And here we go.

10, 9, 8, 7,

RS 25 engines,

8, 4, 3, 2, 1, booster ignition,

and lift off.

The crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon.

Humanity's next great voyage begins.

Very good roll pitch.

Roger, roll pitch.

Hello, welcome to the Naked Scientist's podcast.

The launch of the Artemis II mission that begins our program this week marks a major step in returning humans to the moon for the first time in over 50 years.

It's a milestone that will shape the future of space exploration and the future onward journey to Mars and beyond that.

Richard Hollingham from the Space Boffins was at the launch site in Florida

and asked him to describe what it was like to witness history in the making.

The sound, the light, it was blinding, this extraordinary cracking noise as the rocket

really jumped off the pad. The sky was so clear we saw the solid rocket boosters,

which were making that cracking sound, drop away as the rest of the rocket headed into orbit.

It was actually in tears. It was just the emotions were so overwhelming.

You've been talking about going for a while, Richard, haven't you? You've been saying, I'm going to fly out there. And this time, it was a bit of a risk, I suppose, for you to go. You must have had the instinct it was going to come off, because you did actually book the ticket and go out this time. Every other science journalist I've spoken to considers me so lucky. Because, yeah, I turned up the day before I went to the launch it

was 10 minutes late and then I'm going to head back again this so rarely happens and then the

big screen that you probably saw on TV the big countdown clock counts down to 10 minutes and then

held at 10 minutes they could have held that for the whole two-hour launch

...