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It gave the appearance of a true all-American moment: a Nasa moon rocket blasting into a clear Florida sky on the US space agency’s first crewed lunar mission in more than half a century, and a prominent stars and stripes flag flapping in the breeze alongside an oversized countdown clock.

The four astronauts on board, however, embarked on their 10-day odyssey with a unifying message for humankind.

“We really are going for all, by all, and we want to take the whole world along with us,” Reid Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, declared in a final media briefing before Wednesday’s 6.24pm ET (11.24pm BST) lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center.

It was a message reinforced by Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, at a post-launch press conference: “We’re going to get back in the business of launching rockets on a regular cadence, and we’re going to bring the world along with us.”

A moment nearly 54 years in the making, since the December 1972 Apollo 17 mission when humans last set foot on the moon, was almost obliged to recognize how much the world has changed in that timespan, and the spectacle did not disappoint.

A flawless, fiery lift-off, after a surprisingly trouble-free countdown given the technical problems that forced Nasa to abandon launch attempts in February and March, entertained up to half a million people packed on the beaches, causeways and open spaces of Florida’s space coast.

These astronauts, three Americans and one Canadian, will not land on the moon during their lunar flyby, as 12 of their Apollo-era antecedents did between 1969 and 1972. But they are making history in a more modern way. Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, is the first non-American to journey to the moon; Victor Glover, the first person of color; Christina Koch, the first woman.

“This is an interesting time to go fly this mission,” Wiseman said.

“Each one of us, we have our own different opinions, and our own individual beliefs. And I think that’s one of the best parts about this mission right now … that’s great that we celebrate all of this, all the way around the world.”

In the quest for global harmony, the Artemis II launch was never going to match Neil Armstrong’s “one giant leap for mankind” speech during the first moon landing in 1969. Bitter geopolitical tensions and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine exemplify the tensions of the world of 2026.

Beyond that, many still question the value of the US government throwing billions of dollars at a new lunar spaceflight program that repeats something already achieved with Apollo, which the public quickly grew tired of in the 1970s once the Soviet Union was beaten there and the space race was won.

Yet in their own way, the events of Wednesday at Cape Canaveral were also healing and unifying. A succession of former astronauts, including space shuttle veterans Mark Kelly, now a Democratic US senator, and Stephen Robinson, a four-time flyer, spoke of the almost mystical power of human spaceflight.

“The space program has always been a good news aspect for the humanity in us,” Robinson said.

“The part that isn’t political, the part that is the human side of us, believes in learning about that, learning about space. Look at that moon out there. Shouldn’t we go there and explore it?”

Kelly, a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s planned slashing of Nasa’s science budget last year before rare bipartisan opposition in Congress led to an almost full restoration to $24.4bn (£18.3bn) in January, pointed to the ability of human spaceflight to bridge yawning political divides.

“We’ve got a bipartisan delegation here, Republicans and Democrats from the House, folks from the administration are here,” he said.

“We got a lot of problems our country is trying to solve right now, and I think a bunch of them are self-inflicted , but this is a place that we all can often come together and unite around a common goal. That’s hard but it’s doable.

“It’s a victory for our space program, which I view as, and I might be a little biased, a victory for our country.”

Michael Haridopolos, a Florida Republican congressman and chair of the House space and aeronautics subcommittee, also espoused the across-the-aisle collaboration that has helped fund Nasa’s renaissance, from an almost rudderless agency at the termination of the 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, to a forward-looking body once again in the business of launching human beings to the moon.

“If you think about it, just a little over 10 years ago we didn’t know what the future of space might be, with the end of the shuttle program,” he said.

“To see the turnaround that we’ve seen has been remarkable. I couldn’t be happier with the progress we’ve made, and to see all of this hard work and this incredible teamwork come to fruition. I mean, it’s just an amazing time.”

Isaacman has spoken of Artemis II frequently as “the opening act” of Nasa’s ambitious, next-generation plans to get back to the moon, then reach Mars. Last month he unveiled “ignition”, the agency’s blueprint that includes dumping construction of the Lunar Gateway orbiting outpost and build the first permanent moonbase.

It followed a top-to-toe restructuring of the Artemis program the month before, in which a crewed landing was moved to Artemis IV, and a new mission introduced next year intended to test lunar landers from private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.

For the remaining days of the Artemis II mission, the crew and mission managers will concentrate on evaluating Orion and its life preservation and other systems for future flights and, on flight day six, pass within 6,000 miles of the moon’s surface after traveling farther into space – almost 253,000 miles from Earth – than any humans before them.

Wednesday, however, was a day to celebrate the breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and long-awaited spectacle of a rocket blasting off for the moon with astronauts on board, something anybody under the age of about 60 can have no meaningful recollection of.

Nasa, Isaacman said, achieved it “after a brief, 54-year intermission”.

Like the Apollo missions of old, the administrator said, the new age of Artemis will similarly inspire a new generation of enthusiasts.

“That was something, huh?” he said of the launch. “You’re gonna have more kids dress up as astronauts for Halloween. And you know, captivating the world’s interest in America’s return to the moon? You tell me.

“I felt going into it that a lot of people would be paying attention. I suspect when some imagery starts to come back from the moon, that’s going to further bring people into the story.”