Jubilant return of Artemis II shadowed by ‘extinction-level’ cuts to Nasa: ‘It’s discordant’

Even as a triumphant moon flyby primes agency for a 2028 landing, Trump’s proposed budget cuts cast pall on US space program The astronauts onboard Artemis II were “almost poets”, Nasa’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, declared on Friday, referring to their inspiring words as they swung above the lunar surface. They were, he said, “ambassadors for humanity” as they became the first humans to travel to the moon and return safely to Earth since 1972, on a mission that broke a distance record. Meanwhile, the mood at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Friday night was one of jubilation and celebration as the Orion capsule made a textbook splashdown in the Pacific Ocean after its 10-day lunar odyssey. Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, plus Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, will give a press conference later on what they saw and experienced. “The mission is over but the melody lingers on,” the Nasa TV commentator Derrol Nail noted. In truth, the successful conclusion of the US space agency’s first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years represented unquestionably its biggest achievement since the Apollo generation. To