Watching Artemis II and remembering missions of the past

Being a child of the 1960s, I watched most of the Apollo launches and, of course, the Apollo 11 moon landing, all with narrative from Walter Cronkite. It was exciting, and I was in awe that people were "flying" into space!

Fast forward 55+ years, and here I was this evening watching the Artemis II launch to send the Integrity and four astronauts -- three from the US and one from Canada -- on a mission around the moon.

NASA’s Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion
 spacecraft are seen standing atop a mobile launcher at Launch
 Complex 39B on March 31, 2026,  at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
 in Florida. NASA’s  Artemis II flight, which launched  April 1, 2026,
 is taking Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission
Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and Mission Specialist Jeremy
Hansen from the CSA  (Canadian Space Agency), around the Moon
and back  to Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/John Kraus)

In some ways, I felt like that giddy grade-schooler once again. But emotion really hit hard when the countdown got to T-minus 10 seconds, and to be honest, it caught me off guard. It felt like when the US flag is raised and the Star-Spangled Banner is played for US Olympic athletes. There was a sense of awe and a sense of pride, but also a bit of anxiety. 

Anxiety? Yes. I am old enough to also remember the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, the Challenger shuttle explosion in 1986, and the Columbia shuttle disintegration in 2003. 

Being an astronaut is a dangerous career. 

Now I know that there is danger in a number of careers, but few, if any, are like that of being an astronaut and being propelled far from Earth and those who might be able to help you while riding atop a blazing rocket.

Fortunately, the Artemis II launch went well and the astronauts are on their way to an orbit around the moon and a few firsts: the first Black astronaut, the first female astronaut, and the first Canadian to orbit the moon.

I'm glad the US once again has a presence in space. While I personally do not yearn for space travel, I do believe there is much to learn in space that will benefit humankind. (And I also believe the world would be a better place if some other people were in space, but that is another blog post for another time!)

I hope that the astronauts are able to accomplish all that they set out to do on their 10-day, approximately 685,000-mile journey that is expected to take them approximately 250,000 miles from Earth.

I also pray that the Good Lord be with them and bring them home safely!