I'm William Brangham and this is Horizons.

The race to the moon was one of the greatest displays of American innovation.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Now there is a new race to the moon underway.

But could technical delays put NASA's latest mission in jeopardy?

And what new discoveries is NASA hoping to find?

A look at the Artemis missions coming up next. Welcome to Horizons from PBS News.

The U.S. is going back to the moon.

Nearly 60 years since NASA sent the first humans to ever land on our moon,

the U.S. is launching a series of increasingly difficult return missions.

They're known collectively as Artemis. The second of these, Artemis 2, is hoping to launch

in just a few weeks. Traveling in NASA's newest craft, Orion, four astronauts will embark on a 10-day

journey out and around the moon.

If successful, they will have traveled the farthest that human beings have ever been

into deep space.

Subsequent Artemis missions, like Artemis 4, planned to land on the moon in 2028.

Others will test different commercial vehicles, and then, in time, another hopes to build the

first habitable base, where NASA wants to learn critical lessons for building a manned base

on Mars.

So joining us now to talk about this historic undertaking are Miles O'Brien.

He is the NewsHour Science Cor science correspondent and has covered aerospace and space

missions for decades. Casey Dreyer is the chief of space policy at the Planetary Society,

...