I was just a little girl when the first man landed on the moon. We did not have a television set at home and there certainly was no internet. It was perhaps through hearing my parents talk about newspaper articles, or listening to the news on the radio at dinner time, that the event made its impact. For a while, my best friend Satya Rao and I gave up our dolls to play astronauts, with make-believe landings and flights of wonder.

From then to now, I cannot even begin to imagine what it must mean to millions of girls, and boys, to watch Artemis II on its 10-day voyage, flying 406,771 km from earth, the farthest ever for human space travel. This time, however, the imagination it sparks is different. It’s no longer just about going into space but about who gets to lead the journey.

What does it mean for an Artemis generation to watch the most astonishing photographs taken by human hands of our planet and of the far side of the moon, including a stunning April 6 shot of the earth setting behind the moon, a counterfoil to Apollo 8’s iconic 1968 earthrise?

After being bombarded by heads of state as they justify war and threaten civilisational destruction, what a relief it is to listen to the poetry of pilot Victor Glover’s........

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