# Return to the Moon

> How we get to the Moon: why orbit is falling and missing, how rockets and staging work, the Space Race and Apollo, and how Artemis II carried people around the Moon again in 2026, with an interactive Newton’s cannonball, a rocket-equation calculator and a 3D free-return trajectory.

Interactive film: https://www.planetpast.com/stories/return-to-the-moon/  
Publisher: PlanetPast (https://www.planetpast.com/) · Published 2026-10-13 · Space, Technology, History

## Prologue

### Return to the Moon
*April 2026 · Artemis II*

For the first time in more than half a century, people have flown around the Moon.

In April 2026, four astronauts swung around the far side of the Moon, about six and a half thousand kilometres above its surface. Artemis II was the first crewed flight to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Its crew travelled farther from Earth than any people before them. On the seventh of October, NASA released what they recorded: more than eleven thousand images and videos, and hours of the crew describing what they saw. But how do you get to the Moon at all? It starts with a strange idea: orbiting is a kind of falling.

Prologue · Why the news matters

#### Return to the Moon

On 7 October 2026 NASA published the full lunar science dataset from Artemis II: more than 11,000 full-resolution images and videos, 8.5 hours of the crew’s spoken observations and more than 800 GB of data, with a preliminary science report. NASA calls it the first planetary science dataset captured mainly by humans in more than half a century. To see what it took to gather it, this story follows the physics and the history of getting to the Moon.

- **Artemis II flight**: 1–10 Apr 2026 about 9 days; splashdown off San Diego

- **Closest to the Moon**: ~6,545 km above the far side, 6 April 2026

- **Farthest from Earth**: 406,771 km, a new record for people beating Apollo 13’s 1970 record

The 3D Moon uses NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter colour map. The camera follows roughly the view a crew passing the far side would have, with Earth beyond the limb.

How to use: pick a chapter below the scene or press ← → to change step · ▶ plays the step · drag to rotate, scroll or pinch to zoom · several steps have controls in the panel on the scene · “Play the film” runs every step full-screen.

Sources: [NASA: Artemis II lunar science data and images released (7 Oct 2026)](https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/10/07/nasa-releases-artemis-ii-lunar-science-data-images/); [NASA: record-setting Artemis II crew back on Earth (10 Apr 2026)](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/); [Wikipedia: Artemis II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II)

## Chapter I · Falling around the Earth

### Orbit is falling and missing
*1687–1728 · Isaac Newton*

A thought experiment from three centuries ago still explains every satellite.

Isaac Newton imagined a cannon on a mountain so tall that it reaches above the air. Fire the ball slowly and it curves down to the ground. Fire it faster and it lands farther away. But the Earth is round. Its surface curves away beneath the falling ball. At about seven point eight kilometres per second, the ground curves away exactly as fast as the ball falls. It never lands. That is an orbit.

Chapter I · Step 1 · Newton’s cannonball

#### Orbit is falling and missing

In *A Treatise of the System of the World* (published 1728, a draft of Book III of his *Principia*), Newton pictured a projectile fired horizontally from a very high mountain, ignoring air. Slow shots fall back. At the right speed the projectile falls all the way around the Earth and returns to the mountain: it is in orbit. An astronaut on the International Space Station is not beyond gravity. She is falling, all the time, and missing the ground.

- **Low-orbit speed**: ~7.8 km/s about 28,000 km/h; 7.79 km/s at 200 km altitude

- **One lap**: ~90 min low orbits take 128 minutes or less

- **Space Station altitude**: about 400–420 km there, gravity is still about 90% as strong as on the ground

Try it: use the slider on the scene to choose a speed and press Fire. Earlier shots stay as faint lines. The path is computed step by step from Newton’s law of gravity (no air, Earth not rotating). The mountain is 200 km high, far higher than any real one.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Newton's cannonball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball); [Wikipedia: Low Earth orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit)

### Escape velocity
*Faster still*

Throw hard enough and you never come back.

Go faster than circular speed and the ball swings out on a longer, stretched loop: an ellipse. At about eleven kilometres per second it never comes back. That is escape velocity. The Moon is almost at the edge of Earth’s pull, so getting there needs nearly that speed. Try it yourself with the slider.

Chapter I · Step 2 · Orbits and escape

#### Ellipses, and the speed of no return

Above circular speed the orbit stretches into an ellipse whose far point climbs higher the faster you go. At escape velocity the path opens into a curve that never closes. Escape speed is always √2, about 1.41 times, the circular speed at the same height.

- **Escape from the surface**: 11.19 km/s ignoring air

- **Escape from 200 km up**: ~11.0 km/s = √2 × 7.78 km/s

- **To reach the Moon**: Apollo: about 10.4 km/s when its Moon-bound burn ended just under escape speed: an ellipse so long that its far end reaches the Moon’s distance, 384,400 km away

The readout shows the exact two-body answer for each speed (falls back, ellipse, circle or escape); the drawn path is integrated numerically and agrees with it.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Escape velocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity); [Wikipedia: Newton's cannonball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball); [Wikipedia: Trans-lunar injection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection); [Wikipedia: Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon)

## Chapter II · How rockets work

### Throw mass backwards
*1903 · Konstantin Tsiolkovsky*

A rocket needs nothing to push against. It pushes against its own exhaust.

A rocket does not push against the air or the ground. It throws mass out of its back end, very fast. Push gas backwards and the gas pushes you forwards: Newton’s third law. That is why rockets work in the vacuum of space. In 1903 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published the rule that governs every rocket. The speed you can gain depends on how fast the exhaust leaves, and on how much of the rocket is fuel. The catch is the logarithm: doubling the fuel does not double the speed. To reach orbit, almost all of a rocket must be propellant.

Chapter II · Step 3 · The rocket equation

#### Action, reaction, and a logarithm

Burning propellant makes hot gas at high pressure. The nozzle lets it out at one end only, so the pressure on the chamber is unbalanced and the rocket is pushed the other way. Because it carries its own reaction mass, a rocket works in a vacuum.

**Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation** gives the change in speed, Δv (“delta-v”):

Δv = v_e × ln( m_full / m_empty )

- **Kerosene + oxygen**: ~3.0 km/s exhaust speed in vacuum (Saturn V F-1: 2.98)

- **Hydrogen + oxygen**: ~4.4–4.6 km/s RS-25: 4.44 · RL10: 4.57

- **Needed to reach low orbit**: about 9.4 km/s of Δv, not just 7.8 the extra 1.5–2 km/s is lost fighting gravity and air on the way up

Try it: change the mass ratio (full ÷ empty) and the fuel in the panel on the scene. With kerosene you need a mass ratio near 23 to reach 9.4 km/s: about 96% of the rocket would have to be propellant, leaving almost nothing for tanks, engines and payload.

William Moore had derived the same relation in 1810–1813; Robert Goddard (1912) and Hermann Oberth (about 1920) reached it independently. Tsiolkovsky was the first to apply it to spaceflight.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Rocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket); [Wikipedia: Tsiolkovsky rocket equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation); [Wikipedia: Specific impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse); [Wikipedia: Rocketdyne F-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1); [Wikipedia: Gravity loss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_loss)

### Throw the empty tanks away
*The trick behind every launch*

Stack rockets on rockets, and drop each one when it runs dry.

So engineers cheat. Instead of one huge rocket, they stack several, one on top of another. When a stage runs dry it is thrown away, so the engines no longer have to push empty tanks. Each new stage starts already moving fast, with a lighter rocket to push. The speeds add up. In the panel, compare one, two and three stages with the same fuel and the same payload. Press launch to watch them separate.

Chapter II · Step 4 · Staging

#### Why rockets come in pieces

Apply the rocket equation to each stage in turn. The first stage burns and drops away; the second starts with a smaller total mass, so the same propellant buys more speed. In the textbook example where every stage is 10% structure and 90% propellant, three stages leave 0.1% of the launch mass as payload, while a single stage would have to be 88% propellant just to reach orbit with nothing left over.

- **Saturn V**: 3 stages to send Apollo to the Moon

- **SLS (Artemis)**: 2 stages + 2 boosters the boosters burn out and drop away first

- **Earth surface → Moon’s path**: ~9.4 km/s to orbit + ~3.2 km/s to head for the Moon about 12.6 km/s in total before the coast to the Moon

Calculator: payload fraction is payload ÷ launch mass; structure is the share of each stage that is tanks and engines rather than propellant. The model assumes identical stages and ignores air and gravity during the burn; real rockets differ, but the lesson holds.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Tsiolkovsky rocket equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation); [Wikipedia: Delta-v budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget); [Wikipedia: Low Earth orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit); [Wikipedia: Space Launch System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System)

## Chapter III · The Space Race

### Beep, beep
*4 October 1957 · Baikonur*

The first artificial moon: a metal ball the size of a beach ball, going round every 96 minutes.

On the fourth of October 1957, the Soviet Union put the first artificial satellite into orbit: Sputnik 1. It was a polished metal ball fifty-eight centimetres wide, circling the Earth every ninety-six minutes and beeping on two radio frequencies. Radio listeners around the world could hear it. In the United States it caused alarm. Within a year America had its own satellite in orbit, and had created NASA.

Chapter III · Step 5 · 1957

#### Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1 was launched by a modified R-7 missile from Baikonur, in today’s Kazakhstan. Its elliptical orbit dipped to about 215 km and rose to about 939 km. It transmitted for 22 days until its batteries ran out, and burned up in the atmosphere on 4 January 1958.

- **Mass · size**: 83.6 kg · 58 cm four long antennas

- **Orbit period**: 96.2 min peak speed about 8 km/s

- **Radio**: 20.005 and 40.002 MHz until 26 Oct 1957

- **Orbit tilt**: 65.1° to the equator

#### The race begins

- 31 Jan 1958 Explorer 1, the first US satellite

- 29 Jul 1958 The law creating NASA is signed

- 14 Sep 1959 Soviet Luna 2 is the first craft to hit the Moon

- 7 Oct 1959 Luna 3 photographs the Moon’s far side

The orbit is drawn with its real shape, height and tilt; the timing is sped up about 600 times.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Sputnik 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1); [Wikipedia: Space Race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race)

### The first person in space
*12 April 1961 · Vostok 1*

Yuri Gagarin went once around the world in 108 minutes.

On the twelfth of April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. His Vostok capsule went once around the Earth, between about one hundred and eighty and three hundred and thirty kilometres up. While he flew, the Earth turned beneath him. He came down near the town of Engels, far west of Baikonur. He ejected from the capsule about seven kilometres up and landed by parachute. Six weeks later, President Kennedy asked Congress to commit the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out.

Chapter III · Step 6 · 1961

#### Yuri Gagarin and Vostok 1

Vostok 1 lifted off from Baikonur at 06:07 UTC. Gagarin made a single orbit and left the capsule at about 7 km altitude to parachute down separately, landing about 26 km south-west of Engels in the Saratov region. The flight lasted about 108 minutes.

- **Orbit**: 181 × 327 km tilted 64.95°

- **Orbit period**: 89.1 min one orbit flown

#### Firsts that followed

- 5 May 1961 Alan Shepard, first American in space (suborbital)

- 25 May 1961 Kennedy sets the goal of a Moon landing “before this decade is out”

- 20 Feb 1962 John Glenn, first American in orbit

- 18 Mar 1965 Alexei Leonov makes the first spacewalk

- 3 Feb 1966 Soviet Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon

In the scene the Earth turns at its real rate during the flight, which is why the landing point (green) lies west of the launch site (orange). The final descent is drawn schematically.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Vostok 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1); [Wikipedia: Space Race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race); [Wikipedia: Apollo program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program)

## Chapter IV · Apollo

### Saturn V
*1967–1973 · Kennedy Space Center*

Three stages, eleven engines, one destination.

Kennedy’s challenge needed an enormous new rocket: the Saturn V. It stood one hundred and eleven metres tall. Its first stage alone had five huge F-1 engines burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. Three stages, each thrown away in turn, could send about forty-three tonnes towards the Moon. Between 1967 and 1973 it flew thirteen times. Press launch in the panel to watch it lift off.

Chapter IV · Step 7 · The Moon rocket

#### Saturn V

The first stage (S-IC) burned kerosene with liquid oxygen in five F-1 engines. The second (S-II, five J-2 engines) and third (S-IVB, one J-2) burned liquid hydrogen, which gives a faster exhaust. The third stage fired twice: once to reach Earth orbit, and again to send the spacecraft towards the Moon.

- **Height**: 111 m 10 m wide at the base

- **Mass at launch**: ~2,900 t 2.82–2.97 million kg, mostly propellant

- **Thrust at liftoff**: 34.5 MN five F-1s, each about 6.8 MN at sea level

- **Payload**: ~140 t to low orbit · ~43.5 t to the Moon still the record for low-orbit payload

- **Record**: 13 launches, 1967–1973 12 successes; one partial failure (Apollo 6, uncrewed). The last carried the Skylab station.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Saturn V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V); [Wikipedia: Rocketdyne F-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1); [Wikipedia: Apollo program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program)

### Leave the mothership in orbit
*July 1962 · The big decision*

Only a small lander needs to go down and come back up.

How do you land on the Moon and come back? Carrying everything down to the surface and back up would need a gigantic rocket. Engineer John Houbolt argued for a cleverer plan: lunar orbit rendezvous. In July 1962, NASA adopted it. The main spaceship stays in orbit around the Moon. A small, light lander goes down with two astronauts. Afterwards its top half climbs back, docks with the mothership, and is left behind. Only the mothership flies home.

Chapter IV · Step 8 · 1962

#### Lunar orbit rendezvous

The alternatives were to fly one giant ship straight down and back (“direct ascent”, which needed a rocket even bigger than Saturn V) or to assemble a ship in Earth orbit. Lunar orbit rendezvous saved mass: the fuel for the trip home never had to be carried down to the surface and lifted again, and every kilogram saved also saved the fuel needed to carry it.

- Command and service module (3 crew) and lunar module enter lunar orbit together

- Two astronauts take the lunar module down; one stays in orbit

- The lunar module’s upper half lifts off, using its lower half as a launch pad

- It docks with the command module, the crew moves across, and it is cast off

Houbolt wrote a nine-page letter to NASA’s associate administrator in November 1961, protesting that the idea was being ignored. NASA announced its choice on 11 July 1962. In the scene, the orbit height is exaggerated about ten times.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Lunar orbit rendezvous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous); [Wikipedia: Apollo command and service module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module)

### Leaving Earth behind
*December 1968 · Apollo 8*

The first people to leave Earth orbit, and see their own planet rise over the Moon.

In December 1968, Apollo 8 carried three astronauts out of Earth orbit for the first time. A burn of about six minutes added roughly three kilometres per second. That was enough to coast all the way to the Moon, about three days away. The path was chosen so that if the engine failed, the Moon’s gravity would swing the ship around and send it home. This is a free-return trajectory. Seen from a view that turns with the Moon, the path is a stretched figure of eight. Apollo 8 fired its engine to stay for ten orbits, and on the fourth the crew photographed the Earth rising over the lunar horizon.

Chapter IV · Step 9 · 1968

#### Apollo 8 and the free return

Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders launched on 21 December 1968 and entered lunar orbit on 24 December. They made ten orbits and splashed down on 27 December. The “trans-lunar injection” burn by Saturn V’s third stage lasted about 350 seconds and added 3.05–3.25 km/s, leaving the spacecraft at about 10.4 km/s relative to Earth.

- **Leave low orbit**: +3.2 km/s trans-lunar injection

- **Enter lunar orbit**: ~0.9 km/s a braking burn behind the Moon

- **Lunar orbit → surface**: ~1.9 km/s and the same to climb back

- **Trip time**: ~3 days each way

The path in the scene is computed, not drawn by hand: a spacecraft leaves a 185 km parking orbit at 10.94 km/s and coasts under the gravity of the Earth and the Moon (a simplified model with a circular lunar orbit). Its outbound leg is orange, the return blue. Distances are to scale; the glows around Earth and Moon are enlarged so you can see them. The camera turns with the Moon, which is why the Moon stays still.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Apollo 8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8); [Wikipedia: Trans-lunar injection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection); [Wikipedia: Free-return trajectory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-return_trajectory); [Wikipedia: Delta-v budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget)

### Twelve footprints
*20 July 1969 · Sea of Tranquility*

Six landings in three and a half years. Then nobody went back.

On the twentieth of July 1969, the lunar module Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface for about two and a half hours, while Michael Collins circled overhead. Five more landings followed. Between 1969 and 1972, twelve people walked on the Moon and brought back about three hundred and eighty kilograms of rock and soil. Then it stopped. Budgets shrank, the space shuttle needed funding, and the last planned missions were cancelled. Nobody has been back since December 1972.

Chapter IV · Step 10 · 1969–1972

#### Six landings

Apollo 11 touched down at 20:17 UTC on 20 July 1969, and its crew returned 21.5 kg of samples. Apollo 13 (1970) never landed: after an explosion it swung around the Moon on a free-return path and got home. Apollo 17’s crew stayed about 75 hours and lifted off on 14 December 1972, the last time anyone left the Moon.

- Apollo 11 Jul 1969 · Armstrong, Aldrin

- Apollo 12 Nov 1969 · Conrad, Bean

- Apollo 14 Feb 1971 · Shepard, Mitchell

- Apollo 15 Jul 1971 · Scott, Irwin

- Apollo 16 Apr 1972 · Young, Duke

- Apollo 17 Dec 1972 · Cernan, Schmitt

- **Samples returned**: ~382 kg rock and soil, all six landings

- **Programme cost**: US$25.4 bn NASA’s 1973 figure

Why did it end? After the first landing NASA’s budget shrank and money was needed for the Space Shuttle. A Saturn V meant for Apollo 20 launched the Skylab station instead, and Apollos 18 and 19 were cancelled. Markers show the real landing sites, all near the equator on the side facing Earth.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Apollo 11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11); [Wikipedia: Apollo 17](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17); [Wikipedia: Apollo program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program); [Wikipedia: List of artificial objects on the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon)

## Chapter V · Why go back?

### Ice in the dark
*2009 → today · Cold traps*

At the Moon’s south pole, some crater floors never see the Sun.

Every Apollo landing was near the Moon’s equator, on the side facing Earth. The next landings are aimed at the south pole. There the Sun always stays low on the horizon. The floors of some deep craters never see sunlight, and stay colder than about minus one hundred and seventy degrees Celsius. In 2009 a NASA probe crashed into one of these craters and found water in the plume it threw up. Ice probably lies mixed into the soil of such cold traps. Water means drinking water, oxygen to breathe, and hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. India landed near the south pole in 2023, and China plans a crewed landing by 2030.

Chapter V · Step 11 · Why go back?

#### Water at the south pole

The Moon’s axis is tilted only about 1.5° to its path around the Sun, so near the poles sunlight always skims the horizon. Some crater floors are in permanent shadow and never warm above about 100 K (−173 °C). Some crater rims nearby, such as peaks on the rim of Shackleton crater, are in sunlight 80–90% of the time: good places for solar power.

- **LCROSS impact, 2009**: ~5.6% water by mass in the plume from Cabeus crater (±2.9%)

- **Ice mapped, 2018**: within 20° of both poles from India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter data

- **Shackleton crater**: 21 km wide 4.2 km deep; floor in perpetual shadow

- **Why water matters**: water, air, fuel shipping it from Earth is extremely expensive

#### Robots that went first

- Jan 2019 China’s Chang’e 4: first soft landing on the far side

- Dec 2020 Chang’e 5 returns 1,731 g of samples

- Aug 2023 India’s Chandrayaan-3: first landing near the south pole (~69°S)

- Jun 2024 Chang’e 6 returns the first samples from the far side

The ice is most likely small grains mixed into the soil, not thick sheets. The blue glints in the scene mark the polar cold-trap region schematically; they are not mapped deposits. Besides resources, scientists want polar samples, and NASA presents the Moon as practice for Mars.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Lunar water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water); [Wikipedia: Shackleton (crater)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton_(crater)); [Wikipedia: Chandrayaan-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-3); [Wikipedia: Chinese Lunar Exploration Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program); [Wikipedia: List of artificial objects on the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon)

## Chapter VI · Artemis

### A new Moon rocket
*2022 → · Space Launch System*

Built from space shuttle parts, and more powerful at liftoff than the Saturn V.

NASA’s Artemis programme is the return. Its rocket is the Space Launch System, SLS. It reuses engines from the space shuttle: four RS-25s under an orange core stage, plus two solid rocket boosters. At liftoff it pushes harder than the Saturn V, but it is shorter and sends less mass towards the Moon: about twenty-seven tonnes, against forty-three. Its capsule, Orion, carries four people instead of three. The first SLS flew without a crew in November 2022, on Artemis I.

Chapter VI · Step 12 · Artemis

#### SLS and Orion

The Artemis programme was set up in 2017 and named in 2019. Artemis I launched on 16 November 2022 and sent an uncrewed Orion around the Moon for 25 days, reaching 432,210 km from Earth. Inspectors later found unexpected chunks missing from its heat shield, which shaped how Artemis II flew home.

Apollo Artemis

Rocket Saturn V, 111 m SLS Block 1, 98 m

Liftoff thrust 34.5 MN 39 MN

To the Moon (TLI) ~43.5 t ~27 t

Capsule Command module, 3 crew, 3.9 m wide Orion, 4 crew, 5.0 m wide

Service module US-built European (ESA, built by Airbus)

Lander Lunar module (NASA) Commercial: Starship HLS or Blue Moon

Landing region Near the equator, near side Near the south pole

Use the panel on the scene to switch the comparison and to launch either rocket.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Space Launch System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System); [Wikipedia: Saturn V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V); [Wikipedia: Orion (spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)); [Wikipedia: Apollo command and service module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module); [Wikipedia: Artemis I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_I); [Wikipedia: Artemis program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program)

### Around the Moon and home
*1–10 April 2026 · Artemis II*

Four astronauts, a free-return path, and a new distance record.

On the first of April 2026, Artemis II launched with Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. After a day checking the spacecraft in a high orbit, Orion fired its engine and set off on a free-return path, like Apollo 8, but without stopping in lunar orbit. On the sixth of April it swung behind the Moon, about six thousand five hundred kilometres above the far side. At their farthest, the crew were more than four hundred and six thousand kilometres from Earth: a new record. The Moon’s gravity turned it back for home. On the tenth of April the capsule splashed down in the Pacific off San Diego.

Chapter VI · Step 13 · April 2026

#### Artemis II: a figure of eight

Artemis II launched at 22:35 UTC on 1 April 2026 from Kennedy Space Center. After about a day in a high Earth orbit, Orion’s European Service Module fired for 5 minutes 49 seconds to head for the Moon. Only one of three planned course corrections was needed. Glover, Koch and Hansen became the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non-American to travel around the Moon.

- **Closest approach**: 6 Apr · ~6,545 km above the far side

- **Farthest from Earth**: 406,771 km Apollo 13 reached about 400,000 km

- **Distance flown**: ~1.12 million km 695,081 miles

- **Splashdown**: 10 Apr 2026 17:07 Pacific time (00:07 UTC, 11 Apr)

To protect the heat shield, Orion used a steeper, direct re-entry instead of the “skip” planned earlier. A small helium leak in the service module led to some tests being cancelled. The scene shows the computed free-return path from Chapter IV (same physics, simplified), not Artemis II’s exact track. Switch the view in the panel: turning with the Moon (figure of eight) or fixed to the stars (a long loop while the Moon moves).

Sources: [Wikipedia: Artemis II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II); [NASA: record-setting Artemis II crew back on Earth (10 Apr 2026)](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/); [Wikipedia: Free-return trajectory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-return_trajectory); [NASASpaceflight.com: Artemis III stacking (Sep 2026)](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/09/artemis-iii-sls-stacking-artemis-ii-orion-fix/)

### The next steps
*2027 → 2030*

Test flights first. Then, if all goes to plan, boots on the south pole.

The plan has changed more than once. In February 2026 NASA turned Artemis III into a test flight in Earth orbit, planned for 2027. Its crew will practise docking Orion with test versions of two commercial landers: SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon. The first landing is now planned for Artemis IV in 2028, near the south pole. NASA also dropped its planned lunar space station, the Gateway, in favour of a base on the surface. China is preparing too, with a new rocket, a crew capsule and a lander for a landing by 2030. Dates in spaceflight often slip: these are plans, not promises.

Chapter VI · Step 14 · What comes next

#### Artemis III, IV, and a base

- Late 2027 **Artemis III** (planned): two weeks in low Earth orbit, about 430 km up. Crew named 9 June 2026: Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano (ESA), Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas. Docking tests with Blue Moon and Starship test vehicles.

- Early 2028 **Artemis IV** (planned): the first crewed landing since 1972, two astronauts to the surface, using whichever lander is ready.

- By 2030 **China** (planned): two Long March 10 rockets, the Mengzhou crew ship and the Lanyue lander, meeting in lunar orbit, an echo of Apollo’s plan.

- **Gateway station**: Cancelled, Mar 2026 parts to be reused for a US$20 bn surface base over seven years

- **Artemis Accords**: 76 nations as of September 2026; Thailand joined in Dec 2024

- **Landers**: Starship HLS (chosen 2021) · Blue Moon (chosen 2023) Starship must be refuelled in orbit by several tanker flights; that transfer had not yet been demonstrated by September 2026

China’s Chang’e 7 robot, bound for the rim of Shackleton crater with a hopper to probe shadowed craters, was due to launch in August 2026; bad weather forced a delay, possibly to 2027. In the scene, the ring marks the proposed Artemis Base Camp area near Shackleton crater; its exact site is not decided.

Sources: [Wikipedia: Artemis III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III); [Wikipedia: Artemis IV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_IV); [Wikipedia: Artemis program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program); [Reuters via Khaleej Times: NASA to build a Moon base, cancel Gateway (24 Mar 2026)](https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/nasa-to-spend-20-billion-on-moon-base-cancel-orbiting-lunar-station); [Wikipedia: Starship HLS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS); [Xinhua via gov.cn: China targets crewed lunar landing by 2030 (23 May 2026)](https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202605/23/content_WS6a118ca1c6d00ca5f9a0b33c.html); [Wikipedia: Chinese Lunar Exploration Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program); [Space.com: Chang'e 7 launch delayed (23 Aug 2026)](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/bad-weather-delays-launch-of-chinas-historic-change-7-mission-to-moons-south-pole); [Wikipedia: Artemis Accords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords)

## Epilogue

### The same physics, a new journey
*From a thought experiment to the far side*

Not just to visit, this time, but to stay.

From Newton’s cannonball to the far side of the Moon, the physics has not changed. Go fast enough sideways and you fall around the Earth. Throw mass backwards and you speed up. Let the Moon’s gravity bend your path, and it can bring you home. What has changed is who is going, and why: not just to visit, but to stay.

Epilogue

#### Falling, throwing, swinging

- 1728 Newton’s cannonball explains orbit

- 1903 Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation

- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite

- 1961 Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space

- 1968 Apollo 8, the first people around the Moon

- 1969–72 Six landings, twelve moonwalkers

- 2022 Artemis I, uncrewed

- 2026 Artemis II flies four people around the Moon

- 2027–28 Artemis III test; Artemis IV landing planned

Here the free-return path is shown against the fixed stars: the Moon moves along its orbit while the spacecraft travels out and back. All full-screen stills are AI-generated to help the imagination; they are not photographs and do not show real spacecraft or people. The globe uses NASA Blue Marble imagery; the Moon uses NASA’s LRO colour map and elevation data from the CGI Moon Kit.

#### Sources

[NASA: Artemis II lunar science data and images released (7 Oct 2026)](https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/10/07/nasa-releases-artemis-ii-lunar-science-data-images/)
[NASA: record-setting Artemis II crew back on Earth (10 Apr 2026)](https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/)
[Wikipedia: Artemis II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II)
[Wikipedia: Artemis I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_I)
[Wikipedia: Artemis III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III)
[Wikipedia: Artemis IV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_IV)
[Wikipedia: Artemis program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program)
[Wikipedia: Space Launch System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System)
[Wikipedia: Orion (spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft))
[NASASpaceflight.com: Artemis III stacking (Sep 2026)](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/09/artemis-iii-sls-stacking-artemis-ii-orion-fix/)
[Reuters via Khaleej Times: NASA to build a Moon base, cancel Gateway (24 Mar 2026)](https://www.khaleejtimes.com/world/nasa-to-spend-20-billion-on-moon-base-cancel-orbiting-lunar-station)
[Wikipedia: Starship HLS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS)
[Wikipedia: Newton's cannonball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball)
[Wikipedia: Low Earth orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit)
[Wikipedia: Escape velocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity)
[Wikipedia: Rocket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket)
[Wikipedia: Tsiolkovsky rocket equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation)
[Wikipedia: Specific impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse)
[Wikipedia: Gravity loss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_loss)
[Wikipedia: Delta-v budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget)
[Wikipedia: Sputnik 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1)
[Wikipedia: Vostok 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1)
[Wikipedia: Space Race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Race)
[Wikipedia: Saturn V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V)
[Wikipedia: Rocketdyne F-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1)
[Wikipedia: Lunar orbit rendezvous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous)
[Wikipedia: Apollo program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program)
[Wikipedia: Apollo 8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
[Wikipedia: Apollo 11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11)
[Wikipedia: Apollo 17](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17)
[Wikipedia: Apollo command and service module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module)
[Wikipedia: Free-return trajectory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-return_trajectory)
[Wikipedia: Trans-lunar injection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection)
[Wikipedia: Lunar water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water)
[Wikipedia: Shackleton (crater)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton_(crater))
[Wikipedia: Chandrayaan-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-3)
[Wikipedia: Chinese Lunar Exploration Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program)
[Space.com: Chang'e 7 launch delayed (23 Aug 2026)](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/bad-weather-delays-launch-of-chinas-historic-change-7-mission-to-moons-south-pole)
[Xinhua via gov.cn: China targets crewed lunar landing by 2030 (23 May 2026)](https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202605/23/content_WS6a118ca1c6d00ca5f9a0b33c.html)
[Wikipedia: Artemis Accords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords)
[Wikipedia: Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon)
[Wikipedia: List of artificial objects on the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon)
[NASA Scientific Visualization Studio: CGI Moon Kit](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720)