It’s been more than five decades since man has been to the moon. The new Artemis II rocket, rolled out to Pad-39B at Kennedy Space Center this past weekend, is supposed to end that long drought. <\/p>\n
The Artemis II moon rocket on its way to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, January 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jim Clash<\/p>\n
Standing at 322-ft. tall, just 41-ft. short of the height of the Saturn V rockets that first took humans to the moon, it’s designed to fly a crew of four into deep space (farthest man has ever traveled from Earth) with a launch window starting in early February. It will not land on the lunar surface, but orbit as the Artemis I spacecraft did sans humans in 2022.<\/p>\n
This is the first major project that new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, 42, has inherited since his confirmation in mid-December. We say inherited because the program has been a decade in the making, with several delays along the way. But NASA, and Isaacman, feel that the spacecraft is now ready – and safe – for human transport. <\/p>\n
The Artemis II crew with a NASA representative and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (black coat) at press briefing, Kennedy Space Center, January 17, 2026, with rocket in background.<\/p>\n
Jim Clash<\/p>\n
“This is such an exciting mission, and we need all of the [media] stories possible,\u201d says Isaacman. “It’s NASA’s time to captivate the world again.” <\/p>\n
The seasoned crew is made up of Reid Wiseman, 50, Commander; Victor Glover, 49, Pilot; Christina Koch, 46, Mission Specialist; and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, 49, Mission Specialist. All have flown to space except Hansen. <\/p>\n
The rollout was attended by media from all over the world, including this reporter, the Artemis crew and Isaacman. The 11-million-lb. behemoth took a dozen hours to ferry from the NASA housing building to the launch pad, creeping along at an average speed of around one mph.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 09, 2025: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman testifies in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Artemis II is a hybrid rocket built by several manufacturers, the main ones being Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman. <\/p>\n
(Editor’s Note: Forbes will be attending the upcoming launch, so stay tuned for updates.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been more than five decades since man has been to the moon. The new Artemis II rocket,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[176778,58777,49,48,1569,59765,99289,176779,5341,42899,6294,307,66],"class_list":["post-422031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-apollo-moon-missions","tag-artemis-ii","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-forbes","tag-human-space-travel","tag-jared-isaacman","tag-jim-clash","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}