(The Center Square) – Astronauts on Monday joined Navy officers in front of a test space capsule on the well deck of the amphibious craft USS Somerset in San Diego to talk at a news conference about going back to the moon.
The main reason to return?
“It’s cool,” said astronaut Stan Love, who will be in Mission Control in Houston during next year’s Artemis II mission as one of the seven CapComs communicating with the crew in space. NASA has a long tradition of astronauts getting on headsets in Mission Control and talking to their colleagues in orbit or on their way to the moon.
The Artemis II crew will orbit the moon, but won’t land. That is scheduled to happen in 2027 during Artemis III.
The return to the moon will bring knowledge that will ultimately mean learning more about Earth, Love told The Center Square after the news conference on the Navy’s vessel.
He added that computers on spacecraft have become more sophisticated since the Apollo missions, but engines haven’t changed much since 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.
Astronaut Andre Douglas was also among the speakers and expressed his enthusiasm for the mission. Douglas is the backup astronaut for Artemis II and will be on the mission if any of the NASA astronauts suddenly become unable to go.
The crew of three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut will take off from Cape Canaveral. After the launch, Douglas is scheduled to go to Johnson Space Center in Houston to join Love and other CapComs talking to the astronauts in space.
Two other astronauts not associated with Artemis appeared at the news conference, which focused on the Navy’s preparations for retrieving the Artemis crew and capsule after its splashdown.
