Space is hard—but worth it.
Artemis II will carry four astronauts 6,400 miles behind the Moon's dark side, the furthest humans have ever traveled into deep space, before returning to Earth. NASA aims to land on the Moon by 2030, but China is competing to arrive first, while Mars remains the ultimate goal requiring multi-billion pound investment and decades of commitment.
- Artemis II launches February 2026 with four astronauts: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen
- The spacecraft will travel 6,400 miles behind the Moon's dark side—farther than any human has ever gone
- NASA aims to land on the Moon by 2030; Mars remains the ultimate goal requiring decades and billions in investment
- Artemis II is 322 feet tall, weighs 2,585 metric tonnes, and carries untested life support systems
NASA prepares Artemis II for launch as early as February 2026, marking humanity's first crewed lunar mission in 53 years while intensifying competition with China for space dominance and eventual Mars colonization.
Four astronauts sat in a simulator at Kennedy Space Centre last July, running through a nightmare scenario. Air was bleeding from their module. Life support was failing. They worked through it methodically, calmly, the way you do when the stakes are absolute. It was their first time together in the command module, and NASA's Mission Control had designed the exercise to break them—to see what they would do when everything went wrong.
Today, the spacecraft they will ride sits on launch pad 39B, a structure so massive it seems to defy the physics that will lift it. At 322 feet tall and weighing 2,585 metric tonnes, Artemis II is the largest, heaviest, most powerful rocket ever built to leave Earth's orbit. Inside its frame run more than 45 miles of cables and wiring. The launch window opens February 6, and NASA is aiming for a liftoff sometime within the next three months. When it goes, four people—Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen—will be aboard. They will not land on the Moon. Instead, they will fly 6,400 miles behind its dark side, farther into deep space than any human has ever traveled, then return to Earth. It will be the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, fifty-three years ago.
The Moon, though, is not the destination. It is a waypoint. NASA's real target is Mars, and the Artemis program is the bridge that will carry humanity there. President Trump issued an executive order last month calling for a return to the Moon to "assert American leadership in space" and to "prepare for the journey to Mars." The language is deliberate. This is not just about science or exploration anymore. It is about dominance. China is racing toward the Moon too, and the competition is real. But Mars is the prize that matters—the place where humanity might establish a foothold beyond Earth, a self-sustaining colony on another world.
The scientists have been saying this for decades. Stephen Hawking, in a 2008 NASA lecture, argued that crewed missions to Mars would "completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all." Carl Sagan saw Mars as essential not just for discovery but for survival—a step as significant as when our amphibian ancestors crawled onto land 500 million years ago. The journey itself is brutal: nine months each way with current technology, in a tin can hurtling through the void. It will require space stations orbiting both the Moon and Mars. It will demand decades of commitment and billions of pounds. It will require sustained political will, which is perhaps the scarcest resource of all.
NASA knows the cost of failure. The agency carries the weight of Apollo One, three astronauts killed in a launch pad fire in 1967. It remembers Apollo 13, when an oxygen tank exploded and the crew barely made it home. It has not forgotten Challenger in 1986, seven dead minutes after takeoff, or Columbia in 2003, seven more lost on reentry when heat shields failed. Space is unforgiving. Artemis I, the uncrewed test flight in 2022, showed how much can go wrong: the heat shield burned up on reentry, stage separation bolts melted. Artemis II carries a new life support system that has never flown before, including untested carbon dioxide removal and cabin pressure control systems.
The safety architecture reflects this hard-won knowledge. If an emergency occurs before liftoff, a cable-driven gondola can whisk the crew away from the pad in seconds. If something goes wrong at launch, a 44-foot abort system will fire the crew module away from the rocket, steer it to safety, and deploy a parachute. Every system has a backup. Every backup has a contingency. The astronauts will orbit Earth first, checking that everything works, before the spacecraft uses thrusters to head for the Moon, swing around its dark side as Apollo 8 and 13 did, and return home.
But the Moon landing—the thing that once captivated the world—is scheduled for 2030, and it is almost an afterthought now. Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The public lost interest. Politicians cut the funding. It became routine, and routine does not inspire. Mars is where the future lives. Elon Musk's SpaceX is building a separate program for NASA to establish a crewed base there. Musk envisions the fourth planet as a self-governing colony, though that raises thorny questions about who governs space when international law says it belongs to all humanity.
The obstacles are immense: the cost, which will be astronomical and will certainly overrun; the technology, which must solve how to land heavy spacecraft in Mars's thin atmosphere; the biology, which must protect crews from solar radiation and cosmic rays and the slow degradation of bone and muscle in low gravity; the psychology of isolation measured in years; and the politics, which can change with an election. President George H.W. Bush proposed landing humans on Mars by 2019. It never happened. Trump himself cut NASA's budget for a lunar gateway station last spring, then restored it months later with his "One Big Beautiful Bill." The money that goes to Mars could address homelessness, poverty, war, disease. The argument is not wrong.
Yet something in human nature pulls toward the horizon. Carl Sagan called it a nomadic impulse, written into us by evolution—we were wanderers for 99.9 percent of our time on Earth, and Mars is simply the next place to wander to. And there is another argument, darker and more urgent: Stephen Hawking warned that Earth faces existential threats—climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, asteroid impacts, artificial intelligence spiraling beyond control. The probability of catastrophe in any given year may be small, but over centuries and millennia it approaches certainty. A self-sustaining human presence on Mars might be the only insurance policy the species has.
Notable Quotes
It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.— Stephen Hawking, on crewed Mars missions
There's a deep nomadic impulse built into us by the evolutionary process. We come, after all, from hunter-gatherers, and for 99.9% of our tenure on Earth, we've been wanderers. And the next place to wander to is Mars.— Carl Sagan
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does NASA keep talking about Mars when the Moon is still unfinished business?
Because the Moon is a test. It's proof of concept. If we can't sustain a presence on the Moon—which is three days away—we have no business trying Mars, which is nine months away. But the Moon itself isn't the goal anymore. It's the training ground.
So the Artemis II mission—the one launching next month—that's not actually trying to land on the Moon?
No. It's a loop around the dark side. The crew will go farther than any human has ever gone, but they'll come home without touching down. The landing comes later, 2030 if everything goes right. Artemis II is about proving the systems work, proving the crew can handle it.
And China is doing the same thing?
China is racing toward the Moon with its own timeline. But both countries know the real competition is Mars. That's where the stakes are—not just scientifically, but geopolitically. Whoever establishes a permanent presence on Mars first changes the entire calculus of human civilization.
That sounds like Cold War language.
It is. But it's also true. Space exploration has always been about more than science. It's about proving capability, demonstrating reach, showing the world what your nation can do. Mars is the ultimate statement.
What happens if the money runs out? Or if a new president decides it's not worth it?
That's the real danger. Bush promised Mars by 2019. It didn't happen. Trump cut the lunar gateway budget, then restored it. Political will is fragile. A Mars mission requires decades of sustained commitment across multiple administrations. One change of government, one budget crisis, and the whole thing could stall.
So why do it at all? Why not solve Earth's problems first?
That's the question everyone asks. And it's fair. But Hawking's argument is that Earth itself might not be safe long-term. Climate, war, pandemics, asteroids—the risks compound over centuries. A backup copy of human civilization on Mars might be the only way to guarantee we survive whatever comes next.