April 13, 2026

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Artemis proves NASA can return to the moon. Now comes the hard question: Why?

Artemis II’s safe return from lunar orbit sparks a debate over the costs, climate effects and long‑term value of going back to the moon

By Kendra Pierre-Louis, Claire Cameron, Lee Billings, Emma Gometz, Joseph Howlett, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, Kylie Murphy & Sushmita Pathak

NASA

NASA has launched four astronauts on a pioneering journey around the moon—the Artemis II mission. Follow our coverage here.

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[CLIP of NASA’s Artemis II splashdown: “Integrity about to complete a journey spanning 694,481 miles from its launch from the Kennedy Space Center back on April 1st, and a trip around the moon.”]

Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. For our weekly science news roundup, you’re listening to a special space episode.

[CLIP of NASA’s Artemis II splashdown: &hairsp;”Splash down confirmed at 7:07 PM Central Time, 5:07 PM Pacific Time. From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete Integrity's astronauts back on earth.”

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“A perfect bullseye splash down for Integrity and its four astronauts.”]

Pierre-Louis: That’s the crew of the historic Artemis II mission splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego last Friday. Although the mission is over, NASA’s moon ambitions are far from finished. But why?

Here to tackle that question is a group of SciAm staffers, Lee Billings, Claire Cameron, Emma Gometz and Joe Howlett. Hi, everyone!

Joe Howlett: Excited to talk.

Claire Cameron: Happy to be here.

Lee Billings: I’m thrilled.

Emma Gometz: Thanks, Kendra.

Pierre-Louis: Okay, so just so we know, can you rank from a scale of one to 10, 10 being very interested and one being you’d rather watch paint dry—I’m gonna own it: I think I’m probably the biggest space hater at the table. I’m gonna give it a solid three. I like a good night sky, but that’s about all I’m interested in. I like my space fictional. How interested are you in space, especially space travel?

Gometz: I’m Emma Gometz. I’m a newsletter editor at SciAm.

Oof, I feel like, optimistically, like, being generous, probably a five. I feel like there are some things that are so incredibly cool about space. I love the new JWST visuals and the new “Earthrise” photo. I think, like, artistically, I feel like it’s really beautiful and inspiring. But there’s also a lot of stuff that feels boring, too. [Laughs.]

Billings: I’m Lee Billings. I’m a senior editor covering space and physics here at Scientific American.

Well, I’m biased, of course, so I’m not gonna give it a 10—I’ll give it, like, an eight. And the reason I wouldn’t give it a 10 is just because Earth is the coolest planet that we know of out there. The coolest stuff that we know over the entire universe is going on right here. And I think that space enriches and contextualizes our existence here, but we can’t lose sight of the fundamental importance of terra firma.

Howlett: I’m Joseph Howlett. I’m a staff reporter.

I mean, it, it changes, but right now it’s at its zenith, yeah. [Group laughs.] I’m, I’m at a 10 this week, I would say. I mean, it’s—watching these people go around the moon and—I don’t know. It’s just been really exciting and inspiring, and I’m not ...

Pierre-Louis: But have you ever seen a sloth try to cross the street? [Laughs.]

Howlett: A sloth—sloths can be a 10 too, right? Like ...

Gometz: That’s true. It’s unlimited 10s. Like, everything can be a 10.

Cameron: I’m Claire Cameron. I’m the breaking news director at Scientific American.

I’m probably around about an eight as well. I agree that Earth is the coolest planet, but I also think that space exploration can be some of the most inspiring and humanizing moments out—in our history, and we don’t get a lot of them.

And especially now, you know, space exploration is kind of—we feel like it’s heating up, but actually, we haven’t done anything like the Artemis II mission for a very long time. And so I think it’s really important to set ourselves in context. But I also think it’s important to explore for humans; I think humans need it in