NASA's Artemis I Mission Launches on Historic Return to the Moon

NASA's plan to return humans to the moon is one small step closer to reality with the launch of its most powerful rocket ever. During the dark and early hours of Wednesday morning -- following a painstaking road to launch -- the agency's mammoth, tangerine Space Launch System finally flared to life, lifting off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center. 

And it was brilliant.

"We are all part of something incredibly special," launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said just before getting her tie cut -- a lovely NASA tradition that humbly marks the first solo flight of a deserving team member. "The first launch of Artemis. The first step in returning our country to the moon -- and on [to] Mars."

Engineers and scientists at NASA mission control giddily embraced as the massive SLS rocket, with the Orion crew capsule at its crown, passed critical checkpoints, discarded its massive core stage just minutes into the flight and sent its snow-white spire off on an epic cosmic journey. You could almost feel the team's anxiety turn to relief as this multibillion-dollar machine pierced the atmosphere unscathed.