The Artemis II lunar mission, which took off from the Earth on Wednesday, is a significant achievement for NASA and a harbinger of a new and disruptive era in space. The mission will take four astronauts round-trip to the moon, 250,000 miles from earth, a thousand times farther away than the space station, and will break free from Earth's gravity to do so. The Orion spacecraft will also take its four astronauts farther than any humans have ever traveled into space, reaching 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the moon. The longer-term goals for NASA include establishing a lunar base on the moon to enable scientific investigations, power generation, and infrastructure. However, the Artemis missions do not necessarily put astronauts on the lunar surface.