Artemis II successfully launched. What other media won't tell you about the most expensive ride in history

In the night of April 1 to 2 at 00:35 Central European Summer Time, NASA successfully launched the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft and a four-person crew toward the Moon. Media around the world are calling it a historic moment. But behind the celebrations lies a story most of them are staying silent about. NASA ↗

The Space Launch System rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Aboard the Orion spacecraft sit commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — the first woman, the first Black person, and the first non-American on a journey to the Moon. All systems are functioning nominally, the solar panels have deployed, and the crew is safe. NBC News ↗

But the question of what exactly this mission does has a surprisingly modest answer.


WHAT ARTEMIS II ACTUALLY DOES — AND WHAT IT DOESN'T

Orion will fly around the Moon and return to Earth. It will not land. It will not enter a stable orbit around the Moon — it will use what's called a free-return trajectory, passing approximately 6,400 kilometers from the surface at its closest approach. By comparison: Apollo 8 in 1968 entered lunar orbit and circled the Moon ten times at a distance of 112 kilometers. CBS News ↗

From an orbital flight perspective, Apollo 8 was more ambitious. However, the two missions had fundamentally different goals — Apollo 8 was verifying navigation to the Moon, while Artemis II is testing entirely new life support systems for the crewed Orion spacecraft: air, water, navigation, and communication in deep space. It is essentially a test drive ahead of future landings. Important, but not quite what most people picture when they think of a return to the Moon.


THE HEAT SHIELD: A PROBLEM NASA WORKED AROUND BY CHANGING THE ROUTE

During Artemis I's return in December 2022, pieces of material broke off Orion's heat shield in approximately 100 locations. The AVCOAT protective layer cracked and came off in a way that computer simulations had not predicted. NASA ↗

NASA identified the problem in the behavior of the AVCOAT material — as it heated up, gases were released inside the shield that had nowhere to escape, creating internal pressure and causing cracking. The agency conducted an extensive analysis with more than 100 tests across the entire country. NASA ↗

Instead of replacing the shield, which would have delayed the mission by another one to two years, NASA chose to modify the return trajectory — shortening the time during which the spacecraft skips through the atmosphere in order to reduce heating. An independent panel led by former flight director Paul Hill unanimously approved this approach, and according to NASA, modeling and ground tests confirmed that the modified route keeps thermal and structural loads within safe limits. Future missions will already use a more porous version of AVCOAT. NASA ↗

The question remains why this phenomenon was not fully captured during ground testing.


$4.1 BILLION FOR A SINGLE-USE ROCKET

Each SLS launch costs approximately $4.1 billion. Total spending on the Artemis program has exceeded $93 billion. The SLS was originally supposed to cost $5 billion and fly in 2016. Instead, it costs four times as much and first flew in 2022. NBC News ↗

Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society summed it up: This rocket was originally supposed to fly in 2016 and cost $5 billion. Now it costs about $20 billion. NBC News ↗

The four RS-25 engines on the SLS's first stage were originally designed to be reusable — they flew dozens of missions on the Space Shuttle. On the SLS, they are discarded into the ocean after every launch. Each one costs tens of millions of dollars.

For comparison: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy carries a lower but comparable payload for approximately $150 million and is partially reusable. Starship, which NASA itself selected as the lunar lander for Artemis III, is supposed to cost a fraction of that amount.


HOW ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE ROCKETS IN HISTORY CAME TO BE

The SLS was created under a 2010 law, when Congress mandated that NASA develop a heavy-lift rocket from Space Shuttle components. The reason was not technical but economic — it was about saving jobs for contractors in the states of senators who voted on the program. That's why the SLS earned the nickname Senate Launch System. NBC News ↗

The contracts are structured on a cost-plus basis — contractors get paid for development costs, not for results. According to critics, this incentivizes companies to hire as many people as possible and work as slowly as possible. The main contractors are Boeing for the core stage, Northrop Grumman for the booster motors, and Lockheed Martin for Orion. NBC News ↗


THE FUTURE OF SLS IS UNCERTAIN

In February 2026, NASA's new chief Jared Isaacman canceled the planned upgraded SLS Block 1B version and decided to standardize the program on the current Block 1 version. He also canceled development of a new mobile launch platform costing a billion dollars. SpaceNews ↗

Artemis III, which was supposed to be the first Moon landing, was redefined as a test mission in low orbit in 2027. The actual landing has been pushed back to 2028. SatNews ↗

And here is an interesting paradox of the whole mission: when astronauts finally land on the Moon, it won't be the SLS that puts them down there. The lander will be SpaceX's Starship. The crew will fly to the Moon aboard the SLS, transfer to the Starship there, land, and then return back to the Orion.


WHY IT'S WORTH IT ANYWAY

Despite all the questions surrounding the budget and technical compromises, Artemis II is not a pointless mission. It is the first test of the Orion spacecraft with a human crew. It verifies the systems on which astronauts' lives will depend during future landings. Victor Glover will become the first Black person and Christina Koch the first woman beyond low Earth orbit. Jeremy Hansen is the first non-American on a journey to the Moon. NASA ↗

The crew is set to break Apollo 13's record for the greatest distance a human has traveled from Earth — 405,500 kilometers compared to 400,171 kilometers in 1970. CBS News ↗

And if Orion returns safely on April 10, it will be proof that humanity can leave low Earth orbit even in the 21st century — although the debate about how much it should cost and with which rocket is certainly not ending with this launch.