In May 2023, I wrote a blog about Artemis II, then planned for a launch date of no earlier than November 2024. I wrote about how excited I was to see humanity’s return to the Moon, and that a more diverse crew was going to allow us to better see ourselves in the astronauts as they travel further from Earth than humans have ever gone before.

Now, having watched the launch of Artemis II while nervously clutching the hand of a friend, followed every mission milestone regardless of how late at night they happened, and watched their splashdown with my heart in my mouth, do I still feel that same excitement and hope that I did almost three years ago? I do, and then some.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s rewind a little. Artemis II was the second planned launch of NASA’s Artemis programme. The programme aims, with the support of international partners, to return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, when Apollo 17 left the craters of Taurus Littrow behind. Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight, launched in November 2022, and showed that the SLS launch vehicle and Orion crew vehicle were up to the challenge of orbiting the Moon and safely returning to Earth.

Artemis II, which launched on Thursday 2 April, did all of that too, but this time there were four astronauts aboard the Orion vehicle, which was christened Integrity. Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch of NASA and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency were chosen in April 2023 to be the first humans to travel beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time in over half a century. Very quickly after their launch, they became a highlight in a lot of our days.  

They were incredibly relatable as they were stymied by Outlook, tackled a broken toilet, or had a secret stash of Nutella hidden away. They were also deeply, wonderfully, human throughout all of this. Their tears as they remembered their crewmate’s wife with a “bright spot” on the Moon, sending love to Earth as they passed out of communication range, and Reid Wiseman refusing to leave their zero-g indicator Rise behind after splashdown exemplified this.

As humans, they carried the weight of history with them on their 10-day journey. Integrity’s pilot, Victor Glover, is African American, and is now the first person of colour to have travelled to the Moon. Mission Specialist Christina Koch is the first woman to have done the same. Why is this important? Well, the last time humans were that far from home, the world was a different place.  

When Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo mission, launched in 1968, it had only become illegal in the US to refuse to rent or sell a home to someone based on their race that year. It took until 1975, three years after Apollo 17 came home, for women in the UK to be able to open a credit card without being asked for the signature of their fathers or husbands. These statements feel shocking to us now, and they should, and they make me wonder just how much talent was excluded from the early days of the space programme based on race or gender.

Having a broad range of backgrounds, knowledge, and experience on board Integrity is what made the 10-day mission work. Having a broad range of backgrounds, knowledge, and experience across every aspect of the Artemis programme, from the social media team to mission control, is what will make the entire programme a success.

And what does success look like for Artemis? There are plenty of scientific reasons to understand our closest celestial neighbour better, which is part of the drive to go back to the Moon, but I would argue that the 10 days of “moon joy” that we collectively experienced along with the astronauts were also a marker of success. We sang along with them to Pink Pony Club and shared in their frustration when it was cut before the chorus. Inspired by the words of the astronauts, and the photos and videos and very human emotions they shared, people embroidered and painted or wrote songs and poetry. People paused in their days to catch up with views of our home planet from a distance or share the “amaze, amaze, amaze” of it all, and I cannot wait to do it all over again with the crews of Artemis III and IV.