{"id":22596,"date":"2026-04-02T04:59:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/america-attempts-longest-journey-ever-from-earth-as-artemis-ii-is-officially-underway\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:59:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:59:30","slug":"america-attempts-longest-journey-ever-from-earth-as-artemis-ii-is-officially-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/america-attempts-longest-journey-ever-from-earth-as-artemis-ii-is-officially-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"America Attempts Longest Journey Ever From Earth As Artemis II Is Officially Underway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative\" data-narration-container=\"true\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The White House announced Wednesday that the Artemis II space mission, the first crewed flight to travel around the Moon in more than 50 years, is a mission for \u201call humanity\u201d and part of \u201cAmerica\u2019s destiny\u201d to explore the universe. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The mission is set to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:24 p.m. ET. Four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will embark on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back, traveling as far as 252,000 miles from Earth, farther than any humans have gone since the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"W6auobDsgOE\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LIVE: Artemis II Launch From NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W6auobDsgOE?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is America\u2019s destiny to be at the forefront of humanity\u2019s eternal quest for knowledge, and to be the leader amongst nations on our adventure into the great unknown. The human soul yearns for discovery by unlocking the mysteries of the universe,\u201d said President Donald Trump in a video posted by the White House on the Artemis II launch. \u201cWe\u2019re a nation of pioneers, and the next great American frontiers is space and we never competed. Now we start again.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">TODAY. \ud83d\ude80<\/p>\n<p>ARTEMIS II. AROUND THE MOON FOR ALL HUMANITY. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/A509PHghY8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pic.twitter.com\/A509PHghY8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WhiteHouse\/status\/2039349547181207910?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">April 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>NASA has invited the public to watch the mission in real time, posting live video of the preparations for the mission.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cArtemis II waits on the pad, ready to carry astronauts potentially farther than any humans have traveled in more than half a century. The next era of exploration begins,\u201d NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said ahead of the mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The crew is led by Commander Reid Wiseman, a former Navy test pilot, joined by pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cNothing but gratitude for the men and women of this great nation. It is time to fly,\u201d Wiseman said in a social media post.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Nothing but gratitude for the men and women of this great nation. It is time to fly. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/n1TGuNt7s9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pic.twitter.com\/n1TGuNt7s9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/astro_reid\/status\/2039125242010890255?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">March 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">In the final hours before blast off, the launch crew began standard preparations, including cooling the rocket\u2019s plumbing and engine systems and loading propellants into the Space Launch System, which will carry Orion into space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The countdown, which began Monday, entered a scheduled hold on Wednesday morning for final system checks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cEngineers perform final configuration checks, review system health, and ensure all launch criteria are met. It\u2019s also a window for resolving any minor issues without impacting the overall timeline,\u201d NASA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/blogs\/missions\/2026\/04\/01\/live-artemis-ii-launch-day-updates\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> in an update. \u201cThese holds are standard in complex missions like Artemis II, providing flexibility and confidence as we prepare to send astronauts on a journey around the Moon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the Moon and establish a long-term human presence. A follow-up mission, scheduled for 2027, will test lunar landing systems developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, with a goal of landing astronauts as early as 2028.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/nasa-takes-final-steps-ahead-of-historic-moon-mission\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The White House announced Wednesday that the Artemis II space mission, the first crewed flight to travel around the Moon in more than 50 years, is a mission for \u201call humanity\u201d and part of \u201cAmerica\u2019s destiny\u201d to explore the universe. \u00a0\u00a0 The mission is set to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:24 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-current-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}