Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—The American space program roared to new heights in the wee hours Tuesday morning with a trajectory it abandoned a half century ago: returning to the moon.
After a decade of delays, cost overruns and redesigns, NASA’s Artemis 1 blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:47 a.m. local time, with all the dramatic flourish nearly 9 million pounds of thrust can promise. Thousands of late-night viewers watched the biggest rocket NASA has ever built ascend in a stunning spectacle of fire against the dark sky despite a slight delay. The launch was initially expected at 1:04 a.m.
“For once I might be speechless,” Artemis I launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the first woman in history to oversee a NASA countdown and liftoff, said to the NASA team afterward.