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Spectators watch as the Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket lifts off in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Nov. 16.
Photo:
jim watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Humanity gazed upward again early Wednesday morning. Four months after the release of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched Artemis I, the most powerful rocket ever.
Artemis I is the first uncrewed test flight in a series of increasingly complex missions, marking the dawn of a new era of human exploration of the moon. We’ll use the moon—only four days away from Earth—to develop the technology and science needed to prepare humans for our next giant leap: a monthslong human journey to Mars to look for signs of life, past or present. Exploration is in our DNA—it’s central to our human character.
Exploring Mars will also help scientists learn about our own planet’s climate, history and evolution. The dry, rocky freezing planet we know today might once have been like our own. NASA has been exploring Mars with rovers and landers since 1971. We’ve learned an incredible amount about the planet’s climate and composition, in addition to the flash floods, meteors and volcanoes that made their mark on the surface. But human beings are magnitudes more efficient at collecting and analyzing samples than even our most advanced robotic explorers.
Artemis I is the first integrated test of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, and Orion spacecraft. During this mission, we’ll stress and test the systems in a way that we’d never attempt with humans to make sure they’re as safe as possible for our astronauts. Artemis I will last more than 25 days from launch to splashdown. The module that provides the power, oxygen, water and other support to the Orion spacecraft is built for a 21-day mission. We’re going to push the edge of the envelope.
Orion will fly farther than any human spacecraft has ever flown. After a journey around the moon, it will return home hotter than ever before—about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or half the surface temperature of the sun. Orion will attempt a new kind of re-entry, like skipping a rock on a lake. It will dip down some 200,000 feet into the upper atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour, 32 times the speed of sound. Then it will pull up and bleed off some of that speed to about 17,000 miles an hour. That will enable Orion to slow down enough to safely splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
Artemis I is paving the way for future crewed lunar surface missions. At the surface, NASA will demonstrate key elements needed for the first human mission to Mars. Our vision there is expansive: a lunar terrain vehicle to transport crew, a habitable mobility platform to take 45-day trips across the moon, and a lunar foundation surface habitat that would house crew members on shorter surface stays. We will develop advanced robotics and power systems, and we will need to determine what resources on the moon we can use to create fuel, water and oxygen so that we can reduce what we need to bring from Earth.
Democrats and Republicans alike support NASA because we try to make the impossible possible. There’s a reason Americans wear the NASA logo—because NASA strives to do what no one else does. We’re a uniting force between commercial companies’ ingenuity and our nation’s vision for the future. We put into action what others only dream about. We’re a uniting force.
On Sept. 12, 1962, President
John F. Kennedy
said at Rice University: “We choose to go to the moon.” Sixty years later, we choose to go back. The SLS rocket’s 8.8 million pounds of thrust ignites the next adventure—and our greatest ambitions—to rise not only to the moon but beyond.
Mr. Nelson is NASA administrator.
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