Back to the moon after 50 years

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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It's taken nearly 50 years, but we're going back. To the moon, that is.

Two launch attempts of the uncrewed rocket Artemis have been scrubbed in recent days as NASA works out trouble spots. Still, the effort is a welcome development for a whole lot of reasons.

Artemis 1 is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA. It's scheduled to fly a total of 1.3 million miles, to the moon, beyond and back. The 37-day trek is designed to thoroughly test the rocket and its Orion space capsule, whose heat shield must prove it can sustain a re-entry that will come at a blistering 25,000 miles per hour.

That would be ambitious enough, but this is about much more than another moon shot. NASA says Artemis I will lay the foundation for a return to deep space exploration, including landing a crew in the next couple of years, building a permanent lunar base camp, and culminating, ultimately, in a Mars landing.

So why now? Why spend all the money, take on all the risk — including the possibility that a crew might never return — and face the inevitable failures along the way? Why reach for the moon and beyond when so many problems remain unresolved on Earth?

President John F. Kennedy fired the imagination of a nation in 1962 when he set out what seemed an impossibly difficult goal. The cost would be staggeringly high. Lives were lost along the way. The Apollo 1 mission ended with the rocket bursting into flames during a test on the launch pad, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White.

But there were triumphs too, and the benefits went far beyond the obvious. Yes, there was the thrill that every American felt at seeing a man plant the American flag on the moon. But developing the technology for spaceflight resulted in myriad breakthroughs that benefit us to this day. Much of that technology did not even exist when Kennedy had issued his call.

There was a time, primitive as it may seem, when pilots had to manipulate cables and rods to control an aircraft's rudder and wing flaps. A digital computer guidance system first designed for the Apollo command module has become commonplace among aircraft. Further refinements resulted in the cruise control and anti-lock brake features in modern cars.

Minnesota's own Pillsbury Co. developed a system for better quality control in food products to prevent contamination in food for the astronauts. The hazard analysis and critical control point system is now an industry standard required by the government for meat, poultry, seafood and juice products. Reflective mylar blankets were created for use in the Apollo missions, but now can be found in clothing, camping gear, building insulation and even magnetic resonance imaging machines. Shock absorber technology developed for the moon mission now offers protection against earthquakes. Even modern-day rechargeable hearing aids and the now ubiquitous wireless buds owe their start to technology originally developed for NASA.

Those are measurable benefits. But there are the intangibles as well. Coming out of a brutal global pandemic, the world needs ambitious goals that can help us once again explore fearlessly. Younger generations have grown up experiencing deep space travel only as the stuff of science fiction. Yes, there have been admirable achievements that include the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, which recently transmitted the first direct images of a planet beyond our solar system. But no human has broken free of Earth's orbit in a half-century.

Artemis, while led by the U.S., also represents an opportunity to work across geopolitical divisions with partner nations around the globe. NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. In June, France became the 20th nation to sign on to what is known as the Artemis Accords, shared principles that will govern the civil exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. Other signatory nations range from Australia, Israel, Mexico and the United Kingdom to Bahrain, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.

There's another reason to pursue space exploration, and it's an old one. It's a race. Just as the U.S. was spurred earlier to beat the Soviets to the moon, Artemis faces a similar test. China and Russia in 2021 announced they would join forces to build a moon base together, specifically as a competitor to Artemis.