TITUSVILLE, Fla. – The moon is finally in reach again for humankind. At least that’s the goal for NASA’s Artemis I, which is set for launch from Kennedy Space Center on Monday. For those who worked to first get an American on the moon over 50 years ago, though, the question stands: “why did it take so long to go back?”
“It’s been too damn long. It should have never stopped,” said Charlie Mars.
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Mars, a retired NASA engineer who worked in the Lunar Module sector, had a front-row seat to history during the Apollo era. Just a few miles away in a command center was Bob Seick, who also worked as an engineer for the Apollo missions and later became a launch director for the shuttles.
“Going to the moon for the first time blew our minds! Most of us couldn’t wait to get up and get to work,” said Mars.
They were also there when Apollo 17 marked NASA’s last crewed mission to the moon in 1972.
Now, they’re watching as the legacy of their work on Apollo intertwines with NASA’s Artemis.
“Finally, it’s all about humans going back to the moon and setting it up as a station as it were to explore with humans,” said Seick.
The men call it a long, long-awaited return but recognize how times have changed.
In the 1960′s, the building of the space complex, moon rocket, and the training and launch to the moon happened in just seven years. Fast forward to the current times, it took NASA the last 10 years just to build Artemis.
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“Society, in general, was not as risk-averse as our society is today. It was OK for things not to go well the first or second time you tried them,” said Seick, “We have reacted to things that haven’t gone well with more oversight, more bureaucracy in some cases in order to get through the process so it takes longer to get things done.”
Artemis will have key features taken straight from Apollo, though much more advanced.
“A lot of it was automated but I bet it wasn’t even 20% automated compared to what we’re looking at today,” said Mars.
With the new technology, NASA can also reach for the stars a bit more.
Artemis’ Orion module will surpass the Apollo modules by flying 40,000 miles past the moon — the farthest a human spacecraft will have ever traveled.
While Apollo was a force in the space race with the Soviet Union with brief lunar visits, NASA hopes Artemis will establish a more continuous presence and see new, unexplored regions on the moon.
Despite the scientific differences, though, Seick said the human power behind the mission is the same.
“The number of landings has got to be the same as the number of launches. That’s the only number that counts. Never lose sight of that,” he said.
If the Artemis I mission scheduled to launch Monday is successful, Artemis II could take astronauts up to orbit the moon no earlier than 2024. Then, Artemis III would be slated for sometime after 2025 to put two astronauts back on the lunar surface.