Four for the Moon

While I’d been keeping track of news about the next Artemis mission to the moon (including spotting a report its rocket’s first stage is being put together), the pre-announcement its crew would be announced today was a bit of a surprise. I must have been supposing that would happen a little further into the week. In any case, I’d known the people to be launched inside an Orion capsule this time would include a Canadian astronaut. The choice happened to be on the TV at work tuned to the news channel when I was walking past it, and I took a brief further note of the small ceremony of the announcement.

After hopes over the years of “a grander trip into space than what we get these days” (which, in not being what it once was, “isn’t good enough” for a vocal faction), I’m conscious this announcement is at once a bit more concrete than some plans of the past and still not the accomplishment itself. Beyond it, accomplishing more than the loop of Artemis II around the moon and landing on it will require another spacecraft not built yet. If there are to be reports about the training of the crew (the three American astronauts have been in space before, but Jeremy Hansen hasn’t yet) over the number of months ahead, that’ll be something more to look for.