Scott Detrow

Who's an American?

That was at issue at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices considered the constitutionality of birthright citizenship.

Another question, what is America's role in the world?

President Trump weighs in on that Wednesday night in an Oval Office address on what comes next in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

But there's a mission that historically has soared above those disagreements, one that has captured our collective imagination for generations.

That's President John F. Kennedy talking about the U.S.

effort to get to the moon in September 1962.

That goal would be realized just shy of seven years later, on July 20th, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

With Artemis II, American astronauts take a giant leap forward in the effort to return to the moon.

Consider this.

The quest to reach the moon has always been a key part of the American myth.

And so has the country's embrace of immigrants and its vision of itself as a defender of democracy around the world.

On a day all three are in play, we will meet the crew headed out toward the moon.

From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

It's Consider This from NPR.

Four people are about to make world and lunar history.

The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission will be lifting off on a 10-day mission that will take them off planet Earth, beyond orbit.

It will take them all the way to the moon.

They'll fly around it and back, becoming the first people to do so in more than half a century.

It's a big moment for NASA.