Artemis Two - Moon Mission

During Lockdown, the world was closed, yet in some ways, the World was open.

We could zoom around the Earth, virtually meeting people, and chatting online.

I had written articles about COVID and was asked to recite some poems at a memorial dedicated to COVID.

Liverpool Writes

On a Facebook post during the pandemic, an online writing prompt was issued for a ten-minute creative write. I accepted the challenge and joined in.

The prompt was ‘Today I woke up on the Moon’.

I sent my finished writing to ‘Liverpool Writes’, and I was asked if I would allow it to be included in the online exhibition.

From Sussex to the Moon and Liverpool, I was happy to see my writing included.

Fast forward to 2026 and the Lunar Artemis 2 mission.

This time, I adapted my COVID writing to celebrate the mission.

Space has always fascinated me, but also frightened me as a child, giving me nightmares.

With some angry words reverberating around social media, my mind took me to the Star Wars movie and the destruction of a planet by the ‘Death Star’.

Here is my writing.

‘To the moon.’

Our mission.

To take a closer look at the moon.

To see the dusty craters.

Our spaceship was ready to take off,

There was an eerie silence as the world watched.

Holding its breath,

Watching the rocket zooming into space.

This was an epic adventure, and the world shivered.

Floating in the space capsule,

Our movements felt slow and heavy.

We could see our target ahead, the moon.

The sunlight in the distance shone on its silver-grey surface,

Casting long shadows across the dusty lunar landscape.

Looking out into the distant blackness of space,

We could see a million twinkling stars.

Looking back,

There it was,

The blue-green planet Earth.

Our planet!

Our world!

Shining and slowly spinning.

We could see the richness of the sea and the land,

White clouds swirling.

A peaceful, calm vision.

A beautiful sight,

A world turning slowly and silently in the darkness of space.

How calm it looked.

You could not hear the bustle of busy people dashing about.

You could not see the damage of climate change,

But, most of all, you could not see the horrors of war,

Nor the ugliness of bombs falling on civilisations.

Here you could look and see only the beauty,

Not the fear of the fight

Here we were safe in our little bubble

Heading towards the moon, safe on our mission.

Across the airwaves, harsh words rang out,

With threats to destroy a civilisation if it did not kneel and surrender,

These were not our words.

Our mission was to look outwards into space.

To see the lunar eclipse.

To see the dark side of the moon.

To see the peace and tranquillity of space.

To see the beauty, not the ugliness, of man's destruction

Into the darkness, our spaceship entered

A total blackout.

45 minutes of peaceful silence

Before, once again, communications could be restored

Would we come out of the darkness to see our world once more?

Or would the destruction of a civilisation

Be the death of our world?

Of our beautiful planet.

The world held its breath for us,

And we held our breath for the world.

Alone for a moment in the blackness of space.

Our return would be our next challenge,

We want to be able to return to our world,

To Earth, no matter how ugly it can be.

We have seen the beauty of space,

And know that Earth can be beautiful too.