Artemis II mission makes history

The Artemis II mission is NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in 50 years, since the Apollo 17 mission. This is the first time since 1972 that humans have departed Earth’s orbit, as four astronauts were on board.

The mission successfully launched at 6:35 p.m. ET on April 1, marking the second in a program that aims to land astronauts on the moon’s surface and construct a base.

Dr. Laurie Leshin, University Professor of Space Futures at Arizona State Universary, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss more about the mission.

“It has been a whirlwind since we launched,” Leshin said. “Yesterday was just riveting every minute of the seven hour flyby. Including that loss of signal for 40 minutes as they went behind the moon, came out the other side, saw the eclipse. It was like all the cool space stuff compressed into one day.”

The Artemis II is now on it’s way back to Earth and are expected to splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Friday around 8:07 p.m. ET on April 10, according to NASA. The Apollo 17 crew in 1972 also splashdown in the Pacific Ocean but was roughly 400 miles southeast of American Samoa. The excitement celebrating the success of the Artemis II’s mission has raised the question as to why it’s been five decades since humans went to space.

“It’s a combination of; it’s very technically challenging to leave low Earth orbit,” Leshin said. “I think it was also our strategy was actually to develop Earth economic sphere in low Earth orbit and really stay focused there with the Space Shuttle and then the Space Station.”

While it’s taken 50 years for humans to leave orbit, the Space Shuttle has had 135 mission with 835 fliers, according to Nasa. The International Space Station has been in operation since 1984 and has welcomed astronauts from North America, Europe, Japan and Russia.