Editor’s Note: Space and Time

By Sarah Rufca Nielsen

As a teenager, I remember once discovering a box of old children’s books that had once belonged to one relative or another. At the time, my literary interests ran more toward “Sweet Valley High” and R.L. Stine, so I didn’t pay much attention to a bunch of vintage picture books.

But one book did make an impression: “You Will Go to the Moon.”

Published in 1959, it arrived two years before the first human spaceflight and three years before President John F. Kennedy stood in Rice Stadium and challenged the country to reach the moon by the end of the decade. (Despite comparing the challenge to Rice’s football chances against the University of Texas.)

I remember being fascinated by its optimism, but even more by the foreignness of the perspective — imagining, for the first time, a world where space travel was almost entirely theoretical. The moon wasn’t history yet. It was still just a possibility.

As a millennial, I grew up with the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and satellite-based GPS. I have never lived in a world where I couldn’t picture Earth as seen from space: a cloud-dappled blue-and-green marble. Space exploration has always been there, extraordinary but familiar — mostly humming along at the edges of our attention until something happens to pull our eyes skyward. Artemis II did that for me.

In my lifetime, I can’t remember another NASA mission feeling as immediate, relevant or vital as Artemis II did during those 10 days when four astronauts traveled around the moon, farther into space than any humans before them. Artemis II became a rare shared cultural experience and a special moment in history.

The mission was riveting scientifically, but some of its most memorable moments were deeply human. When pilot Victor Glover reflected on seeing Earth from that distance — and on the shared humanity contained on our little planet — it was hard not to feel some of the same wonder that the Apollo missions captured nearly six decades ago.

That makes me especially proud to share the stories of Rice alumni who helped make the mission possible, including engineers, flight controllers, communicators and others whose work continues Rice’s long relationship with NASA.

And that spirit of participation runs throughout this issue. From the moon to the World Cup, from new programs and new buildings to the inclusive legacy of Richard Tapia, these stories show a Rice community that doesn’t simply watch big moments unfold but helps shape them.

I hope this issue gives you a little of that same sense of possibility.

From the Fall 2026 issue of Rice Magazine