Final preparations are underway for NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission around the Moon for more than 50 years. Four astronauts, three men and one woman, will spend 10 days aboard the Orion spacecraft, going further into space than any other humans as they orbit the Moon and return to Earth.

The mission is the next step of the Artemis programme, which plans to land astronauts back to the Moon by 2028. China has its own programme targeting a full crewed mission to the lunar surface by 2030.

In this episode, we speak to Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University about why the US is going back to the Moon. Pace worked in space policy for the George W. Bush Administration, followed by a stint at NASA before his appointment as the executive secretary of the National Space Council during the first Trump administration, where he worked on the launch of the Artemis programme.

This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood and Gemma Ware was the executive producer. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

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• NASA’s Artemis II mission will take an astronaut crew around the Moon – a space policy expert describes the long road to launch
• Nasa’s Artemis II mission is crucial as doubts build that America can beat China back to the Moon
• NASA announces a big shake-up of the Artemis Moon program
• NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon shows how US space strategy has changed since Apollo – and contrasts with China’s closed program
• NASA’s Artemis II plans to send a crew around the Moon to test equipment and lay the groundwork for a future landing