The final pre-launch test of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is officially in progress. If all goes as planned, astronauts could return to the Moon as early as Sunday, February 8, but the agency could end up regretting it.
Despite the enormous importance of this mission, there is a surprising lack of public interest, or even awareness, of Artemis 2. It’s clear that NASA’s public relations team has struggled to get the message out to those not already entrenched in the world of spaceflight. This problem has prey the Artemis program from the beginning, but recent delays, internal tumult at NASAand the fact that we are always years away from a real moon landing didn’t help.
The next big step towards the Moon
Even though Artemis 2 astronauts won’t set foot on the lunar surface, it will still be the most exciting crewed mission since the Apollo era. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon, taking them further from Earth than any human has traveled before.
Artemis 2 will not only be the first crewed test flight for SLS and Orion, but also the first time a woman, a person of color and a Canadian will fly in the lunar environment. Along the way, the astronauts observe parts of the dark side of the Moon that no one has ever asked and conduct biomedical research that will help NASA return to the lunar surface and establish a lasting presence there.
Artemis 2 is clearly much more than just a test flight, and yet humanity’s long-awaited return to deep space isn’t getting the attention it deserves. If the mission is launched during the February launch window (which opens on February 8 and ends on February 11), there is a real risk that it will be drowned out by the excitement of the Winter Olympics in Italy, which to start Friday.
I can’t compete
Games never fail to dominate media coverage. They will certainly captivate viewers for the duration of the Artemis 2 mission, which will last 10 days, if the two overlap. The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics were most broadcast Olympic Games of all time, with a combined average of 30.6 million viewers across NBCU’s platforms, according to the media conglomerate.
If Artemis 2 takes off as soon as the launch window opens next Sunday, it will also coincide with the Super Bowl, the most watched annual sporting event in the United States. Artemis 2 would launch about an hour after the game ends, around 10:30 p.m. ET, and if NASA thinks a bunch of beer-drunk, chicken-wing-stuffed Americans are going to stay up that late to watch a rocket launch, the agency is sorely mistaken.
The fact is, NASA really needs Americans to care about Artemis 2. Their taxes and voting power will keep the Artemis program running long enough for the agency to achieve its goals of returning to the lunar surface, building a lunar base, and ultimately sending humans to Mars. Without sustained public interest and political will, this multibillion-dollar enterprise will quickly become an easy budgetary target.
Artemis 2 is NASA’s opportunity to show the nation that it’s ready to enter a new era of human spaceflight, but it can’t do it if no one is watching. While this spaceflight reporter is as eager as anyone to see this historic mission take off, NASA would be wise to forgo the February window and instead work on March launch opportunities, which run from March 6-11. We waited 50 years to return to the Moon, so we can wait a few more weeks.
Rest assured, Gizmodo will cover Artemis 2 from launch to splashdown no matter what. Watch this space if you don’t want to miss a single update on this historic mission.
