For the second time this week, NASA scrubbed the launch of the Artemis rocket.
“We do not launch until we think it’s right,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The announcement came just hours before launch, leaving thousands who’d gathered in Cape Canaveral without the experience many traveled for, including the president of the National Space Society of North Texas, Ken Ruffin.
“This is the biggest thing NASA has done, literally since the year 1967,” said Ruffin.
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Ruffin was there when the mission was first scrubbed Monday and then again today when crews detected a hydrogen leak.
Still as he boards a plane back home to Texas, Ruffin’s focused less on disappointment and more on the importance of finally getting man back to the moon.
ARTEMIS I
“There’s this expression, never put all your eggs in one basket. Well, humanity is in this one basket. We call it the Earth. So, if we, we being humanity, if we're located at more than one destination, if we're obviously on the Earth, if we're also on the Moon, if we're also on Mars, if there's something catastrophic that happens at any one of these locations, something so bad that it gets to the point that humanity cannot survive, well, there will still be humanity surviving elsewhere. So, it's literally the survival of our species,” he said.
NASA said this first, unmanned mission will now be delayed until fall. Still, Artemis Two and Three are expected to continue as planned with a manned flight in 2024 and a Moon landing in ’25.
“It’s just a great time to be alive and to be able to see and experience this actually,” said Ruffin.
