(NASA)
Early Wednesday morning for those in the UK, Artemis I launched from Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Centre, around 6-7 pm.
After more technical mysteries, including losing communications with the rocket momentarily, the launch was successful, and the uncrewed craft took off with Orion in tow.
The figure above shows when Artimis’ three special dummies, called Manikins, around the moon on their six-week mission along with a time capsule of different things, from Lego spacemen to Snoopy plushes.
Technically, the unique Manikins are what NASA call phantoms —torsos made up of materials that mimic human bones, soft tissues and adult female organs. A big part of their mission involves seeing how spacesuits must be adapted to send female astronauts close to things like the sun’s radiation.
This will be the first trip to the Moon for NASA Spacecraft since December 1972, since Apollo 17.
The history of space and humanity kicked off in the sixties, fuelled by America’s desire to do what the Russians had done.
The space race caused by the cold war with Russia propelled NASA into doing the same, and eight years, three space programs and sixteen astronauts later, not without setbacks and tragedy, such as the Apollo I test launch fire which killed three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.
The next era of spaceflight was all about their fleet of shuttles, with the next thirty years being missions done on Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.
Thirty-five missions later, having carried nearly three hundred and sixty different people to space and back and on repair missions, NASA’s first reusable spacecraft was a great help to space stations globally.
This groundbreaking space travel, again, was not without tragedy, with the loss of fourteen people in two crews aboard the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 will mark history forever.
In 1988, the first all-female astronauts were chosen: Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, Anna Fischer, Judy Resnik, Sally Ride and Rhea Seddon. NASA’s 1978 class of astronauts also included the first African-Americans and the first Asian American, bringing culture and diversity to space travel.
However, in the previous history of Spaceflight, starting with Apollo 7, the astronauts were only men, and it is currently being determined how space travel will affect women enough to be safe in the age of space travel.
This reason is why both female-shaped dummies are vital to understanding how the next series of Artemis Rockets, aptly named after the Goddess of the Moon, will carry people to the Moon, Mars and beyond in future.
Sky News Reported Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson telling her team, “We are all involved in something incredibly special: the first launch of Artemis. The first step in returning our country to the moon and on to Mars. What you have done today will inspire generations to come.”
Are you excited about the future of what could be next in space for Astronauts? Write to us in the comments below.
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