Are you excited for mankind to return to the moon? This article is discussing the Apollo and the Artemis missions and comparing the two.
The Apollo Missions
The Apollo program first brought us to the moon. While the country was fighting a Cold War against the Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at Rice University in 1962 that promised that we would land on the moon by the end of 1969. Although NASA was already sending men into space for 11 years by this point, the moon was a new challenge.
NASA started almost immediately. They were rushing so much that the first mission ended in disaster. During a plugs-out test for the Apollo 1 mission with the crew inside, a fire erupted, horrifically killing the crew in under a minute. That day, the lives of Virgil Ivan (Gus) Grission, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee were lost. This led to missions Apollo 2- 6 being unmanned, so no one else died.
The first manned flight since Apollo 1 was Apollo 7. It was an 11-day mission where the crew conducted tests on the spacecraft systems and even conducted the first live television program from an American spacecraft.
The first successful moon landing was Apollo 11, which launched on July 16, 1969. They successfully got people on the moon and back to Earth before 1970, as President Kennedy had promised. The moon missions continued until Apollo 17 in 1972. Until Artemis, no one had gone back to the moon since Apollo 17.
The Artemis Missions
The Artemis program is what has taken us back to the moon. It started to get kids interested in space and being an astronaut again. Artemis 1 launched on November 16, 2022. The mission duration was 25 days, 10 hours, and 53 minutes. The total distance it traveled was 1.4 million miles. It splashed down December 11, 2022. This was an uncrewed mission where the Orion spacecraft launched on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. It traveled thousands of miles beyond the Moon, over the course of the three-week mission.
Artemis 2 launched this year on April 1, 2026. It was a nearly 10-day crewed mission. The crew consisted of Ried Wiseman (the commander), Victor Glover (the pilot), Christina Koch (one of the mission specialists), and Jeremy Hansen (another mission specialist). They traveled 252,756 miles from Earth. This set a record for the greatest distance humans have traveled in space.
Artemis missions 3-5 have not happened yet, but are being planned.
Artemis 3 will be a crewed rendezvous and docking in low Earth orbit mission. It is set to launch in 2027. Artemis 4 will be a crewed surface landing and is set to be in early 2028. Artemis 5 will launch late 2028. It is when NASA is expected to begin building its Moon base.
Some may ask what the difference is between the two programs. They both went to, or are
going to the moon. Both were, and continue to be, very important. It proves that our nation can go back to the moon, and it is inspiring kids today to become astronauts or work as engineers and create these spacecraft. Overall, space exploration is gripping the world’s attention again with the Artemis program, as the Apollo program first did. Make sure to watch the upcoming moon landing.
Works Cited
“Apollo Missions.” NASA, https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/missions.html. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Apollo program.” National Air and Space Museum, https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/topics/spaceflight/apollo-program. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Artemis I.” NASA, https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-i/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Artemis III.” NASA, https
://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Artemis IV.” NASA, 16 March 2026, https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iv/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Artemis V.” NASA, 3 March 2026, https://www.nasa.gov/event/artemis-v/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Our Artemis Crew.” NASA, 3 April 2023, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/our-artemis-crew/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Then and Now: Apollo to Artemis.” NASA, 19 December 2022, https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-1/then-and-now-apollo-to-artemis/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“Then and Now: Apollo to Artemis.” NASA, 19 December 2022, https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-1/then-and-now-apollo-to-artemis/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
“What is Artemis?” NASA, 25 July 2019, https://www.nasa.gov/general/what-is-artemis/. Accessed 6 May 2026.
