Artemis II's Lunar Flyby is important for present and future generations

This video grab made from a NASA livestream shows Artemis II crewmembers (in orange suits) being extracted from their spacecraft after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, on April 10, 2026. [AFP]

You probably saw the excitement, and even some bewilderment in the faces of the four astronauts who had just completed a 1.1 million-kilometre journey involving a moon flyby in the Artemis II mission. Their voices crackled as they recounted the nine-day voyage, a first since 1972, and the surreal experience of blasting beyond the Earth's atmosphere, past the International Space Station, and hundreds of thousands of kilometres into an airless void of pitch blackness. They were tired, exhilarated, awed; they had not yet absorbed it fully, they admitted, when they addressed NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Pilot Victor Glover said, “I have not processed what we just did and I’m afraid to start even trying.”

The mission is estimated to have cost approximately $4 billion. That is nearly twice Lesotho's nominal GDP. One could raise a valid argument that the money could go into more urgent humanitarian efforts. Feed the poor. Build schools. Sink boreholes in drought-prone neighbourhoods. Raise the minimum wage.

How do space forays help that desperate university graduate?

In 2016, Chinese billionaire and philanthropist Jack Ma clashed with USA's SpaceX founder and billionaire Elon Musk over the latter's Mars dream. Instead of spending a lot of money trying to make humans interplanetary, why not put the money in causes that will just make systems better, and more efficient, on our planet?

Both had a solid argument. While you invest for the future, you must make today livable, otherwise that future never comes. End world wars now. Promote democracy now. Improve education now. Make the world habitable now.

However, space exploration is inevitable, for now and for the future. The moon flyby, for example, was more than just a feel-good scientific endeavour. By sending a crewed mission, NASA was testing human ingenuity, resilience, and ability to explore new realms.

If a space vehicle with humans will one day descend into Mars, then we need to have tested enough to establish all possibilities and challenges.

The construction of a permanent lunar base on which we should land astronauts regularly in the future, should be preceded by reconnaissance visits such as the latest one. The moon provides a platform for deep space exploration as we gear up for Mars, materials exploitation for a robust space economy, and testing systems to aid in improvement of our engineering, such as in robotics.

Oftentimes, research takes very long and the ordinary person is not always convinced of the benefits they could derive from it within their lifetimes. The inventor Nikola Tesla predicted the mobile phone in 1926, and many efforts since worked towards the achievement of one. These phones became common more than 70 years later.

The world is a better place with space exploration. Over time, our communication has greatly improved, our navigation is spectacular, our disaster management has gotten better. Satellite imagery, for example, greatly improved our handling of natural resources, and departments such as weather and security are heavily reliant on satellite data for everyday predictions and intelligence.

The successful navigation into deep space and return is a solid indicator that humans are finally prepared for daring, complex forays, and consequent reaping of benefits of space exploration we have not experienced before. Every new push brings new benefits.

- Mr Theuri holds a BSc in Geospatial Engineering and Space Technology