During commencement season, toward a brighter day for public health
Last month, the Artemis II mission successfully flew to the moon and back. Astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, and Reid Wiseman crewed the Orion spacecraft, which they named Integrity, in the first human-led flight beyond low earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The lunar flyby was conceived as a test flight in support of further Artemis missions, with the goal of returning humans to the moon’s surface.
The Artemis II mission was a unique moment in the history of science and exploration. Yet, in many ways, it was reflective of work that is happening all the time, here on earth. The work of science, the building of social movements, the pursuit of knowledge, the shaping of policies that promote better lives, better health—these are all, in a sense, moonshots. They all represent aiming upward, marshaling time, data, and resources in pursuit of progress, of a better world for all. They are not solitary efforts. They involve working in teams, in communities, across disciplines and sectors. They can be deeply rewarding, helping to bring about much improvement, providing a glimpse—like earth seen from a spaceship window—of a brighter future we can all play a part in helping to build.
But these efforts can also include times when we feel isolated, when the way forward is obscured, when we are cut off from sources of support on which we have long relied, when we even feel, perhaps, a bit of existential anxiety about the future of our work and world.
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