Video: Orion EFT-1 test flight ends with a splashdown in the Pacific

Eighteen astronauts have been selected — nine men and nine women — to begin training for upcoming Artemis missions to the moon, NASA announced Wednesday. The list includes the as-yet-unnamed next man and first woman who will set foot on the lunar surface later this decade.

President Donald Trump signed a new NASA authorization bill Tuesday, the first such space policy framework since early in the Obama administration, that largely continues the space agency’s efforts to foster a commercial economy in Earth orbit and explore deep space, with an eventual goal of landing humans on Mars.

As a barebones Orion spacecraft awaits its first launch from Cape Canaveral, representatives of European governments agreed to fund the development of a power and propulsion element to take the crew capsule on voyages around the moon, to an asteroid, and eventually to Mars.