Start von Artemis II: Menschenmassen versammeln sich, um einen Blick auf die historische NASA-Mondmission zu werfen | Vollbemannte Rakete wird von Florida aus zum Mond fliegen – das erste Mal seit 1972, dass Menschen die untere Erdumlaufbahn verlassen haben

>A little more than an hour before sunset on Florida’s space coast, up to 400,000 people packed on beaches and causeways will look to the heavens on Wednesday to witness a fiery spectacle not seen in almost 54 years: a fully crewed Nasa rocket heading back to the moon.

>The launch of Artemis II, scheduled for 6.24pm ET if weather and any late technical gremlins grant their consent, marks the first time since the Apollo 17 mission of December 1972 that humans will have left lower Earth orbit.

>“The nation, and the world, has been waiting a long time to do this again,” Reid Wiseman, a veteran Nasa astronaut and the Artemis II commander, told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday as the crew of three Americans and one Canadian arrived to enter quarantine ahead of launch.

>Their 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. Two of the crew, Nasa’s Christina Koch and Victor Glover, will become respectively the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon.

We’reeeeeeeee backkkkkkkkkkkkk! Super exciting! Onwards and upwards!

I’d be surprised if they launch and don’t scrub this time again…there’s always something with this rocket…

Be nice if someone could highlight just what this mission might accomplish beyond what Apollo 10 already managed in 1969. (Or even Apollo 13, which managed a similar flight path with a crippled craft.)

Let’s see how NASA messes up today’s launch again.