Name: Artemis II gets ready to head to the Moon | BBC News
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Now excitement is building as NASA has issued a promising update on its historic Artemis II moon mission, announcing that weather conditions for the first possible launch day on Wednesday, the 1st of April, are 80% go.

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The announcement comes as the four astronauts, due to takeoff, have been answering questions about their 10-day mission, which will take them on a loop around the moon.

NASA's Artemis program has taken years of work, involved thousands of people,

and is estimated to have cost $93 billion so far.

So why is the US spending so much time, effort, and money racing to return to the moon?

Our science editor, Rebecca Morrell, has more.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy,

Kennedy, setting America on course to the moon.

In 1969, the Apollo program made history with the first lunar landing.

And astronauts continued to go to the moon until 1972.

Now, after more than 50 years, NASA is heading back.

But why is the US so intent on returning?

That little dark rock is a piece of the moon that was collected by Apollo astronauts and brought back to Earth in 1972.

The precious lunar material is on display at the Natural History Museum.

And while moon rock might look barren, it holds the potential for a gold rush.

The moon contains rare earth minerals and metals, too,

but its most important resource is a surprising one: water.

It has water trapped in some of its minerals,

and it also has substantial amounts of water on the poles, the colder parts of the moon, especially regions which are called permanently shadowed craters.

So these are areas that never, ever see sunlight, and so they're super cold,

and they can act as cold traps where ice can potentially build up.

Water is vital for creating a moon base, and it's igniting a 21st-century space race.

All Russia's just wild about Yuri Gagarin, first man to conquer space.

At Cape Canaveral, the Americans, though disappointed at not being first, are training these men to be astronauts and may still have a man on the moon before anyone else.

Last time round, America was in a battle with the Soviet Union for space dominance.

China's ambitions are sky-high and says it will get humans to the moon by 2030.

Both countries want the best lunar real estate, with the most abundant resources,

and it really matters who gets there first.

Although you can't own a piece of the land because of the UN Outer Space Treaty, you can basically operate on that land without anybody interfering with it.

So that's the big thing right now, is to try and, yes, to grab your piece of land.

And once you're there, you've got it for as long as you want it.

But the US wants to go even further, to Mars,

and plans to send astronauts there as soon as the 2030s.

There are huge technological hurdles to overcome, and the moon is the perfect testing ground.

There are many technologies that are essential for learning to live and work in space, particularly power, protection from radiation, recycling technologies.

These are all technologies that, if you try them for the first time on Mars and they go wrong, are potentially catastrophic.

It's much safer and much easier to try them out on the moon.

There's still much to learn about our celestial neighbor, and it holds the promise of new scientific discoveries.

The scientists and engineers of tomorrow will be watching the Artemis astronauts.

Who knows what their future will hold and the impact they'll have on the world and beyond?

And the BBC's space podcast, 13 Minutes, is following the Artemis II mission with special daily episodes.

You can listen to 13 Minutes presents Artemis II on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.