U.S. Space Policy

NASA on Jan. 17 rolled the fully integrated Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft out of the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center, a roughly 4‑mile move that can take up to 12 hours and marks the final pad campaign before the Artemis II crewed lunar‑orbit mission. The 11‑million‑pound stack will carry astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a roughly 10‑day flight that will first orbit Earth and then loop around the Moon as early as Feb. 6, pending vehicle and team readiness. NASA leadership framed the rollout as the start of a long‑term architecture meant to enable "repeatable, affordable" missions to and from the Moon and ultimately crewed trips to Mars, building on the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022. The mission will be the first time Americans travel to the vicinity of the Moon in more than 50 years, a milestone drawing heavy public interest and debate online over the program’s multibillion‑dollar cost, reliance on the SLS mega‑rocket versus commercial systems, and what tangible scientific and economic returns the Artemis campaign will deliver. Supporters argue that Artemis II is essential to proving out deep‑space life‑support, navigation and re‑entry systems before a surface landing, while critics see it as an expensive legacy rocket architecture competing with faster‑moving private efforts.