2026-04-03
19 分钟For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Kendra Pure Lewis, in for Rachel Feldman.
And here we go. 10, 9, 8, 7, RS-25 engines, 8, 2, 1, booster ignition, and liftoff!
The crew of Artemis II, now bound for the moon.
Humanity's next great voyage begins.
On Wednesday evening, after multiple delays, the Artemis II mission to go around the moon was successfully launched.
So after a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon.
That was NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman at the post-launched news conference.
Prior to this, NASA had flown nine Apollo missions to the moon with six successful landings.
But this mission marks the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
The four Artemis II astronauts, Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hansen,
will not be setting foot on the moon, but rather slingshotting around it,
potentially going further out into space than anyone in human history.
To tell us more about the successful launch and the mission,
we sat down with Siam Senior Space and Physics Editor Lee Billings.
He has been covering this historic moment and is here to break it all down.
Hi, Lee.
Hi, Kendra.
So Artemis II finally launched on Wednesday.
Can you talk a bit about the launch process, like what happened?
So it was actually quite seamless.