The last time humans ventured beyond Earth orbit was December 1972. Apollo 17. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the lunar surface. Then they climbed back into their spacecraft, lifted off, and left. And for 54 years — no human being went back. That changes in six days. Artemis II will carry four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back to Earth. Not a landing. Not yet. But a free-return trajectory that will carry them farther from Earth than any human being has traveled since the final Apollo mission — swinging them around the far side of the Moon before gravity pulls them back home. The crew: Reid Wiseman — Commander. A Navy test pilot and veteran astronaut who has already spent 167 days aboard the International Space Station. Victor Glover — Pilot. A Navy aviator and NASA astronaut who will become the first person of color to travel beyond Earth orbit. Christina Koch — Mission Specialist. A NASA astronaut who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 consecutive days in space. Jeremy Hansen — Mission Specialist. A Canadian Space Agency astronaut and former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot. This will be his first spaceflight — and he will become the first Canadian to leave Earth orbit. Four people. Four firsts. One mission. They won't land on the Moon. But they will do something that hasn't happened in over half a century: they will see it up close, with their own eyes, through a window, from a spacecraft they are flying themselves. They will watch it fill the entire frame as they swing around its far side — a view so rare that only 24 human beings in history have ever experienced it. All of them in the 1960s and 70s. The entire mission will be streamed live by NASA. Every burn. Every maneuver. Every moment the crew looks out that window at a Moon that suddenly isn't a dot in the sky anymore — it's a world, and they're next to it. The launch window opens April 1 at 4:20 UTC. Six days from now. We are