Four astronauts are now inexorably bound for the Moon

The Orion spacecraft successfully fired its main engine for 5 minutes and 50 seconds on Thursday, sending four astronauts on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. For NASA and the Artemis II crew members, this marked a point of no return for more than week.

Most Americans, indeed about three-quarters of the population around the world, have not witnessed humans leaving low-Earth orbit in their lifetimes. The last time this occurred was 1972, with the final Apollo Moon mission.

The...