As a kid in the mid-1980s, I fell in love with space.

Specifically, with the early Space Race between America and the Soviet Union to put humans into orbit. Project Mercury and especially fellow Ohioan John Glenn and his Friendship 7 spacecraft were obsessions of mine after seeing the outstanding 1983 film “The Right Stuff” that was based on the 1979 Tom Wolfe book of the same name.

I wanted to do that: go to space and experience that literally otherworldly pioneering for humanity. Poor eyesight and worse grades – I never did homework, and anything beyond simple math still confounds my writer brain – ensured I would end up in newspapers instead of NASA. I wasn’t even qualified for The Muppet Show’s “Pigs In Space” skit.

My interest in our space program petered out after the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster and puberty hitting full force. I was in sixth grade in suburban Cincinnati when the tragedy occurred, and we were sent into an adjoining classroom to watch the live TV coverage of stunned NASA personnel and images of the astronaut’s families in tears. Phrases such as “Roger, go at throttle up” and “Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction” and “We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded” still haunt Gen X kids 40 years later who saw it unfold on that vivid blue and brisk Florida morning.

Before that day, I had read about previous fatal space catastrophes including Apollo 1 and Soyuz 11, along with the various animals that perished in space or after return for science (RIP French space cat Félicette). It was all sterile, clinical explanations in history and science books. Nothing prepares a kid to witness the real thing. It shakes your confidence in the world … in America … in science and technology … and in adults. That confidence in grownups never really returned, especially after I became one.

Unsurprisingly, despite the many years that had passed since Challenger (and Columbia in 2003) I was a bit anxious about the latest major U.S. space undertaking. This wasn’t some new satellite, space station, deep-space probe, telescope, or remote-control rover that would explore the surface of our neighboring planets.

This was a crewed mission to loop the moon in preparation for astronauts returning one day to the surface. And it was dangerous as hell, despite all of our modern technology and all the lessons learned. Blasting off from Earth and navigating space remains extremely risky and the domain of women and men much braver and smarter than me. The risks have increased a bit since two brothers from Dayton first conquered controlled powered flight on a beach in North Carolina in 1903 – and a tiny piece of the Wright Flyer traveled with the Integrity astronauts last week, just as Neil Armstrong carried a piece to the moon in 1969.

Despite any misgivings, the historic Artemis II mission to circle the moon, traveling further from Earth than any humans have ever been, in the Orion spacecraft called Integrity caught my interest. This would be the first manned lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, which happened two years before I was born. The moment when the astronauts named a crater on the moon “Carroll” for the late wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman was incredibly moving. So are the photos they took of our tiny fragile blue home in the infinite black depths of the universe.

This new batch of astronauts struck me as more relatable and endearing than the space explorers of the past. Not just four really smart and badass courageous people, but funny and eloquent and very human. They clearly were having fun. It felt like they were one of us regular folks and not egghead automatons.

(Aside: While Artemis was named for a lunar goddess and twin sister to the Greek mythology god Apollo, I think they should have called this mission Apollo 18 – a I am a sucker for fan service.)

So with the past heavily on my mind, I was a bit jittery on Friday – imagine how those four astronauts, their loved ones, and the countless people at NASA were feeling!

Then after almost ten days came the three big orange and white parachutes and the magic word: SPLASHDOWN.

Relief, and I’m not too proud to admit I was choking up hard. They did it. The countless thousands of people behind the scenes did it. Something utterly incredible unfolded and it came off without a hitch during this era of utter madness and tragedy on Earth.

The NASA transcript: “Splashdown confirmed at 7:07 p.m. Central Time, 5:07 p.m. Pacific Time. From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete. Integrity’s astronauts, back on Earth.”

Better yet, back on Earth and all A-OK: “Reid Wiseman reporting four green crew members. That is not their complexion. That is the fact that they’re in great condition.”

You could feel the collective exhale of millions.

After what we experienced in 1986 and 2003, I was overjoyed and relieved to watch the Integrity successfully return to Earth in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. Everyone made it home safe – human spaceflight is still in its supremely dangerous infancy – and it’s a moment for a world gone insane to appreciate and enjoy the wondrous things humanity can still do. We’re an incredible species capable of enormous good and really cool stuff in a fascinating, mysterious, gorgeous and terrifying endless cosmos.

When we’re not murdering each other, that is.

As capable as we are of good, we’re also plenty capable of incredible evil right here on Earth. That’s the bleak backdrop to the Artemis II mission, perhaps not unlike the Apollo program occurring during the height of the Vietnam War and our own brutal domestic civil rights struggle at home. On the day Neil Armstrong became the first human to step onto the surface of the moon (July 20, 1969), there was a fatal race riot between Black and white Marines at an NCO club at Camp Lejeune.

There were still about 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam while Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the moon. What a contrast.

We pour more money and time and resources into war and ways to kill each other instead of spending at such scale on science and medicine and education. We hate each other for the dumbest of reasons. That’s utter lunacy.

Today, instead of Apollo 11 returning amid the very hot Cold War conflagration in Vietnam, it’s another spacecraft come home while America is again involved in a tragic overseas folly with even less justification and reasoning. The Iran war is simply a conflict birthed by evil men for nefarious reasons while four astronauts hurtle to and from the moon. Helluva dichotomy. I hope the Integrity crew enjoyed the 40 minutes they spent on the dark side of the moon out of contact with Earth and its bullshit.

Artemis III is planned for next year, and will be an Earth-orbit mission to test NASA’s Orion spacecraft, like this recent mission used, with different lunar landers. It’s the last test mission before Artemis IV, the planned mission back to the lunar surface scheduled for 2028.

Perhaps we can pull ourselves together by then and enjoy one of humanity’s greatest endeavors like the family of 8 billion that we’re supposed to be.

XX 30 XXX