Depending on when you read this, NASA will be weeks — perhaps days — from one of its biggest missions in years. On Jan. 17, NASA rolled out the Space Launch System rocket, with Orion spacecraft mounted on top, to the launch pad for the Artemis 2 mission. The launch will be the first time anyone has ventured beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, with multiple firsts among its four-person crew.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...