From the Earth to the Moon, and Back Again

National Review Online

Wednesday, April 08, 2026

 

The Artemis II crew is now six and a half days into their mission to the moon and back. Having rounded the dark side of the moon as planned, they are currently properly positioned for the journey home and reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, and we await their arrival off the coast of San Diego. While the mission will not be counted a complete success until after splashdown of the Orion-class command module (scheduled for the afternoon of April 10), it has gone almost entirely according to plan up until this point — give or take a few amusing problems with the toilet — and seems set for a safe return.

 

Our prayers are with the crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — and so are our high spirits. By engaging in this first necessary step — of many — to get back to the moon, and beyond, the men and women of NASA have done a service not only for the United States but also, in the words of the Apollo 11 astronauts, “for all mankind.” The successful launch of Artemis II, after more than a half century when humanity’s spacefaring ambitions were consigned to Earth orbit, marks a moment of hope: We can still do the big, difficult things. President John F. Kennedy once famously 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.”

 

The pictures the crew has sent back from the dark side of the moon are stunning taken on their own terms, and even more so when one realizes the immense national effort required to even get these men and women into space to be in a position to snap them. It is truly humbling to see the vastness of Earth from the isolation of the moon, and one can only wonder how long it will be before we set foot on it again.

 

The next mission — Artemis III, testing the Orion’s low-earth orbit docking procedures in conjunction with SpaceX, in anticipation of sending lunar landing craft to the moon — is currently targeted for 2027–2028. One step at a time — but full speed ahead.