How Can We Look to the Skies When the World is Burning?

I don't know.

It's been a month since the successful Artemis II launch and return. I watched the live footage of the crew's splashdown. I held my breath with every milestone on their way home. I hoped with all of my being they would come back safe. I watched them open the hatch my heart in my chest.

Yes, I cried when they came out and waved.

There's something about those moments that feels so important. On this mission and the ones before it, we have taken the impossible and risen beyond it. We have sent a few into the unknown on behalf of us all. When they return safely home, it feels like we've taken a step in the right direction. Even if that direction is farther from Earth than we've ever been.

In the midst of this breathtaking wonder, there is a darkness. Part of me thinks "it won't be long until we're fighting over space on the moon."

How depressing is that? To have this moment of wonder, and then to immediately know that human greed will ruin it. Worse, to have in mind specific people who represent that greed. It makes me fear for our future and I hate that.

In general, it's hard to separate wonder from fear these days. But I want to so badly. I want to be able share the photos of this mission from NASA and say "look at this good and beautiful thing."

And yet.

And yet.

And yet, here we are. We're the precipice of the darkest hour our species has ever been on. The clock ticks closer to midnight.

And yet I look up, seeing the moon and knowing that we have been there. That we have seen it in all its glory and looked back on Earth and said "yes, this is good."

We have proven that we can be good. That we can be wondrous. I can't let that go.

I can't forget who we can be, despite who we are.