For this third episode of Swipe Into Space, we’re going to the Moon, with the Artemis mission! While the Orion capsule is back on Earth, demonstrating the success of Artemis I, all this is just the beginning of a much more ambitious mission: the return of humans to the Moon!
After more than 25 days of travel, the Orion capsule has been back on Earth since December 11. It is therefore a success for the first stage of the Artemis program! It predicts a return of humans to the Moon by 2025, after more than 50 years without anyone having set foot on the lunar soil! We talk a lot about the first men who walked on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, but much less about the last: Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan, during the mission Apollo 17December 14, 1972.
This time the new programme Artemis NASA is much more ambitious, while its cost has already exceeded a few billion dollars, with postponements and many technical problems… and should be around 100 billion dollars by 2025!
Which astronauts will go to the Moon in 2025?
If the flight of Artemis I was uninhabited, its goal remained to prove that the Orion capsule could indeed accommodate humans on board! A project which should be carried out in 2025 during the Artemis III mission, which will embark at least one man and one woman, whose identity we do not yet know. It could be for example the second French woman astronaut who has just been selected by the European Space Agency: Sophie Adenot! Her exemplary career propelled her to the rank of space star alongside Thomas Pesquet, her predecessor. Before her, the first French woman in space was Claudie Haigneré, who left aboard a Soyuz rocket in 1996. It took 27 years to have a new French female hope in space!
But, by the way, what will the astronauts be able to eat during this long journey aboard a spaceship? Far from the gourmet dishes that can be found on Earth, these are often dishes prepared sous vide, with a few restrictions… and a menu concocted in advance to delight everyone. Because obviously, impossible to change your mind along the way! It is also envisaged that the astronauts prepare their mealsan idea currently being studied by the various space agencies in the world!