As the Artemis II mission thundered into the sky last night, a full moon rose above Cape Canaveral. It was no coincidence: the timing of the lift-off was ordained by lighting requirements and the mechanics of the Moon’s orbit. The mission set off not in the direction of the Moon, but towards where the Moon will be in five days’ time when the spacecraft swings around it in what is called a ‘free-return trajectory.’ The crew of four are the first in almost 54 years to go to the Moon. In a way, things have not changed so much since then.

The first time we left what has been called the cradle of humanity – our Earth – was the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. It was an audacious plan brought forward because of fears the Soviets were planning to upstage Apollo. They weren’t, but Nasa didn’t know that. Those were troubled times not dissimilar to ours. The Vietnam war was raging, there were Poor People’s Campaign marches, riots at the GOP convention and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. But the Christmas reading of the Book of Genesis from Lunar orbit seemed to bring people together. Someone wrote to Nasa saying: Thanks Apollo 8, you saved 1968.

I recall looking at the Moon when I........

© The Spectator