You & the moon: How you can get your name onboard NASA’s Artemis I mission The first Artemis rocket stage is guided toward NASA's Pegasus barge Jan. 8 ahead of its forthcoming journey to NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss. (NASA/TNS)
Only four people will get to travel to the moon in the future Artemis III mission, but you could be part of the Artemis I launch later this year.
Currently aiming for launch as early as May, NASA looks to send the first of a string of moon-bound missions from Launch Complex 39-B at Kennedy Space Center, and fans of space exploration can have their names added to a flash drive that will fly onboard the Artemis I mission.
NASA’s Space Launch System, which when it launches would become the most powerful rocket to launch from Earth, will carry the spacecraft Orion in an uncrewed flight test — the results of which will help eventually put the first woman and first person of color on the moon. NASA’s marketing of the the mission touts it will help humankind not only reach for the moon but further our knowledge of deep space exploration.
Those interested in joining the mission, can receive a boarding pass by adding their name and a specialized pin number at nasa.gov.
Artemis I is planned to fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans before, about 280,000 miles from Earth. It’s a journey that will take four to six weeks. The 1969 mission that put the first man on the Moon, Apollo 11, was designed to fly out to 240,000 miles.
Artemis II, a crewed flight that will orbit the moon, but not land, is targeting May 2024 while Artemis III, which looks to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo missions ended in 1972, won’t fly until at least 2025.
“This is a mission that truly will do what hasn’t been done and learn what isn’t known,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It will blaze a trail that people will follow on the next Orion flight, pushing the edges of the envelope to prepare for that mission.”
Visit NASA for more.
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