By Hadassa Ferreira, Arts & Culture Editor
On April 1, the world was astonished by a new record achieved by humanity. NASA launched another mission to the moon that changed humanity’s perspective on space!
The space mission, Artemis II was launched, beating a record of 248, 655 miles (400,000km) held since 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission.
According to the BBC, the mission crew was composed of four astronauts: Reid Wiseman, the commander, Victor Glover, the pilot, Christina Koch, the mission specialist, and Jeremy Hansen, the specialist. The four astronauts took a trip around the earth’s celestial neighbor and back home in more than half a million miles.
“Seeing a woman in such an important mission was so nice. This mission was an amazing thing to witness, especially for all the young women around the world,” stated Emily Shute, a senior student majoring in Political Science.
Another BBC article stated that although this type of mission is one of great wonderment, it is also of great danger since the trip comes with multiple serious risks. The spacecraft used on the Artemis II was never used by humans before; SLS has flown only once, in 2022 for the mission Artemis I, but without astronauts on board.
The spacecraft stands 322 ft. tall (98m) and has two huge rocket boosters and four engines that provide the power to get off the ground. It has an orange core stage that holds more than three million liters of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Seated at the top of the rocket, the SLS was the Orion spacecraft. It is 15 ft. wide by 9 ft. high (5m x 3m) and carried the astronauts into space.
Despite the risks, the spacecraft has a Launch Abort System at the very top of the rocket. That would propel the astronauts to safety if anything had gone wrong during the early stages of the launch.
Beyond the physical risks of the launch process, the entire mission was full of challenges, since the astronauts spent 10 days cramped together in a spacecraft that is the same size as a minibus. This is why, to get used to each other in such a confined space, the crew spent as much time in each other’s company as possible and even had Artemis sleepovers to help with the adaptation process.
The plan for the mission was not to land on the moon but to fly around its far side, which is not visible from Earth. What makes this mission more special is that, although satellites have photographed the far side before, no humans have ever been there or seen it, but these four astronauts were able to.
The idea of the mission was to bring gorgeous views of the moon and a new understanding of the lunar environment. As soon as the spacecraft approached the moon, the astronauts started working through a checklist of things they had to record. The astronauts took many pictures with several digital cameras and recorded their own audio descriptions of what they saw.
To have as many pictures as possible, the mission carried two professional SLR cameras, one fitted with a wide-angle lens to capture the whole scene, and another with a powerful zoom to pick out fine detail on the lunar surface.
A mirrorless camera designed to produce images with a perspective close to that of the human eye was also carried on board. Also, while the spacecraft passed over the moon’s cratered landscape, Orion’s four solar array wings recorded the view.
One of the most challenging moments of the mission was the part when the Orion craft passed behind the bulk of the moon, and its radio and laser connections to Earth were cut off. For 40 minutes, the four astronauts were completely alone on the lunar far side without any contact with Earth.
Another special moment of the Artemis II mission was when the sun, as seen from the capsule, began to change as the moon moved to eclipse it. What the astronauts could see then was a portion of the sun’s shimmering atmosphere coming out from the inferior side of the Moon, which is usually drowned by the intense glare, the corona.
The mission, Artemis II, was special because it was a test for future bigger goals, such as landing humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972 and ultimately sending humans to Mars.
“It was so inspiring to me to see such an important mission. Mainly, it was inspiring to see a woman accomplish so much and how much it will influence everyone in the future,” stated Sandra Garcia, a junior student majoring in Political Science.
