As a young astronomer at Cambridge University, I vividly recall being captivated 57 years ago by the flickering images on a black-and-white television, watching in awe as Apollo 11 made its historic landing on the Moon.

Like countless others, I was mesmerized. The following day, I encountered my mentor, the renowned Professor Fred Hoyle, who was even more thrilled than I was. It felt as if the future had truly arrived.

The 1969 Moon landing occurred a mere 12 years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first satellite to orbit the Earth.

The rapid strides in space exploration were exhilarating, and the world believed this momentum would only increase. It seemed certain that we would witness human footprints on Mars within my lifetime. But fast forward to today, at 83 years old and now a former Astronomer Royal, I can say I’m as likely to witness cows leaping over the Moon as I am to see astronauts on Mars anytime soon.

Our daily lives heavily rely on space technology for navigation, communication, and weather forecasting.

Yet, since the Apollo 17 mission, no human has traveled more than a few hundred miles from Earth. However, after decades of stagnation, human space exploration appears to be experiencing a revitalization.

For this week marks a new dawn. As early as this evening, Nasa will attempt to launch its Artemis II mission, which will see four astronauts orbit the Moon as part of the first crewed lunar mission in half a century.

If all goes well, Nasa hopes to land astronauts back on the lunar surface as early as 2028.

And yet, once again the mystery and poetry of the occasion is tempered by the baser concerns of human rivalry.

For a new space race is beginning, not only between America and China but also between private companies with ambitions to mine asteroids, colonise Mars and commercialise space travel.

There is every prospect this exciting but forbidding contest will go on to define the 21st century.

The last man to walk on the Moon, Eugene Cernan, did so in 1972 and since then space exploration has slowed dramatically.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US government could no longer justify spending 4 per cent of the federal budget on Nasa – the current figure is approximately 0.3 per cent. Perhaps more than anything, the public appetite waned.

Over the past half-century, for all the hard work and sacrifice of the crew on the International Space Station, nobody has even been beyond the Earth’s orbit, let alone to the Moon or beyond.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, not everything has gone to plan with Artemis II. Nasa had hoped to launch the rocket – which is carrying the ‘module’ in which the astronauts will be ensconced – in February this year.

However, scientists noticed a leak of hydrogen rocket fuel during preparations and duly pushed the launch back to March 6.

A subsequent ‘helium flow anomaly’ on the 322-ft Space Launch System (SLS) – the most powerful rocket ever built by the agency – meant the mission met yet further delays.

This week, however, it appears all systems are finally ‘go’. Yesterday, Nasa technicians announced that the weather forecast over the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was ’80 per cent go’ for take-off this week, possibly even as early as Wednesday evening local time (the early hours of Thursday morning BST).

Whenever ‘we have lift-off’, one shouldn’t downplay the significance of Artemis II.

The next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule, on Pad 39B ahead of the Artemis II mission ahead of it’s launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida

The ten-day voyage will take three Americans and one Canadian – led by Commander Reid Wiseman along with Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen – 257,061 miles from earth, further into space than humans have been before. It will also be the first time that either a woman or a black person has ever travelled to the Moon.

The SLS rocket that will launch the mission comprises two solid rocket boosters and four engines. In the top section of the rocket sits the Orion spacecraft complete with the ‘crew module’ or ‘capsule’ where the crew reside.

The mission follows that of Artemis I, which saw an uncrewed capsule orbit the Moon in 2022.

But fascinating as these technologies are, they are mere mechanisms. The important thing is that – after 50 years of achingly slow progress – humanity appears finally ready to explore the final frontier once again. The question is, why now?

In 2024, China’s space agency CLEP successfully landed a spacecraft on the dark side of the Moon. The so-called Chang’e-6 mission brought back soil samples from the Apollo Basin crater on the Moon’s southern hemisphere. It was a historic success. The lunar sample was taken from the so-called Shackleton Crater which has been earmarked as a possible location to sustain human life.

Most of the Moon’s surface experiences two weeks of sunlight followed by two weeks of darkness, on a continual cycle. But this crater is near the Moon’s south pole and the terrain surrounding it is in perpetual sunlight. Meanwhile, its centre is perpetually frozen, and therefore a source of ice and possible water reserves. (The Moon’s surface temperatures can plunge to -246 C.)

In 2020, Nasa confirmed that a water molecule had been found on the lunar surface.

Buoyed by its success, China duly announced tentative plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030. So, no surprise then that Nasa hopes to do so by 2028.

Two years may sound like a lot, but in space exploration, engineering delays, failed launches or other malfunctions can set a programme back for a decade. The race between China and the US to get back to the Moon is neck and neck.

As Donald Trump himself says, he wants a mission that is about ‘more than getting rocks this time’.

And unlike during the Cold War, there is more than soft power at play here. For control of space has enormous economic and security ramifications. Just look at how Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system has provided advantages to the Ukrainian army during the war with Russia.

The ten-day voyage will take the crew  further into space than humans have been before

Or more recent suspicions that Iran has been using Russian satellite intelligence to aid its attacks on US bases in the Middle East.

Not to mention the potential for mining rare metals in space, an industry which could easily be worth trillions in the coming decades.

Crucially, China has one massive advantage. Nasa’s first concern is safety. It has to be.

Not only because the American public cannot stomach loss of life, but also because a human tragedy would almost certainly choke its taxpayer funding.

The horrific fate of Apollo I in 1967, which burst into flames killing all three astronauts during a simulated countdown, lives long in the American memory. And although in the intervening years there have only been two fatal Nasa crashes, reflecting a more than 98 per cent safety record, one crash is always one too many.

It is likely that China – with its far more authoritarian leadership – is able to take greater risks with its space programme. Chinese public opinion will not sway government ambition.

The desire to explore space is the same desire that took Columbus to America and Marco Polo down the Silk Road – as much commercial as purely exploratory.

No surprise then that private companies have entered the market, most notably Elon Musk’s Space X and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

And with the emergence of these commercial players, my hunch is that the latest space race between the US and China – involving humans rather than robots – will also be the last played out by nation states.

Elon Musk claims he hopes to die on Mars, albeit – he once clarified – not in a crash landing. He’s currently 54 years old.

Will we see humans on Mars in the next 50 years? I made the wrong prediction 50 years ago, so who is to say about the next 50?

NASA astronauts (left to right) pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of CSA (Canadian Space Agency), commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialist Christina Koch

Certainly, Mars holds a greater allure than the already ‘conquered’ Moon. But a crewed mission to the red planet is also inconceivably complicated.

It takes six months to get there, which means carrying more than a year’s worth of supplies. And then there’s the mental challenge of the crew’s long-term isolation in a small pod the size of a pickup truck all before you’ve considered any of the scientific and engineering challenges.

As Artemis II prepares for take-off, however, Mars remains little more than a dot on the horizon of our collective imagination.

And despite lofty talk of interstellar mining and colonisation, mankind is still trying to follow in the small footsteps of Neil Armstrong 57 years on, let alone taking a further giant leap.

Lord Rees of Ludlow is the former Astronomer Royal (1995 to 2025), a Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge.