On Wednesday, all systems are a “go” for Artemis II to travel around the moon and back. It will prove to be very exciting. This isn’t a repeat of the first trip to the moon. These astronauts will be traveling on the most powerful rocket ever built for travel.
NASA Chief Jared Isaacman explains:
“Often, it looks that way, you know, it looks easy, and it looks routine. It’s still extremely hard. You know that you’re taking a Falcon 9 rocket, about 1.8 million pounds of thrust in a controlled explosion, and accelerating those four astronauts to 17,500 miles an hour, and you’re sending them to the International Space Station. That’s hard.
“You want to know what’s harder? Is 8.8 million pounds of thrust, accelerating more astronauts to nearly 25,000 miles per hour, because now you have to get to near Earth escape velocity, right, which is what’s essential if you’re going to send astronauts to the moon or past the moon, where you need to exceed Earth escape velocity to do missions in the future to Mars.
“So that’s what we’re talking about coming up with Artemis II. This is a whole other caliber of rocket. It’s going to have two solid rocket boosters, a throwback from the shuttle era. Even the center core, you know, looks like the Shuttle main fuel tank. It’s got shuttle main engines on it. It’s liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen. And it is going to accelerate the, you know, those brave crew, Artemis II astronauts, farther into space than we ever sent anyone before,
“So this will be the most powerful rocket that humans have ever traveled on. So, it is more powerful than the shuttle. It is going to be able to accelerate. It is more powerful than Saturn V.”
“This will be the MOST POWERFUL rocket that humans have ever traveled on…more powerful than the Saturn V.”@NASAAdmin Jared Isaacman details just how game-changing NASA’s Artemis II mission to return mankind to the moon’s orbit will be:
“You see a SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon… pic.twitter.com/h1AzDw9u9H
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 21, 2026
The astronauts will not land on the moon, but it will be a very special event.
Between 1969 – 1972 NASA travelled to the Moon & back for fun.
In 2026 NASA just had to cancel their latest planned trip back to the Moon – Artemis II – which only saw NASA only plan to fly around it.
Why?
NASA remembered they can’t actually get to the Moon, nor have they… pic.twitter.com/pbLsBmpKic
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) March 2, 2026
It is a once-in-a-lifetime event. My grandmother saw the ticker tape parade for Charles Lindbergh and still got excited talking about it years later. I stayed up all night as a young child to watch the moon landing, and I’ll never forget that feeling of pride in our country.
Live coverage and schedule:
NASA is sending humans to fly around the Moon—and you can watch! 🚀
Live coverage of Artemis II begins today. Full schedule: https://t.co/7r0yJpgGcy
For the latest updates on Artemis II, follow @NASA and @NASAArtemis. pic.twitter.com/MQjWfQVfp2
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) March 27, 2026
Our Artemis II crew will be going around the Moon, but they’ll always find their way back home 🌎
During this complex journey, the four astronauts will travel ~685,000 miles on a trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
See their daily agenda: https://t.co/172PVtri2Z pic.twitter.com/zsK5i6pirj
— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) March 25, 2026