After almost 58 years, NASA astronauts, in a manner of speaking, returned to the Moon. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen traveled around the Moon before returning to earth.
This had not happened since NASA’s Apollo 8 “which launched on December 21, 1968, and entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968. The crew – Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders – circled the moon 10 times before returning safely to earth.”
Apollo 8 was a key preparation flight for Apollo 11 1969 landing on the Moon. Artemis II is also a flight to help prepare the program for a landing on the Moon again.
This time however, there is a major interest in making the Moon a base to further the exploration of our solar system. This concept represents an extension of President Kennedy’s own 1961 challenge and prediction of landing on the Moon within a decade which was accomplished by Apollo 11.
I still recall the excitement President Kennedy created in me as a 17-year-old when he stated that, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” This quote along with another, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other,” impelled me to journey into the uncharted waters of university life.
To be sure, the interest in space began in earnest with the Soviet Union’s successful launching of a 92-centimeter sphere called Sputnik on October 4, 1957. The Cold War was heating up and competition for preeminence between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, made this a critical moment for the country.
In quick response, America launched a Vanguard rocket that blew up on December 6, 1957. It was not until the successful launch of the satellite Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958, that the United States joined the Soviets in space.
1958 was also the year that legislation to create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was passed and began operation. NASA is the agency that is overseeing the development of the Artemis initiative.
The manned space programs include Project Mercury (1961-1963), Project Gemini (1961-1966) that had astronauts work outside space vehicles, Project Apollo (1968-1972) that put men on the Moon, Skylab space station (1973-1974), Project Apollo-Soyuz international crews (1975), Space Shuttle Program (1981-2011) that helped construct the International Space Station, Shuttle-Mir (1994-1998) that prepared for life on a space station, 2004 first private human spaceflight, 2020 Space X space travel for commercial purposes and Project Artemis that aims to return humans to the Moon.
Ironically, America’s greatest accomplishment in space that put human beings on the Moon occurred during the height of the Vietnam War. Just a year before in 1968, the Tet Offensive took violence to another level.
Our thousands of draftees who had little choice on the matter and who did not survive the one-year deployment, came back in body bags to a divided country and a mostly ungrateful public. The American Soviet competition that initially got us into space also got us into this tragic Geo-political circumstance.
Artemis II 10-day departure and return came back to a divided world at home and a war abroad that threatens to establish the same conditions as Vietnam. There is even serious talk about bringing back the draft.
The journey to the Moon and return to earth is generating a new excitement everywhere. Hopefully, it will also bring a measure of peace.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
