Hello and welcome to the space policy edition of Planetary Radio. I'm Casey Dreyer, the chief of

space policy here at the Planetary Society, welcoming you to another episode that explores the

processes and policies behind space exploration. This month, I had to talk about Artemis too.

The first lunar mission that I got to experience in my lifetime as it happened,

at least a lunar mission with humans.

I think actually most people alive on Earth today had never experienced that as well. The mission itself went flawlessly,

well, maybe except for the toilet. But overall, the astronauts returned safely. The spacecraft perform

as expected. And it opened up a new era of deep space exploration for humans. No longer are humans trapped in Earth orbit.

Now, obviously, it's just the beginning. This was a test flight. The big missions will be coming

down the line. Artemis 4 now will be the first attempted lunar landing followed by regular hopefully access to the lunar

surface and thereabouts going forward in the late 2020s. Artemis 2 was an interesting experience

for me. Obviously I have followed space very closely, far too closely compared to many people,

but there was something about the experience

of writing along with the astronauts themselves, seeing their interactions, their professionalism,

their courage, their obvious fondness for each other. There were parts that were incredibly moving,

like naming a crater after the late wife of Commander Reed Weissman. There were moments

of pure joy. The pictures were stunning, despite, frankly, not having a ton of scientific

value, but they were aesthetically astonishing.

And I kept going back to this idea of why, why does it feel so different than looking at

similar pictures or even better pictures, more scientifically productive and useful pictures provided by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter

or any number of lunar missions, robotic missions that have been to the similar area of space.

Going down that pathway starts to get pretty heady.

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