Fuel leak scrubs Artemis-1 launch again, but NY Times reports eventually US will 'land the first woman and first person of color' on the moon

Doug P. | 1:48 PM on September 03, 2022

For the second time, a fuel leak has caused the launch of the Artemis-1 rocket for a mission to the moon to be scrubbed:

NASA called off the second attempt to launch an ambitious test flight of its new moon rocket on Saturday (Sept. 3), this time because of a stubborn leak that delayed fueling.

The space agency hoped to launch its Artemis 1 moon mission atop a towering Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket at 2:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT) on Saturday, but a hydrogen fuel leak detected about seven hours before liftoff thwarted the attempt.

“We have a scrub for the day, a cutoff, of the launch attempt for Artemis 1,” NASA commentator Derrol Nail said at 11:18 a.m. EDT (1518 GMT) during a live broadcast.

Now that there’s another delay, the New York Times has explained that ultimately this won’t be your grandfather’s Apollo-11 mission:

NASA is going back to the moon, and it's not simply a do-over of the Apollo moon landings. They plan to land the first woman and first person of color and have astronauts work in deep space to develop the science and tech to send the first humans to Mars. https://t.co/qu8efiDOmJ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 3, 2022

As long as they’re focused on what’s important.

Truly the dumbest time to be alive https://t.co/cJx02yTD5Q

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 3, 2022

Enough with choosing people because of their demographics.

— Cynthia Beattie pro Freedom of Speech (@swissmissled) September 3, 2022

That had to be the Biden administration’s idea.

I guess it is important to put political science first, then science-science.

— K vanua (@k_vanua) September 3, 2022

Please just take there the best people for the job! It shouldn’t matter if they are men or women, black or white or even green, just take the best people available

— Armando Peña (@arman2p284) September 3, 2022