Louis Cariola Jr. watches NASA’s Artemis moon program progress with a connection far beyond what most can claim. He was right there with the Apollo missions, helping create the lunar landers, but flabbergasted that it has been over half a century since anyone has tried going back.

The Artemis II cannot land on the moon due to the spacecraft having no landing capabilities, according to Space.com. That goal is being saved for the eventual Artemis 4 mission. The specific objective of the Artemis II mission is to check out Orion’s systems and learn how to live and work on another world in preparation for human missions to Mars.

NASA’s shift from Apollo to Artemis signals a new era of moon exploration centered on inclusion, sustainability and a long-term human presence beyond Earth.

People may know Artemis as NASA’s return-to-the-Moon program. However, it is much more than a rerun of Project Apollo.

This lesson details how NASA got from Alan Shepard rocketing into low orbit in 1961 to Neil Armstrong taking "one small step" on the lunar surface in 1969 and today's

NASA launched the Artemis II mission on April 1, sending four astronauts - Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch - aboard the Orion spacecraft to the moon and back. One week into the trip,

Astronauts aboard Orion observe the rare event from deep space, capturing stunning views of the Sun’s corona during the lunar flyby. (NASA)

The seven-hour flyby was the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near t