Four astronauts lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, embarking on a historic 10-day mission to circumnavigate the moon.
The crew of the Artemis II — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — could travel farther from Earth than any humans have before. Their projected journey would take them beyond the moon’s far side.
It has been more than 50 years since astronauts have traveled to the moon.
Artemis II will not land on the lunar surface. But it will serve as a pathfinder mission for the uncrewed Artemis III mission, which is expected to touch down near the moon’s largely unexplored south pole.
The Artemis program’s overarching goal is to hash out how humans can permanently…