Artemis 1 is going to finally launch soon. You should be there for it. You should be there for all of it.

Will Leitch writes multiple pieces a week for Medium. Make sure to follow him right here. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his family and is the author of five books, including the Edgar-nominated novel How Lucky, now out from Harper Books. He also writes a free weekly newsletter that you might enjoy.