Our space agency is getting ready to send three Americans and a Canadian spinning around the moon and past it. Their 10-day trip is due to launch this month from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s -- perhaps this Friday, weather-permitting. The Artemis II mission is preparation for an eventual moon landing, ideally in 2027 or before the decade ends. Americans last walked on the moon 54 years ago.

An unmanned moon obit in 2022 by an Artemis I craft was a prelude to the upcoming fly-by. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has an ambitious goal of exploring the moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as the agency plans human missions to Mars. "Through Artemis, NASA will explore more of the moon than ever before and create an enduring presence in deep space," a statement says.

Aboard the Orion capsule going up soon will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, joined by Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. To test systems and hardware on the craft, named Integrity, the crew plans to travel about 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the moon – the farthest humans have ventured in space. Before a four-day flight home, they'll be nearly a quarter-million miles from Earth at the most distant point. "Through Artemis, NASA will explore more of the moon than ever before and create an enduring presence in deep space," a statement says.

A moon landing by Artemis III will be the next stage, marking our country's first steps there since a 12-day mission in 1972 named Apollo 17, when Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent over three days on the lunar surface. NASA later envisions a series of crewed missions to establish a continuously staffed outpost at Artemis Base Camp on the moon's south pole, where ice thought could be extracted and used for drinking and as a source of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. "We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the moon," the agency says. America is in a space race with China, which also works toward moon landings and a base there.

NASA head says: "The future we have all been waiting for will soon become reality. . . . I can confidently say this second space age has only just begun." -- Jared Isaacman, agency administrator

Astronaut says: "Every lesson that has ever been learned in human spaceflight has been rolled into Orion." – Reid Weisman, mission commander

Columnist says: "It's a reminder that . . . we can uplift ourselves in otherwise dark times. . . . Make America dream again." – Bret Stephens, The New York Times