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Emily A. Margolis, Curator of Contemporary Spaceflight, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Artemis II’s long countdown – a space historian explains why it has taken over 50 years to return to the Moon

NASA Moon Earth George W Bush Space Station the National Air and Space Museum Barack Obama George H W Bush United States Mars
The Artemis I crew and service modules with the Moon and Earth in the distance on Nov. 28, 2022. NASA

While I was leading a tour of the National Air and Space Museum in January 2026, a visitor posed this insightful question: “Why has it taken so long to return to the Moon?”

After all, NASA had the know-how and technology to send humans to the lunar surface more than 50 years ago as part of the Apollo program. And, as another tour guest reminded us, computers today can do so much more than they could back then, as evidenced by the smartphones most of us carry in our pockets. Shouldn’t it be easier to get to the Moon than ever before?

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