“Apollo and Artemis,” by Brygos. Courtesy of Louvre Museum.” Image: wikimedia, public domain. Included with appreciation.
Apollo and Artemis are celebrating. It was 50 years ago that humanity last touched down upon the moon, in a series beginning with Nasa’s Apollo 11 in 1969 when Neil Armstrong took “One step for a human, one giant leap for humankind,” culminating when Apollo 17 in 1972 took the iconic “Blue Marble” photo.
“The Blue Marble” photo by Apollo 17 NASA crew, 1972. Image: wikimedia, public domain. Included with appreciation.
Celebrating the family golden anniversary, Artemis (Apollo’s sister, in Greek mythology) again circled the moon, preparing to land soon for a permanent home. Artemis mission partners Nasa and Esa plan to establish a base: “to live, to work, to invent, to create.” (Nasa: Nelson, 2022) A permanent lunar base may provide opportunity to support expeditions to Mars – and beyond.
“Mars” photo by ESA, 2008. Wikimedia commons 3.0. Included with appreciation.
December 11, 2o22 was a fly-by, orbiting and testing Orion equipment including a new heat-shield that proved successful as the space vehicle entered the atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 meters per hour) – speed as blistering as the heat of 5,432 Fahrenheit (3,000 Celsius). Next flight is planned for 2024-2025.
“Guadalupe Island” photo by crew of International Space Station, 2014. Public Domain, wikimedia. Included with appreciation.
Artemis and Apollo may now be celebrating in México: the mission capsule landed safely in the sea near Guadalupe Island, on the same weekend marking the 1531 sacred apparition and visitation of the patron saint of Mexico City- the feast of Guadalupe.
Amos, Jonathan. “Nasa’s Orion capsule makes safe return to Earth.” 11 December 2022. BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63937345
Nelson, Bill. NASA 11 December 2022. As quoted in Amos (see above).
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Un
