Artemis launch delay is the latest of many NASA scrubs and comes from hard lessons on crew safety

The space shuttle Atlantis was one of the last major launches aboard a NASA rocket. NASA

I love a good space launch, and I have been eagerly awaiting NASA’s powerful new Space Launch System rocket to take off as the first part of NASA’s ambitious Artemis Mission to put U.S. astronauts back on the Moon. But this launch has already been pushed back four times this year – twice due to technical issues and once apiece for a tropical storm and a hurricane.

I am a professor of space studies who teaches courses in space law and history. One lesson I’ve learned is that as successful as the U.S. and other nations have been at launching rockets into space over the decades, a huge number of launches get delayed due to weather or safety concerns. Of NASA’s 135 Space Shuttle missions, only about 40% launched on time.