Artemis rising: Revived dreams could take flight
For countless generations of humanity, the moon was familiar but inscrutable, evoking madness and divinity, charting a path of predictable change across the sky and ever, always, out of reach.
With every lunar cycle, the number of humans who can remember ever thinking that way diminishes. The first children to have realistic dreams of walking on the moon’s surface are of an age to be grandparents and great-grandparents now, and many feared they would be gone from this Earth before a new generation of children could once again hope for those dreams to become reality.
But the time has come — if not this week, soon. The Space Launch System megarocket rolled out last week and now towers above Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center, with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft perched on top. The first launch window opens Monday at 8:33 a.m.; there are two other opportunities on the books. Within a week or two of launch, the Orion capsule — propelled out of Earth’s atmosphere and into the range of the moon’s gravitational pull — could reach and circle the moon before heading back to Earth. The mission, dubbed Artemis I for the Greek goddess who was sister to Apollo and one of several lunar deities, could take as long as a month and a half and is the first of several planned launches.
Artemis II is planned to send a four-person crew 4,600 miles beyond the moon before returning them to Earth. And Artemis III, if all goes well, will take a crew of four to the moon’s surface, where at least two members — including the first woman — will fly down in a human lander to walk on the surface. That could happen as soon as 2025.
It is rushing toward us, this series of triumphant returns and new beachheads. And this time humankind is ready not just to explore, but to make a permanent space for ourselves and other nations. Not just to reach the moon, but to establish long-term settlement there. To use it as a base from which to hurl ourselves into a vastly less known space beyond. The countdown has begun for the first humans to set foot on Mars. To shatter the boundaries of our solar system.
So much has changed since the first Apollo missions. Today, children carry more computing power in their hip pockets and backpacks than was used to send the first missions to the moon. We are also learning to comprehend the promise of public-private partnerships that maximize public investment and expand earthbound potential for communication, defense and scientific advancement.
And we have learned the anguish of looking into a blue sky, watching as dreams disintegrate into fiery tragedy.
But even in an era where we have grown accustomed to a busy launch schedule, Artemis is something special. There’s a reason the Space Coast is anticipating as many as 200,000 people to observe this flight and feel the rumble of the most powerful rocket ever constructed (though a bigger one is in the works). This is history taking flight.
These hopeful viewers understand: We need this.
We need the sense of shared purpose and friendly competition as a reminder of the daring, intrepid heights humanity can reach. We need this dual-natured Artemis, stern and exacting yet youthful and full of promise. At a time when we are seeing many humans at their worst, we need a reminder of what we can accomplish at our best.
It is time, once again, for dreams to ignite and take flight, racing at 25,000 miles per hour into the future. Artemis, Godspeed.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick and El Sentinel Editor Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com