By Julie Hill Lehr

On April 1, 2026, I eagerly waited for the launch of the Artemis II mission, NASA’s first manned spaceflight in 50 years. I felt the excitement build all day as I waited for blastoff, scheduled for 5:25 p.m. EST. This time, I wasn’t only watching on TV. I was watching NASA’s live coverage on my phone. Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover lifted off right on time.

I remembered very well the many launches that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of those took place in the early morning, before school. In small-town Trenton, Missouri, my mom let me and my sisters eat breakfast in front of the TV so we could watch the launch before heading off to S.M. Rissler Elementary School. Even in Trenton, we could witness the space program at work.

It was always exciting. We heard the launch official at the Kennedy Space Center in Houston count down to launch: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, liftoff. Then the rocket blasted the astronauts into space. Television news coverage showed not only the moment of liftoff, but also what happened in the minutes that followed. Kids in my class were interested in what they saw those mornings.

The launches became more common, but each time there was such promise. Even to my child’s mind, there was an element of danger and an understanding of the risks these men were taking to explore space.

Back then, many children in elementary school thought they might become astronauts when they grew up. Adults talked about the flights, the astronauts and the future of space. I didn’t want to be an astronaut, but I was fascinated with space. I still am.

Because of that interest, and PBS’ 2019 “Summer of Space” programming commemorating the anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969, I got to interview Apollo astronaut James Lovell Jr., who had grown up in the city I now call home. Lovell flew four missions to space: Gemini 7 and 12, and Apollo 8 and 13. As many know from the movie “Apollo 13,” Lovell never got the chance to land on the moon, but he and his Apollo 8 crewmates, Frank Borman and William A. Anders, flew a mission much like the Artemis II crew is flying, blasting off on Dec. 21, 1968.

The Apollo 8 crew was gathering information that would be used for the Apollo 11 moon landing. They were to orbit the Earth, break free from Earth’s orbit, travel to the moon and orbit it, then come home. For Lovell, the mission was remarkable.

Apollo 8 was the next step in NASA’s preparation for the moon landing. The mission tested the command and service module, deep-space navigation, and communication systems. It was critical in the space race to the moon between the United States and the Soviet Union. The people of the United States wanted to win that race.

I remember the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Bible, from the Book of Genesis, on Christmas Eve 1968 as they orbited the moon. Then, in 2019, I was interviewing one of the astronauts who read to us that night. Both were profound moments in my life.

Today, Artemis II, the second mission in the Artemis program, is setting the stage for another moon landing expected as early as 2028. On April 6, 2026, as the Artemis II crew neared the moon and just before they broke the human distance record, the crew heard a message James Lovell recorded when he was 97, before he died in August 2025, welcoming them to his “old neighborhood” and passing the torch to the next generation of space explorers.

I hope the kids at Rissler are talking about space exploration again today.