{"id":406008,"date":"2026-05-01T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/406008\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T03:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:08:11","slug":"artemis-ii-makes-history-dakota-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/406008\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II Makes History \u2013 Dakota Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a> <\/p>\n

Artemis II has not returned the moon yet.<\/p>\n

On July 20, 1969, during the Apollo 11 missions\u2019 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history by landing their Lunar Module and becoming the first humans to ever reach the\u00a0lunar surface.\u00a0Roughly 50\u00a0years later NASA\u2019s Artemis missions are once again paving the way for humanity and their ongoing expedition of exploring and learning more about the last frontier in\u00a0space as they aim to return humans to the moon and\u00a0establish\u00a0a long-term lunar presence.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being\u00a0comprised\u00a0of four crew members, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, they\u00a0have cemented themselves in history books. They have officially set a new record for the farthest humans\u00a0have\u00a0ever traveled from\u00a0Earth,\u00a0reaching a distance of\u00a0252,756 miles.\u00a0Orbiting the far side of the moon and completing their mission on April 10,\u00a02026,\u00a0they\u00a0safely splashed\u00a0down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite us not yet returning to the\u00a0Moon, the Artemis II mission will be looked back at as a resounding success as the crew was able to complete all of their recorded objectives.\u00a0They\u00a0took breath taking shots of both Earth and the Moon, and most importantly\u00a0validated\u00a0the Orion capsule and SLS rocket designs for human deep-space travel paving the way for future lunar missions. The bigger picture with respects to the Artemis program is NASA\u2019s on-going belief that a successful long-term presence on the\u00a0Moon could set the stage for potential space expeditions off to Mars igniting a new wave of excitement pertaining towards space travel for generations to come.\u00a0This long-term presence on the\u00a0Moon pays extra attention to the lunar south pole, as it has been\u00a0deemed\u00a0a prime location to\u00a0set up\u00a0a lunar base.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking forward now to the future, in both 2027 and 2028 the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions are set to take place including both the first lunar landing in the 21st\u00a0century, and the\u00a0initial\u00a0assembly phase of the\u00a0Gateway\u00a0Lunar\u00a0Space\u00a0Station.\u00a0From a\u00a0university\u00a0perspective this is particularly exciting as the University of North Dakota is one of the collegian leaders in Space Studies through the programs offered by the Department of Space Studies. They\u00a0specialize in an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on space physical science, space life science, space engineering, human space flight, space law and policy, and space history.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only time will tell whether the broader objectives of the Artemis Missions are ultimately successful. However, following the Artemis II launch it is evident that the program is off to a promising start, and the next era of space travel has officially begun.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daniel Silva is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at\u00a0daniel.a.[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artemis II has not returned the moon yet. On July 20, 1969, during the Apollo 11 missions\u2019 astronauts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-406008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}