NASA plans to announce the crew of the next Artemis flight in just a few days.
The excitement of future Moon missions has reignited the interest in America's space agency.
Former NASA Astronaut and Texas A&M Engineering Professor, Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, flew the Space Shuttle on five missions long after the Apollo program.
"It's not only exciting, I think it has to happen," Dr. Dunbar said. "I've been around long enough that I saw Sputnik fly and saw the first humans fly."
Dr. Dunbar is overseeing a project at Texas A&M bringing in a centrifuge that can provide researchers with artificial gravity simulating the gravitational force on the Moon. That will be operational at A&M's main College Station campus.
Texas A&M also operates a new Space Institute in Houston that can serve as a training facility for Artemis astronauts.
Dr. Dunbar, like many Americans, is thrilled to see NASA turn its attention back to the Moon.
"I'm excited to see that we're back there, our students are excited," Dr. Dunbar said. "I hope it incentivizes more young kids to study engineering and science like it brought me off the ranch into engineering so I'm very excited that we're going back."
