A giant rocket’s tower of flame lifted three Americans and one Canadian at 6:35 p.m. Eastern on the first crewed journey that will go around the moon since 1972.
Kenneth ChangReporting from Kennedy Space Center in Florida
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A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon.
As they did during the heyday of the Apollo program, which first put men on the lunar surface, spectators squeezed onto the beaches along Central Florida’s Space Coast. The crowds cheered when the powerful vehicle launched into the clear, twilight sky at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time. It traveled eastward, over the Atlantic Ocean, on a journey that is to go around the moon but not land there.