As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, NASA said the Artemis II mission has carried a collection of historic mementos. Among them was a flag originally designated

Former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt is one of four people left alive who walked on the moon. That was during the Apollo 17 mission. He’s also a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico. Schmitt spoke with Indira Lakshmanan on the show Here & Now before the crew returned about the Artemis II mission and his hopes for the future of space travel.

The Apollo missions to the moon established many of the guidelines that we still use for space travel today, with some modern tweaks.

Artemis II will carry astronauts beyond the moon using a free-return path and new spacecraft systems, marking a different approach from Apollo missions, according to NASA and Space.com.

Jim Head helped train Apollo astronauts and select lunar landing sites for the missions.