KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – A launch Wednesday night to the moon has a special guest in attendance who knows a thing or two about going to another world.
In 1972, Charlie Duke and Orlando-native John Young were the second-to-last crew explore the lunar surface.
A half-century later, at almost 90 years old, Duke is back at the Kennedy Space Center as a special advisor to one of the company’s riding on the IM-2 mission.
The legendary astronaut talked to reporters about America’s return to the moon.
“I wish the Artemis well, and it’s about time we got back,” Duke said during a press conference at the KSC Visitor Complex.
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News 6 reporter James Sparvero asked Duke if as a young astronaut, he could have ever imagined that he’d be involved in the new moon program.
Duke said no.
“We were on the moon when the shuttle had been approved,” he remembered. “That lasted 30 years or so, and then, space station. So all the money was involved in those two programs, and we never had a chance to really get going back to the moon,” Duke said.
Since Duke’s era, no American spacecraft has landed on the moon upright and intact.
A year ago, Intuitive Machines touched down on the lunar surface during IM-1, but then its lander tipped over.
In a teleconference Wednesday afternoon, NASA’s head of science said the company will try again with a new lander built to scout the moon’s south pole and look for water before astronauts are supposed to go there during the Artemis III mission.
“We’re looking to show that we can find what resources already exist on the moon for a sustained human presence,” Dr. Nicky Fox said. “And enact the lessons learned from the Apollo-era to ensure safety and also, to advance our scientific discoveries and technological innovation.”
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 7:16 p.m. on Wednesday.
You can watch the launch again in the video player below:
The landing attempt will be next Thursday.
Before then, this Sunday, another private lander full of experiments to study the moon hopes to stick the landing.
That’s the Blue Ghost spacecraft from Firefly Aerospace which launched on the Space Coast a month ago.
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