One of the pinnacle scientific achievements of humankind was landing on the moon in 1969. After that, we went back to our orbiting satellite a handful more times, but largely abandoned it. The last time a man set foot on the moon was all the way back in 1972. And although it’s been a long, long time coming, it seems NASA is ready to touch down on the lunar surface once again. And this time, set up a permanent habitat.
These new lunar missions have been given the name Artemis, and are step one for an eventual manned journey to Mars. Now, via Geeks Are Sexy, we’ve learned that The Last Jedi’s very own Kelly Marie Tran has narrated a new animated video which describes exactly how the Artemis missions are going to work. You can check out the full video down below:
As the video shows, the new SLS rocket Orion will outdo the old Saturn era rockets by leaps and bounds. Think about how much technology has progressed since 1972, and let that give you an idea on just how much more advanced these new missions to the moon are going to be. The video artfully demonstrates how complicated it’ll be to pull off—even with modern technology. Despite how easy sci-fi movies make it all look, going to and from a celestial object is still really difficult.
At a price tag of $35 billion, the Artemis mission’s goal of landing “the first woman and the next man” on the south pole of the Moon is meant to get truly underway by 2024. That’ll be exactly 55 years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the lunar surface. With the world in such chaos at the moment, it’s good to know that there is still a spirit of discovery we can all look forward to being a part of in the not-too-distant future.
Featured Image: VideoFromSpace/YouTube
