Humanity has likely dreamed of flight since the very beginning, marveling at birds soaring overhead and trying to puzzle out their seemingly magical secret.
We made some halting steps over the centuries — getting kites aloft in ancient China, for example, and drawing up ambitious but unrealized flying machines during the Renaissance — but our boots were still firmly rooted on the ground when the United States of America was born on July 4, 1776.
Things changed just a few years later, however. In November 1783, a hot-air balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers carried two men on a 25-minute flight over Paris, beginning our species’ exploration of the heavens.
Another 120 years passed before we managed to fly with a powered, heavier-than-air craft, a milestone notched by the Wright brothers in North Carolina on Dec. 17, 1903. Remarkably, it took us less than half that long to make the jump from the sky to the final frontier, which cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin did for the first time on April 12, 1961.
Eight years later, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon — a remarkable achievement that was the climactic moment of the Cold War space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Over the next three and a half years, five more Apollo missions landed on Earth’s nearest neighbor, leaving behind flags, footprints and defunct machinery. Now, more than half a century later, our species is gearing up to go back — but this time, in a much different way.
NASA wants to build a base near the moon’s south pole over the next decade or so, an ambitious project the agency is undertaking via its Artemis program. And this is not an end in itself; NASA believes the knowledge gained from establishing such an outpost will help humanity make the next giant leap — to Mars.
The ball is rolling on Artemis, with two successful missions already in the books. Artemis I launched an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back in late 2022, and Artemis II sent four astronauts on a loop around the moon this past April. Next up is Artemis III, which will test docking procedures with one or both of the Artemis program’s lunar landers (SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon) in Earth orbit in 2027. If all goes well with that flight, Artemis IV will put astronauts down near the lunar south pole, possibly as soon as 2028. (That timeline is far from guaranteed, however, as much development work remains. For example, neither Starship nor Blue Moon has yet reached Earth orbit or been cleared to carry humans.)
This is all happening in the context of a new space race, this time with China. The nation plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and has been ticking boxes that keep this timeline within reach. And China aims to build a base of its own — also near the moon’s south pole, which is thought to be rich in water ice — in collaboration with Russia and other partners.
What does all of this mean for the United States? Well, the nation came of age industrially after the Wright brothers’ historic flight and has been a leader in aerospace tech and exploration ever since. The U.S. can accomplish amazing things in the final frontier, especially when pushed by a rival, so the years just after its 250th birthday may be quite eventful indeed. Stay tuned!
