Mike Baker

That's significant because the far side of the moon permanently faces away from Earth.

Even during the Apollo era, astronauts never had a view like this due to how those missions were flown.

So what they saw up there in Artemis II is something we're only now beginning to understand fully.

During the flyby, the crew captured detailed imagery of deep impact basins formed billions, not millions, billions of years ago, jagged mountain ridges and ancient lava plains stretching across the surface.

They also saw the picnic blanket, of course, left by Wallace and Gromit during their adventure to the moon.

In addition, the Artemis crew studied features along what's known as the Lunar Terminator.

That's the dividing line between the illuminated side of the moon and the side that's cloaked in darkness.

So this mission was about proving that the U.S.

can once again send astronauts deep into space, operate beyond Earth's orbit, and bring them home safely.

And now, with that box checked, the focus shifts to what comes next.

NASA is targeting Artemis III as early as 2027 to carry out technical demonstrations in low Earth orbit, followed by Artemis IV in 2028, which is expected to put astronauts back on the lunar surface.

And if that timeline holds, well, it's the beginning of NASA's sustained return to deep space and the potential establishment of a moon base.

Now, I'm not a clever science guy.

I have a hard time naming all the planets.

And by the way, they did completely screw the pooch by claiming Pluto is not a planet.

But Artemis II effortlessly allowed me to time travel back to the Apollo era and the wonder and pride that we all felt as we built rocket ships and went to the moon.

In a finer world, well, we'd be spending our time talking about this story and not the conflicts that currently shape our news feed.

And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief from Monday, the 13th of April.

If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com.

And I hope you had a chance to catch this weekend's episode of our occasionally highly acclaimed weekend show, the PDB Situation Report.