Hi, I'm Christina Cook. I'm an astronaut on NASA's Artemis II Mission to the Moon, and you're listening to a podcast from NASA.

From an actual listener.

You're listening to NASA's Curious Universe. I'm Jacob Pinter.

And I'm Patty Boyd. NASA is leading a golden age of space exploration.

The Artemis 2 mission will send humans around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

It sets the stage for future Artemis missions when astronauts return to the moon surface to explore new places.

And Artemis will build upon the foundation we've laid

and prepare us for the first human journey to Mars.

In this limited series, you're along for the ride of Artemis II.

You'll meet the astronauts flying around the moon

and go behind the scenes with NASA engineers and scientists powering this mission.

This is episode two of our Artemis II series.

In this episode, we're going back to Artemis I.

We'll hear directly from the engineers who launched NASA's new moon rocket for the first time,

and how lessons they learned will prepare them as they're about to launch it again, this time with humans flying along.

Let's start this story on the launch pad.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us live at Kennedy Space Center, where the energy here is palpable as we attempt to make history today.

It's a November night in 2022.

NASA is almost ready to launch Artemis I, the first flight test of the rocket that will return astronauts to the moon.

The spaceship on the launch pad will fly to space, orbit the moon, and splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

Inside that spaceship, there's a mannequin, collecting data for future missions.

Actually, it's called a moon-a-kin, but no humans.

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