Here's something that blew my mind - [View all]

I teach college-level science classes. I had a graduate seminar and undergrad class today.

I mentioned the Artemis II mission and asked if they were going to watch. And I was mostly met with blank looks.

They literally had no idea it was going to happen.

How the f-word can this be? We're sending human beings to the moon for the first time in 54 years. The crew includes the first woman, first person of color, and first non-US astronaut to fly to the moon.

This should be huge. But it isn't.

I don't think it's apathy. I think there's just so much other shit going on these days that a crewed mission to the bloody moon - something truly historic - can't rise to the top of the headlines.

I cannot understate what Apollo meant for me. I was a month away from turning two when Apollo 11 launched, so I don't remember it. But I remember the later missions. Mom would put me in front of the TV, and I'd watch the men in the puffy white suits doing that weird bounding walk on the moon.

This was a central aspect of my childhood. It's part of the reason I became a scientist.

Harrison Schmitt (lunar module pilot, Apollo 17) visited the museum I was working at as a postdoc. I might as well have been meeting the Pope or Peter Townshend. He served in the Senate as a Republican, and he became a climate change denier, but he walked on the moon. That's way cooler than anything I'll ever do.

This is why my feelings about crewed spaceflight are mixed. Robotic probes can do most of the things astronauts do. They're cheaper, and they're safer. But I cannot forget how inspirational watching human beings on the surface of the moon was to me at a young age, and I have to hope children now can find the same kind of inspiration.

Assuming, of course, they and their parents even knew it was happening.