Zaid

Welcome back to The Rundown for another weekend deep dive.

Today, we are talking about NASA's return to the moon and what it means for investors.

As I'm recording this, four astronauts are flying through space on their way back to Earth after flying around the moon for the first time in over 50 years as part of NASA's Artemis II mission.

And this mission has captured the attention of the world and also investors.

Space was already one of the hottest investing sectors, and the Artemis II mission has only added to the hype.

So in today's episode, we'll break down the Artemis II mission, why it matters, the booming space economy, what's driving it, a few space stocks worth knowing about, and what's coming next, including the SpaceX IPO and NASA's plans to actually land astronauts on the moon.

We got a great one for you today.

Let's dive in.

The last time that humans went anywhere near the moon was December of 1972, but that changed this month.

Now, this all started in 2017.

NASA began the Artemis program and started planning a return of humans to the moon for new scientific discoveries and economic opportunities.

The first Artemis mission was launched back in November of 2022.

It was a 25-day uncrewed mission that traveled around the moon and served as a test for the current Artemis II mission.

Fast forward three and a half years, and Artemis II launched on April 1st, sending four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon and back.

The crew included NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The Orion spacecraft carrying the crew went more than a quarter million miles away from Earth, officially breaking the record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth, last set by Apollo 13 back in 1970.

and the crew successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10th.

In fact, I had to pause the recording of this deep dive to watch that splashdown live, which was really cool.

Now, the Artemis II mission didn't land astronauts on the moon.

It was a flyby mission, but the information gained from this mission will help NASA prepare for future moon landing missions, which is expected to happen sometime in 2028 as part of the Artemis IV mission.