NASA gears up to make history with Artemis mission
(NBC, KYMA/KECY) - It could be another large leap for mankind as the NASA Stennis Space Center is gearing up to make history with deep space exploration.
In the early 1960s, famed rocket scientist Dr. Werner von Braun once said "I don't know yet what method we will use to get to the moon, but I do know that we have to go through Mississippi to get there."
NASA plans to do this through its Artemis program which will allow for deep space exploration. Stennis space center is the home of NASA's rocket engine testing site.
"The RS-25 engine is one of the most incredible engines ever built. It's the Cadillac of engines. I mean it's you know the Cadillac of engines," said Joshua Griner, a test operations engineer.
"We do rocket engine testing for the Artemis program. You may of recently heard of or recently seen the Artemis 1 launch. Uh so the four we engines on the core stage the big orange part in the center uh those are RS-25 Engines," said Tristan Mooney, an instrumentation engineer.
Another giant leap for mankind
The launch of Artemis 1 was the first of four that used RS-25 engines from the retired space shuttle program. The new RS-25 engines feature 3D printed parts that are going through a series of evaluations to be used in future missions.
"We want to make sure that all of the newly redesigned parts including 3D printed parts are going to work and are going to work just as effectively as the previous parts," Mooney further spoke.
If all goes to plan, NASA will be making another giant leap for mankind.
"We're going to be putting the first woman and person of color on the moon," Mooney elaborated.
"We've had women and women of color working in NASA doing incredible work so to have them bring them a fold and make that a priority is an incredibly historical thing to do," Griner added.
So what is the future of NASA space exploration?
"Future Artemis missions will hopefully enable a sustained human presence on the moon and hopefully beyond that, the SLS Rocket will continue to enable us to explore deeper into space such as uh go to Mars," Mooney concluded.
