Solemn Privilege – Artemis II from Launch Complex 34
On April 1st, I was granted a special opportunity. Twice before I have had the privilege of visiting Launch Complex 34, but this most recent visit was special. On April 1st I was there not to set remote cameras as I did the two times before, but this time it was to shoot our return to the Moon after a half century. On April 1st, 2026 after months of various delays, NASA’s Space Launch System launched her crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen aboard the Orion Spacecraft Integrity into the beautifully clear skies above the Space Coast of Florida. Climbing on a pillar of fire and smoke, they began humanity’s journey back to Lunar frontiers.
To be at LC-34 is, as I said before, a privilege. Set deep inside of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the site of the Inaugural Saturn 1 launch, then the Apollo 1 disaster and its final mission, Apollo 7, sits as a quiet reminder of times long since past. Now 34 sits as a memorial to the lives lost there, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White, NASA and America’s tragic loss that would shake the foundations of the Apollo Program.
When you’re at LC-34, what you really first notice is just how quiet it is. All you can really sense is the sound of the Atlantic a few hundred yards away, and the wind swaying the foliage that surrounds the pad grounds. Aside from that, it’s still and quiet. It is a powerful silence, and a somber one. One that reminds you that you are in a place that deserves reverence and respect. It’s not just a place where 3 Americans lost their lives in tragedy. It is a place where their sacrifice changed the course of American spaceflight, and set new standards for what was to come. It isn’t where those 3 men were laid to rest, but it is where their memory lives on in such a powerful way.
Astronauts such as Reid Wiseman, Commander of Artemis II, have been known to visit 34 on visits to the Cape to pay their respects at the site. It is a moving location for so many. It stands as a guide for countless employees of the Space Program and the now many Commercial Spaceflight companies, along with the other disasters of years past, as why they need to do their work the right and safe way.
Launch Complex 34 is not just an empty derelict launch pad of a bygone era. It is a part of history, a memorial, a reminder, a somber guide. It is one of the foundations of today’s Space Program, that shapes the way we are paving our path forward into the future. So when I say it is a privilege to visit. I mean it. It is an honor, privilege, and if you can and are able to, an obligation.
The chance to experience Artemis II and our return to the Moon at such an important and solemn location is an honor I will never take lightly nor soon forget. To be able to tell the story of today through the lens of such a keystone moment of the past is one of those great treasures I will always hold dear. The opportunity provided me the chance to do a duty. And I can only hope I did that duty right.
Ad Astra Per Aspera.
