Originally published on The Daily Flare.
Humans have not set foot on the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. More than five decades later, NASA says the return is close — but “close” in spaceflight terms still means years of hardware, testing, and money.
What Is Artemis?
Artemis is NASA’s program to return astronauts to the Moon — and this time, to stay. Where Apollo was a sprint of flags and footprints, Artemis is meant to build a sustained presence: a lunar space station called Gateway, a base camp at the south pole, and eventually the experience needed to send humans to Mars.
The program’s architecture is a patchwork of government and commercial hardware:
- SLS (Space Launch System): NASA’s heavy-lift rocket, the only vehicle currently rated to send the Orion crew capsule toward the Moon.
- Orion: the crew capsule, built with ESA’s European Service Module.
- Starship HLS: SpaceX’s Starship, contracted as the Human Landing System that will actually touch down on the surface.
- Gateway: a small space station in lunar orbit, where crews will transfer to the lander.
Where Things Stand in 2026
Artemis I (2022) flew an uncrewed Orion around the Moon and back — a success, though the heat shield showed unexpected charring that took engineers years to fully understand and fix.
Artemis II, the first crewed flight — a lunar flyby without landing — has been the pacing item. Originally targeted for 2025, the mission slipped repeatedly as NASA worked through the heat-shield analysis, ground-systems issues, and a careful review culture. As of 2026, Artemis II is the flight the whole program is holding its breath for: four astronauts, ten days, no landing — but the first time humans travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
Artemis III, the landing mission, cannot fly until several things converge: a successful Artemis II, a human-rated Starship lander (which requires SpaceX to demonstrate orbital refueling — a technique never done at this scale), and new xEVA spacesuits built by Axiom Space. Each of these is a multi-year development effort with its own schedule risk.
The China Factor
The United States is not racing alone. China has announced plans to land taikonauts on the Moon before 2030, backed by steady, well-funded progress: the Chang’e robotic program has already returned lunar samples from both the near side and the far side, and the Long March 10 rocket and Mengzhou crew spacecraft are in development.
This has reframed Artemis in Washington as a strategic competition — the second space race. NASA leadership has repeatedly warned that if China establishes a presence at the lunar south pole first, it could set de facto norms for resource access (particularly water ice, which can be split into rocket fuel). Whether that framing accelerates funding or just adds political pressure is an open question.
The Realistic Timeline
Reading the program honestly: Artemis II flying astronauts around the Moon would be a genuine milestone — the first deep-space crewed flight in over 50 years. But the landing is a different magnitude of difficulty. Starship HLS needs roughly a dozen tanker flights for orbital refueling before one landing attempt. The suits, the lander, and the surface systems all have to work the first time, a quarter-million miles from the nearest repair shop.
Most independent analysts expect the first Artemis landing to slip toward the end of the decade. That is not failure — it is the normal shape of a program this ambitious. Apollo succeeded on a wartime footing with 4% of the federal budget; Artemis runs on a fraction of a percent, with commercial partners, international partners, and all the coordination overhead that implies.
So how close are humans to returning to the Moon? Close enough to see it: the rocket exists, the capsule has flown, the crew is training. But the last mile — the landing — is where space programs go to learn humility. The Moon is still a few hard years away.
Top comments (0)