The Stars My Destination: Artemis I Launch

Better Late than Never | Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa!

Destination Moon
16 November 2022: Artemis I lifted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center's LC-39B, an uncrewed Orion capsule (Crew Module [C.M.] & European Service Module [E.S.M.]) atop a Space Launch System (S.L.S.) rocket. This was the first flight of the S.L.S. launch vehicle & the first flight of the combined C.M. & E.S.M. Orion spacecraft. Artemis I was the second flight of an Orion capsule, after 2014's Exploration Flight Test-1 atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket. This was the first time N.A.S.A. had launched a human-rated spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

"The Stars My Destination" posts will always pay more attention to crewed spaceflights than uncrewed spaceflights. For example, we gave more time to the first crewed flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Demo-2 mission in 2020, than to the uncrewed Demo-1 mission in 2019, even though Demo-1 was a necessary test flight before Demo-2; we will pay more attention to the first crewed flight of a Boeing Starliner, the Crewed Flight Test (currently scheduled for 2023), than we did to either the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-1 in 2019 or Orbital Flight Test-2 in 2022. We will surely give more coverage (& more prompt coverage) to the crewed Artemis II mission (currently scheduled for 2024) than to Artemis I. Yet all that said, & even as an uncrewed mission, Artemis I is special.

For fifty years, since the return of Apollo 17 in December 1972, we—Mankind generally & the American space program specifically—have not ventured beyond low Earth orbit. We had not gone beyond what we already knew. Yes, there is much important, even vital work to be done in low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle, for all its unfulfilled promise, succeeded in making outer space more accessible than it had ever been before. Our space stations—N.A.S.A.'s Skylab, the Soviets' several Salyuts & Mir, & the International Space Station—have taught us, are still teaching us how to live & work in space, & how to foster cooperation & collaboration across international boundaries so that when we go into deep space we can go, in the immortal words of Apollo 11, "for all Mankind."

We are going. We are exploring again. Artemis I is only the beginning.

Bonus! Moonshot Song o' the Day: Artemis I
Frank Sinatra, "Fly Me to the Moon" from It Might As Well Be Swing (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Wayback Machine Tour of Artemis I
Artemis I Liftoff

Ex Luna, scientia.