The Artemis Program

by Simon Pierce

NASA's groundbreaking Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon and lay the groundwork for future Mars expeditions. Readers discover the cutting-edge technology, courageous astronauts, and visionary leaders behind this monumental mission. The engaging main text, augmented with stunning full-color photographs and informative sidebars, will ignite the imaginations of young readers and inspire them to dream big about humanity's next giant leap into the cosmos. A list of age-appropriate books and websites provides a starting point for further independent research.

32 pages, Library Binding

Published December 30, 2024

Reviews

[Donna Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had a really good overview of the Artemis program which as announced by NASA in the early 2000s. One of the goals of the Artemis mission wis to set up a permanent base on the moon which would serve as a gateway for astronauts to explore further afield and to visit Mars.

The first missions to the moon were in the Apollo program (Apollo being the god of the sun), these second missions are Artemis, who was Apollo's sister and the goddess of the moon. They will also be working on a joint program with other space agencies to build a new space station, called the 'Gateway', unlike the ISS this is not a station that will be occupied all the time and will be used as and when needed with storage, research labs and places for ships to dock before travelling down to the surface of the moon on a tender ship (HLS) and back.

Artemis I missions all went as planned and the Artemis II missions will be the same but with human astronauts on board, at the time of typing this review this is now scheduled for March 2026 at the time of completing this review.

There are plans already for Artemis III and this will include docking with the Gateway and going down to land on the moon, this should be record breaking too as it is due to be the first woman, and first person of colour to visit the lunar surface - it is all very exciting for us as we were not born when the first moon landings too place!

There is a handy glossary at the end of the book.

It is 4 stars from me for this one - highly recommended!

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might look it but I'm certainly not old enough to remember the pre-Apollo days, when we had the anticipation of getting to the Moon. At last we seem to have the successor, the Artemis project to have a station in lunar orbit and shuttles from there to the surface. But it doesn't seem to have the press, the expectation, the dramatic possibility of what came before, that would help make a generation of children and more look up to space and wonder about jobs and life and exploring there. This book helps, by telling us all a primary school audience would want to know, but it's awkward to see the merit of this when the subject is, frankly, a touch too iffy. We get the gen on how all this is supposed to play out, but that "all this" is not much – just a few expeditions and that's it, the budget's gone. Yay, the lunar walkers will no longer just be white men, but that's not enough. Still, as part of a set of colourful books about similar space projects past and future this is a success. But seeing as the last thing about moon launches that we could enthuse over was Wallace and Gromit, this might not be such a brilliantly urgent purchase.