Historic Moon mission set for lift-off Apr 01

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (AFP): More than half-a-century after the groundbreaking Apollo program's last crewed flight to the Moon, three men and one woman are preparing for a lunar journey set to turn a new page in American space exploration.
The long-delayed NASA mission dubbed Artemis II is slated to lift-off from Florida and venture to Earth's natural satellite as early as April 1.
They won't land but are instead on a mission to fly by, much as Apollo 8 did in 1968. Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glober and Christina Koch-along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen-will carry out the approximately 10-day trip.
The odyssey will mark a series of firsts: the first time a woman, a person of color and a non-American will venture on a Moon mission. It's also the inaugural crewed flight of NASA's new lunar rocket, dubbed SLS.
The mammoth orange-and-white rocket is designed to allow the United States to repeatedly return to the Moon in years to come, with the goal of establishing a permanent base that will offer a stepping stone for further exploration.
"We're going back to the Moon because it's the next step in our journey to Mars," said Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, on a NASA podcast.
The Artemis program-named in honor of Apollo's goddess twin-aims to test technologies needed to one day send humans to Mars, a far more distant journey.
That ambition presents an immense challenge-which is compounded by pressure to achieve it before China does. China is currently aiming to land humans on the Moon by 2030.