Over the Moon

(photo credit: NASA)

I remember sitting in the backyard in the early 1960’s with my brothers and Dad who pointed up to the stars and noted one that was blinking and moving.  “Telstar,” he explained with enthusiasm, a machine that humans made to fly into outer space for global communications.  In 1962, we children of the Space Age were dazzled by the thought that humans could send a machine so high into the firmament, literally moving among the stars.  Later, we watched in awe as John Glenn rocketed into orbit, the first American to do so. We dreamed of becoming astronauts soaring through outer space.  We wondered if we had “The Right Stuff” and paraded around as space explorers in our Halloween costumes.

As the years went by, we became used to the special TV broadcasts of launches for Mercury and Apollo missions, and still we were amazed when Neal Armstrong put his boots down on the moon — “One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”  Still later, we watched in horror as the hopes for even more exciting space exploration blew up, contrails of the Challenger space mission lacing through the skies over Florida as this once-ambitious program plummeted back to earth.

Another disaster with Columbia, and the space shuttle program was retired in 2011.  NASA joined with other nations to develop the International Space Station and launched astronauts with commercial partners including SpaceX.  25 years later, the ISS is still going strong, but the dream of returning to the moon never went away.

This past week, the enduring dream of another moon landing took a giant step closer to reality with the very successful Artemis II mission.  Four courageous astronauts packed together in a small capsule (described as about the size of two mini-vans) for ten days.

This mission was about preparing a future moon landing.  The crew flew farther than any humans ever flew before, circling the moon, getting a good look at its “dark side,” and then returned to earth on a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist aboard is seen as it lands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. NASA’s Artemis II mission took Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back to Earth. Following a splashdown at , NASA, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force teams are working to bring the crewmembers and Orion spacecraft aboard USS John P. Murtha. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

With so many serious problems here on earth — the war in Iran, wars and devastating conflicts elsewhere, the rise of authoritarianism here and abroad, the immigration crisis, the economy, and on and on — why should we care about space travel and a fly-by to the moon?

Dreaming about a future full of possibilities is an essential quality for a healthy society.  Imagining traveling with explorers is something humans have done since ancient times — from epic tales of the ancient poets to the fabulous stories told by Jules Verne to Sci-Fi and Star Trek to the glorious photography of National Geographic to the real-time streaming of the Artemis II crew zooming around the moon and back to earth — a passion for exploration of our planet and worlds beyond is an essential part of the advancement of our civilization.

The passion for exploration of the universe is also grounded in the real need to make sure that scientific discoveries continue to evolve, that we continue to imagine opportunities for new horizons, new colonies, inventions that can improve our lives today and for generations to come.

Space exploration also gives us perspective.  Seeing that small “blue marble” earth from 250,000 miles away also shocks us into realizing, once more, that we are a very small part of a vast universe, that we are all dependent on the health of this tiny planet, and that we are more alike than different.  Space exploration, at its best, can help us earth-bound humans to transcend our differences, lift up hope for new ventures, and renew our determination to spend our limited time on earth keeping the peace and helping each other to live better lives.

Thanks to NASA and the Artemis II team for lifting us up once more!  We are “over the moon” with excitement for the next phase of exploration in space.