Artemis II and a Small Moon Called Rise
For the first time since the Apollo era, human beings are travelling again toward the Moon. Not to land again, not yet, but to rehearse the path. The mission is Artemis II, the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft. Its four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will spend about ten days leaving Earth orbit, looping around the Moon, and returning home along a trajectory that space engineers call a free-return — gravity itself will guide the way back. It is a familiar path in the history of exploration. Sail out, turn around a distant landmark, come home wiser. And inside the capsule, something small will begin to float. Its name is Rise. The mascot created by 8 years old Lucas Ye from Mountain View, in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Rise is the mission’s zero-gravity indicator. A long-standing tradition in human spaceflight. When the engines cut off and weightlessness begins, a small object drifts upward, confirming what th...
