Artemis II mission is set to launch at 6:24 p.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center. The mission will send a crew of four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon, marking a historic return to deep space in over 50 years.

For NASA, Artemis II is part of a broader effort to establish a sustained human presence on the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars. “I’m just so excited that we’re standing on the precipice of this next generation of human exploration,” Young said.

Three Americans and one Canadian will embark on a 10-day journey as part of the Artemis II mission, the first to be crewed beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era.

Polling has consistently found that most people would prefer NASA spend money on things like monitoring climate change and averting asteroid collisions rather than human spaceflight.

We’ll get eyes on the moon, kind of map it out and then continue to go back in force,” said flight director Judd Frieling.