NASA’s Artemis II mission will take an astronaut crew around the Moon – a space policy expert describes the long road to launch

NASA's Space Launch System rocket will launch a crewed capsule into orbit and then on a mission around the Moon. AP Photo/John Raoux

NASA is once again shooting for the Moon, for the first time since the 1970s. As soon as April 2026, NASA will launch its Artemis II mission, using the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket to send a crewed spacecraft, called Orion, into orbit. From there, the crew will circle around the Moon over 10 days.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we spoke to Scott Pace, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. Pace worked with the George W. Bush administration in space policy, and from 2017 served for four years as the executive secretary of the National Space Council during Donald Trump’s first term as president.