Historic Artemis II moon mission lifts off, amid US lunar race with China

Four astronauts blasted off on Wednesday for a trip around the moon, marking humankind’s deepest venture into space in an odyssey that aims to launch the US into a new era of interstellar exploration.Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, a 32-story rocket rose from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre, where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era.Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s. It is Nasa’s boldest step yet towards returning humans to the lunar surface this decade before China’s first crewed landing.The mission dubbed Artemis II has been years in the making after facing repeated setbacks and massive cost overruns.Anxiety briefly spiked when less than two hours before the launch window was to open, Nasa said engineers identified a technical issue related to the rocket’s flight termination system, a key safety mechanism.But cheers rang out among spectators gathered around a live broadcast when a US space agency official said the problem was resolved.