HOUSTON, Texas — It's been 53 years since man first stepped on the Moon during the Apollo era.
The world will soon watch another giant leap thanks to the Artemis mission.
"And now to have another moment like that for my generation, I’m 34 years old," said German reporter Florian Mayer with ARD network. "It’s going to be incredible.”
More than 50 journalists from at least 10 countries came to Houston to learn more about the missions beginning with Artemis I scheduled to launch later this month.
It's an un-crewed trial run to test the Orion spacecraft for when men and the first woman return to the Moon led by chief astronaut Reid Wiseman.
"When we think about Artemis, we focus a lot on the Moon," said Wiseman during a Friday briefing. "But I just want everybody in this room and everybody watching to remember our sights are not set on the Moon."
"Our sights are set clearly on Mars”
"Our teams have been working extremely hard for a very, very long time to get to this point and this is very special and we’re extremely excited,” said Artemis I flight director Rick LaBrode.
The media tour included the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility where we crawled into an Orion capsule similar to what crews will use.
"We have about 316 cubic square feet, you know, quite a bit larger than the Apollo capsules which were about 200," said Orion program deputy manager Debbie Korth. "But we are flying four crew for 21 days." "And there are nice windows so you do get some good views out the windows.”
Views we’ll all get to see again, but like never before.