To the Moon…and Beyond

As the crew of Artemis II slingshots around the moon, let us not forget those who came before.

Bryan Hurt’s The Fourth Man puts a spotlight on Alan Bean—the astronaut who walked on the moon yet spent his life in the long shadow of the men who touched the surface first. A man who made history, but not headlines. A reminder that even the extraordinary can be eclipsed.

More than fifty years have passed since humans last came this close to the moon. Half a century of distance, memory, and myth. Now, as Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen trace that arc again, their mission becomes part of a lineage that stretches back through Apollo and beyond.

Artemis II isn’t just a journey outward. It’s a gesture backward, a widening of the frame, a chance to honor the quiet brilliance of those who helped us reach the moon the first time—and those who kept the dream alive in the decades since.