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Astronauts Prepare for Artemis II Moon Mission
NASA is sending four astronauts to space on a mission to circle the moon and test a life support system. The astronauts spoke to The New York Times in January before the mission was delayed until April because of technical issues.
“We’re going to go to Kennedy and we’re going to launch on this 5.5 million-pound rocket around the moon, 250,000 miles away. All of a sudden, the end game — gravity starts to hit you. The weight of this starts to hit you.” “We have ignition — 2-1-0, we have liftoff.” “All these things that we talk about first are really not about any one individual’s accomplishment, but more about celebrating where we are at, celebrating the fact that we recognize that we can go farther when we go together, recognizing that everyone who has a dream gets to work equally hard to achieve that dream.” “If you think about when we did this, the first time in Apollo, 1968, it was a tough time in the country. And I hope that we can create a touch point for our generation that’s equal to or maybe even there’s a path to be even greater than because it’s current and it’s ours.”’ “We know exactly what we’re supposed to do. We’re studying the things we’re supposed to study. We’re just putting one foot in front of the other on the sides of that, making sure we’re taking care of our families.” “I’ve been thinking in the world that it is today, what are the things that we could best do to lift, lift up our friends on planet Earth? And you said it very eloquently, which is we just got to go do this mission. We got to be the four of us. We got to be ourselves. And in doing that, I think we will have a great — I hope we have a great impact on bringing the world together, even just for a minute.”
NASA is sending four astronauts to space on a mission to circle the moon and test a life support system. The astronauts spoke to The New York Times in January before the mission was delayed until April because of technical issues.
By Timothy Bella, McKinnon de Kuyper and Daniel Fetherston
March 31, 2026
