Six days into NASA's Artemis II mission, four astronauts made history. The crew of the Orion spacecraft surpassed the record for human spaceflight's farthest distance from Earth, which was previously set by the Apollo 13 mission over 50 years ago. 252,756 miles travelled. Unseen regions of the lunar surface uncovered. The promise of what's to come from all of this is staggering: lunar outposts, deep-space excursions, missions to Mars. It's been inspiring to watch this unfold in real-time.
Unlike in the 1970s, when citizens of Earth followed the final crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program from a small rotation of television and radio stations, we are now afforded endless ways to satiate our curiosity of the grand tapestry of the galaxy. Some of the best modern sci-fi movies, the likes of Ad Astra and The Martian, are readily available on streaming platforms. Project Hail Mary is in cinemas and utterly delightful. Arthur C. Clarke classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama can be read on Kindle for less than the cost of a coffee. No Man's Sky is readily accessible, standing as one of the best space games alongside Elite Dangerous, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. It's been a wonderful week to be a fan of science-fiction and/or endlessly fascinated by space travel.
