
NASA Assistant Administrator Amit Kshatriya said the success of the Artemis II mission is paving the way for future exploration opportunities.
"We took a big step to put us on the path to space. I think the path to space is open now," he said.
Kshatriya reflected on the last time humans tried to go near the moon with Apollo 17 and how the Apollo program lost momentum after that. But he noted how NASA kept moving forward.
"During the Apollo mission we realized that reusability would be important, so we built a winged space plane called a space shuttle and then used that reusable vehicle to build a space station. And we learned for 25 years how to live and work in space and we've been able to develop technologies that can enable exploration. Now we're at the point where the architects of Apollo would have been pleased that we're now ready to go back to the moon and stay there, because we've learned all the things we needed to learn," he added.