Desk Correspondent , Washington DC - The last time a human being left Earth orbit bound for the Moon, Richard Nixon was in the White House and the Vietnam War was still being fought. On April 1, 2026, for the first time since Apollo 17's Eugene Cernan stepped off the lunar surface in December 1972, four human beings are leaving Earth and heading toward the Moon. They carry a set of records that will be written in history books: the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first non-American citizen ever to venture beyond low Earth orbit. At 6:24 PM Eastern Time, if the weather and the engineering cooperate, they will be gone. The opening act of humanity's return to the Moon has begun.

Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission, launches April 1, 2026 from Kennedy Space Center on a 10 day free return flight around the Moon with Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover (first person of colour beyond low Earth orbit), Mission Specialist Christina Koch (first woman beyond low Earth orbit), and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen (first non U.S. and first Canadian beyond Earth orbit), they will ride the 322 foot SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft building on uncrewed Artemis I to fly up to 4,700 miles beyond the Moon at about 25,000 mph before splashing down in the Pacific, marking the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 and setting new distance and speed records, with live coverage on NASA’s YouTube and NASA+ and millions watching worldwide.

Fifty four years is a long time to wait long enough for an entirely new generation to grow up never having known a world where humans flew beyond Earth orbit. Tonight, if the weather and the engineering cooperate, that changes. Artemis II will not land. It will not plant a flag. What it will do is prove that humanity can get there again that the rocket works, that the life support keeps its crew alive, that this generation can go where only 24 humans have gone before. If they succeed, the Moon is not a memory. It is a destination. And after the Moon, the stars.