The tens of billions of dollars and months of delays later, NASA's Artemis I mission has finally made it to the Moon, where it will orbit for the next two weeks before returning to Earth.

Just days after its launch, the Orion spacecraft has arrived at the moon and is now in the orbit it will remain in until early December before returning to Earth and splashing down on December 11, according to Universe Today.

The United States' first overt gestures toward putting feet on the Moon since the 1970s have been "a game changer," NASA flight director Zebulon Scoville, who has an extraordinary last name, praised in a livestream.

Scoville remarked during the livestreamed event, "This is one of those days that you've been thinking about and dreaming about for a long, long time."

Fringe lunatic

The BBC points out that during the rocket's initial lunar flier, it passed by the landing locations of Apollo 11, 12, and 14.

A time-lapse GIF of Artemis' first flyby, which CNBC's Michael Sheetz tweeted, demonstrates the epic scale of the close approach. Artemis' Orion capsule, while en route, captured an amazing image of our natural satellite.

Though NASA spent a lot of money on its Space Launch Systems rocket, it hasn't garnered nearly as much attention as the James Webb Space Telescope, which was safely launched on Christmas Day of 2021 and has since been making people happy.

This might be as a result of the highly publicized first failures to launch Artemis, or it might be because the Moon has previously been visited, despite the fact that it's been more than 50 years. Despite being a good proof of concept, Artemis 1 lacks astronauts, which reduces the drama and spectacle.

Despite this, NASA reports that Artemis "exceeds expectations" and is performing admirably, assuming you don't count the damage to its launchpad back on Earth.