WATCH FULL: Artemis II crew launches on historic lunar mission

Sound suppression water is flowing. And here we go. 10, 9, 8, 7, RS-25 engines, 2, booster ignition, and liftoff. The crew of Artemis II now bound for the moon. Humanity's next great voyage begins. Good roll pitch. Roger, roll pitch. Houston, now controlling the flight of Integrity on the Artemis II mission around the moon. Integrity, A-M-T, high. Integrity passes the alternate beacon. Target milestone. Mission control, Houston, seeing good performance on the four main engines. Base launch system core stage. Integrity, 3 miles in altitude. Traveling more than 1,200 miles per hour. Humanity's next great voyage begins. We just heard it here. The baton has been passed from launch control in Florida to mission control in Houston. Gio, give us a sense of what you're seeing and feeling on the ground there. Have you the same. Lindsay, I cannot look away, quite frankly. I cannot look away because this is just so spectacular. You are talking about a spacecraft that has just made the entire ground here just shake. It vibrates up your body. I always tell people, make sure your feet are on the ground. Make sure that you are feeling it. And we are seeing a gorgeous, gorgeous liftoff here. There is not a cloud in the sky. All of Florida at this point should have been able to see that launch and still see this out in the sky, just as you're seeing it right there on TV right now. It's truly incredible, the sounds you feel, the emotion you feel as that vibration moves through your body. It's quite incredible, Lindsay. A mission with so much promise. You see the faces there, all eyes looking upward, capturing this moment. The rocket boosters are about to separate. They have just separated. What a day for humanity and space exploration, Dr. Oluseyi. Oh, my goodness. I was holding my breath. I'm always both excited and scared during a launch. This is spectacular. I wish I was there. No one really expects to be able to bear witness to something like this. As I said earlier, if you're under the age of 55, you haven't seen it. What does it mean to you to see this? Well, this is a new frontier. We are now going back to that frontier of the moon. We are a new America. We are a new planet Earth. And now this is the next step. This is the very beginning. And hopefully this will become a common occurrence. 250,000-mile trip that they are about to take to get to the moon. Susan, give us a sense of your reaction here. I think it was picture perfect. It couldn't have been any better. They've still got a few minutes before main engine cutoff when they get into orbit. But so far, everything's looking perfect. And Dr. Arian Anderson, I want to bring you in, if you can hear me. Give us a sense of the physiological changes that the crew is going through in this moment. We see the sail on board, Stan. And Houston has you loud and clear on TDRS at the common line. Back in their seats, which is part of the reason that they lay down flat when they load into the Orion capsule. And then once they reach that MECO, that main engine cutoff, their bodies will start adapting over the next few hours and the next few days to be better prepared to live and work in space. Talk to us about the medical system that's on board Orion and the health medical research that they have. Well, first, I do want to take a listen in again. Doctor, I want to bring you back in there. Same question to you. The medical system on board on Orion and the health medical research that they have access to as well. Well, at the cornerstone of this mission really is looking at how the human being integrates into a larger engineering system like a rocket ship. A lot of the systems on the rockets, they behave predictably. We can test them to failure. But the human being often are prone to failure randomly. Tonight I could go home and have appendicitis. But then we also are resilient and innovative and creative. And so the big point of this mission is really how our human systems, how the life support systems help support our crew and make sure that this vehicle, the workforce, as we push further and further to the moon and further into space. Integrity three engine prep. Integrity, of course, the name that the crew actually gave their spacecraft. Five minutes, 20 seconds of mission elapsed time into the Artemis 2 mission. At this point, three good main engines are all that's needed to carry integrity to a nominal main engine cutoff target. Though at this time we're seeing four good engines here in Mission Control Houston. Integrity 75 miles in altitude, 330 miles downrange, approaching 10,000 miles per hour. 10,000 miles per hour. We just saw a few fist pumps and, of course, applause there on the ground. And that capsule is the size of two minivans. So you have four people who are going to be spending the next 10 days. Of course, there's a little more space, actually, because no gravity in there. You can actually kind of float around above. Susan, I understand that it's typical for these missions for you to bring a little stuffed animal. And I understand that they have a little plushie that was actually designed by a second grader, a plushie toy named Rise, actually. And it is the official zero G indicator, an object that basically is designed to indicate to the crew when they're able to float. Because, of course, they are strapped in. Did you have something similar like that? So you kind of wait to see that stuffed animal float to get a sense that you have reached the official zero G. Lindsay, we did not. And I don't know when that became popular. But as soon as the engines cut off, even though you're strapped in, you float into the strap. So you know it instantly. Throttling down as we approach the abort once around option. Milestone at the 7 minute, 30 second mark. And we are about to hear main engine cut off for NECO. 650 miles downrange, traveling more than 15,000 miles per hour. Integrity AOA open. AOA open. The window is now open for an abort once around option that would target splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Still following nominal ascent at this time. Dr. Oluseyi, give us an understanding of once they arrive at the moon in several more days. As we're hearing now, they're about to have the engine cut off in 10 seconds. They may not even have to really use their engines because a lot of this slingshot maneuver, as we're describing, a lot of it, the pull of the gravity from the moon will bring them back. Yes. When you are a physics student, sometimes you take a class called orbital mechanics. And what you learn is that motion in space is not like motion here on the surface of the Earth. You actually are doing orbits no matter where you're going. We see the same onboard, Stan. Listening in for the clues to see where we are right now. We have a nominal main engine cut off heading in the right trajectory on the way to swing around the moon. Core stage has separated, done its job. Still attached to the Orion spacecraft. Susan, it sounds like this has been a textbook launch. Everything has gone exactly as planned. That's exactly right, Lindsey. It was textbook. Dr. Anderson, I want to bring you back in here. I understand that you just returned from a Mars desert research station in Utah trying to understand how to survive in Mars because that could be the ultimate step here that this mission is heading us toward. What did that entail? Yeah, so we have a course at the University of Colorado where we take engineering students and we teach them kind of the fundamentals of medicine and how that might apply in a spaceflight environment. We believe that the solutions to a lot of the challenges around human health in spaceflight are going to require medical operations, they're going to require clinicians, and they're going to require engineers. So our goal is to get folks together, put them through complex simulations, and start working the problem and figuring out how we can keep people healthy and happy and productive on the moon or Mars. What are some possible medical advances in particular that could ultimately result from a mission like this? Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think we want to be sure that this vehicle performs the way we expect. One thing that people keep talking about is radiation. The radiation environment outside of the Earth's atmosphere and outside of the Earth's orbit is much higher. And so we want to better understand how high-energy particles might affect human beings, and that can translate back to therapeutics and approaches to human health back here on Earth. And of course, Dr. Oluseyi, you were mentioning earlier that there is this geopolitical race. Give us a sense of why we are trying to get back to the moon before China, for example. Yeah, you have China, you have the European Space Agency, you have a lot of private companies that are setting their sights on the moon. But yet and still, NASA is still the leader, and this is a demonstration of NASA's technical leadership. But one thing I also want to mention is we went to a visualization, and conspiracy theorists have hit on the fact that we get video close to ground, but then we go to a visualization in space. And that's because there isn't a second camera up there to look at the spacecraft. So it is not a conspiracy. It is the best you can do. Susan, what are you watching for as a former NASA astronaut as you are watching these pictures? You know, I'm looking towards the next steps. So the next big one is the solar array deploying. And if they don't deploy, they don't go anywhere, so they come back to Earth. And, you know, so every step of the way, there's a burn coming up soon. They have to circularize their low-Earth orbit before they go into high-Earth orbit. I want to bring in historian Jim Bell, professor at Arizona State University, the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Thanks so much for joining us on this momentous occasion, professor. You've talked before about this being a dress rehearsal at full scale. What do you mean by that? Well, nobody has gone beyond low-Earth orbit for more than 50 years. So this is, this crew, this amazing heroic crew, still got goosebumps. They are pathfinders, right? They're pathfinders for the astronauts that are going to go back to the surface of the moon, pathfinders for the astronauts who are going to go on to Mars eventually. So it really is historic. Of course, we heard from Susan earlier saying at one point, we're looking forward to the day when this is just about humans. But, of course, this crew does represent a much more diverse humanity than Apollo did. You have the first woman, first person of color, first non-American to travel the lunar distance. What does that mean to you? Well, look, I mean, these are incredible, heroic professionals, right? They're scientists, they're engineers, they're heavily trained individuals, they're representatives of the entire planet heading out to beyond our planet, out to our near celestial neighbor. So I'm incredibly proud, all of us are incredibly proud of the work that they're doing and the crew of the thousands of engineers and scientists and managers, administrators supporting them. It's really amazing. And I want to bring in Cody Page, an engineer, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia. Your reaction, Cody, as you watch this? I'm so inspired, tearing up. I feel like I'm witnessing history. This is such an exciting moment for all of us. As a woman in engineering and I'm a Canadian, I feel especially attached to the crew that's going and just seeing this is incredible, really being a part of history right now. What does this mean for spaceflight? This is a huge moment for spaceflight. We talk about the Apollo era, we talk about the shuttle era, and this is truly the beginning of the Artemis era. This is a shift from humans being in low Earth orbit and our focus really being in low Earth orbit for so many years now, and going back into deep space. This is changing the focus of NASA and hopefully of countries around the world, as we can see Canadians and there's payloads from different countries around the world that are part of this mission. This is the beginning of a new era. It's my understanding that these astronauts are going to be able to see aspects of the moon, the far side of the moon, that have never been seen by human eyes before. What might we expect them to observe? I also understand that they may lose communication with mission control for a period of time while the moon is blocking or in between them and Earth for a short amount of time. What might we be able to glean from them being able to see the far side of the moon? It's incredibly exciting. They're going to be able to see parts of the moon that have never been seen before. I mentioned before that our brains are really the most exciting part of what's going there. They're going to be looking at geological features on the lunar surface that can tell us about its formation, about where we're going to be going at the south pole, about how we might find water ice on the moon, which is going to be extremely important when we have the Artemis IV astronauts go and be able to land on the surface of the moon. A big part of the communication aspect of that and losing communication is being able to test this communication on the far side of the moon and be able to test in real time. They're actually going to have scientists involved in this portion of the mission and be able to talk to the astronauts and discuss with them what they're finding. Part of that blackout is going to be the astronauts really making use of their knowledge of the geology of the moon. Cody, stay with us here. When NASA announced its intention to return to the moon, they said they were going back to stay. Recently, they shared its blueprint for building a moon base in the first phase of the $20 billion plan called Build, Test, Learn. They'll work with commercial space partners to send rovers, instruments, and technology to the lunar surface between now and 2028. In phase two, between 2029 and 2033, they'll deliver the early infrastructure, building a semi-habitable area for astronauts. At this point, astronauts will be able to live and work on the moon's surface on a regular basis, which is really phenomenal. During phase three, slated for 2033 to 2036, NASA and its partners will deliver larger habitats and vehicles to the moon, establishing a permanent human presence on lunar surface. For the moon base plan, NASA is going to need a lot of help from its commercial space partners, especially SpaceX and Blue Origin. Both companies are building lunar landers capable of transporting astronauts from the Orion capsule to the lunar surface. SpaceX is working on a version of its Starship spacecraft. Blue Origin calls its craft the Blue Moon Lander. NASA is planning to test these landers during the Artemis 3 mission in 2027, not on the moon, but in Earth's orbit. Artemis 4 and 5 in 2028 could see one or both of these lunar landers actually take astronauts to the moon's surface.