The kids and I were on the lawn at Kennedy Space Center at 1:47 a.m. on November 16, 2022 when Artemis I launched, and we were there again yesterday, at 6:35 p.m., when Artemis II launched, this time with four crew members on board.
One of the boys' big holiday gifts this season was to attend the launch of their choice at Kennedy and, needless to say, their choice was not a surprise. So yesterday afternoon I picked them up early from school and we fought through 4 hours of traffic to get to KSC and watch with thousands of other space enthusiasts as we sent the first people to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. They will not walk on its surface, but in slingshotting around it they will technically be farther from Earth than any other humans in history.
Like any child of the 80s, having experienced the Challenger disaster in her second-grade classroom, I held my breath and prayed the whole time. In this world full of hunger and fuel shortages and general malaise, we might ask ourselves—why the risk, the perceivable waste, the effort? And, setting aside the many practical reasons for this effort that will, hopefully, ultimately get us to Mars, I stood there amongst thousands of other people at Kennedy. I thought of the bumper-to-bumper traffic we fought to get there amongst countless other people fighting to be within range to see it too. I watched everyone cheer with every announcement and watch, holding their collective breath, as it lifted. And I thought—this collective human achievement, this work toward something bigger than ourselves, will always be worthwhile.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy's oft-quoted speech at Rice University in 1962: We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Taken at 600mm, 1/4000 second, f/8.0, ISO 640.