NASA, Artemis and Launch Pad 39B
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NASA’s upcoming Artemis II flight will be the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, but it will not land on the moon. Here’s why.
The crawler carrying the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft was built 60 years ago to haul NASA’s Saturn V rockets, then kept around for the Space Shuttle Program. Now, the vehicle is back to its original purpose of positioning Moon-bound rockets on their launch pads.
Artemis isn’t just about returning to the Moon. It’s about building the systems needed to operate beyond Earth orbit.
Imagine a rocket struck by lightning twice within a minute after launch, but the manned mission continued — to the moon, no less. On Nov. 14, 1969, 56 years ago today, the Apollo 12 mission launched from Kennedy Space Center on its second manned mission ...