Humans are heading back to the Moon. I've been waiting my whole life for this.
- Adam Spencer
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Four astronauts just launched toward the Moon on Artemis II. The most important space mission in 50 years. And Australia's got their back.
Lift-off!
April 1, 2026. 6:35pm, Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
No, it wasn't an April Fool's Day prank.
For the first time in 54 years, human beings are heading to the Moon.
Four astronauts; commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and token Canadian Jeremy Hansen (just kidding, he is an absolute gun!), are tucked inside the Orion spacecraft, and by the time you read this on Tuesday morning, they will have swung around the far side of the Moon.
Let that land for a second.
The last time humans ventured this far from Earth, Richard Nixon was in the White House, ABBA hadn't formed yet, and the internet existed only in the dreams of a handful of university nerds.
A 6 month-old kid with a wonky eye certainly had no idea what was going on up there.
So what was Artemis I?
November 2022. An uncrewed test flight full of mannequins in suits, with sensors everywhere, no humans.
Twenty-five days, to the Moon and back, to prove the hardware worked.
Artemis II is that mission. With actual people.
Who's who in the crew?
Four astronauts who together represent something genuinely new.
Commander Reid Wiseman, 50, is a former ISS commander and test pilot.
Pilot Victor Glover, 49. A US Navy aviator and the first person of colour assigned to a lunar mission.
Mission specialist Christina Koch, 47, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, clocking in at 328 days.
And mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, 50, Canadian fighter pilot, first non-American heading to the Moon.
First woman near the Moon. First person of colour near the Moon. First non-American near the Moon.
I'm sure some podcaster somewhere is decrying WOKE-NASA and yearning for the good old days, but yeah — nah, this is pretty cool.
"I already knew going to the Moon was hard. Boy, it's harder than I thought." Jeremy Hansen, absolutely key crew member and not token Canadian.
Are they landing?
Nope. Let's be clear about that.
Artemis II is a test flight. The crew will follow a free-return trajectory around the Moon, looping past its far side before Earth's gravity pulls them home even if every thruster fails.
At closest approach they'll pass within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the lunar surface. The Moon will look from Orion's windows like a basketball held at arm's length.
During Monday's six-hour lunar flyby, the crew will lose radio contact with Earth for 30 to 50 minutes while they pass behind the Moon. In that silence, they'll photograph and observe parts of the far side no human being has ever laid eyes on directly.
It’s worth pausing for a second to realise that the moon is not sitting static in space, waiting for Artemis II to loop around it. The whole flight path is a piece of mathematical majesty.
They're also running proper science up there. The AVATAR investigation is sending organ-on-a-chip devices into deep space. These contain actual bone marrow grown from the astronauts' own cells, to study what deep-space radiation and microgravity do to human tissue. The chips are about the size of a USB drive.
Splashdown is scheduled off San Diego on 10 April.
Why 50 years between drinks?
It's hard. It's stupendously expensive. And after the last human to stand on the Moon Gene Cernan climbed back into the Apollo 17 lunar module in December 1972 the political will to keep going quietly disappeared.
What's changed? Partly technology. Partly ambition. Partly the fact that the Cold War space race of the US vs USSR has become a new space race. US vs China.
China has serious lunar ambitions.
Stir in rare minerals at the lunar south pole, military positioning and national prestige, and suddenly the Moon is very sexy again.
The kids would say low-key the moon has high aura right now.
And also, honestly, just because it's still there. And it's still magnificent.
Aussie Aussie Aussie; eye! eye! eye!
Again Australia is a crucial part of the plan.
Just as in 1969, when first Honeysuckle Creek and then the Parkes radio telescope became unlikely heroes relaying Apollo 11's Moon walk footage to the world, Australia is providing critical support for Artemis II.
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla is NASA's only southern-hemisphere deep space tracking station. One of three on the entire planet.
Without Canberra's dishes, there are blind spots. The geometry of Earth, Moon and moving spacecraft means you simply need eyes spread across the globe.
On top of that, the ANU Quantum Optical Ground Station at Mt Stromlo is supporting NASA's laser communications demonstration. Next-generation tech that will shape how we talk to spacecraft on Moon and Mars missions for decades to come.
And alongside Parkes, keeping a watchful eye as always, a commercial tracking station at Koonibba in South Australia is in the mix too, passively tracking Orion via Doppler telemetry.
Not watching from the sidelines. Australia is up to our eyeballs in this.
What's next?
Artemis III in 2027 will test docking with a lunar lander in Earth orbit.
If this all works, then in 2028 Artemis IV is where boots actually hit the Moon for the first time since Cernan's famous last words:
"We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, December 1972.
Fifty-four years later, we're on our way back.
I remember reading about Apollo as a kid and thinking I'd missed the most exciting thing that would ever happen in space.
Turns out I hadn't.
Neither have you.
Hey, I'm also on Substack.