Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been gearing up to cover the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission. This launch aims to bring humans back to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, with an eventual eye toward landing humans on the moon and learning how to live there long-term.
I expected to feel unalloyed excitement for this moment. I’ve been enraptured with space since I was 8 years old. I dreamed of being the first woman to land on Mars and search for alien microbes. I followed that passion to an astronomy degree and a career writing about space, for