(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – In addition to Artemis II, a pair of meteors in unrelated incidents over the U.S. last month has many of us interested in space again.

Siegfried Eggl (pictured), a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says once a meteor is detected, NASA puts, in Eggl’s words, “as many eyes as they need” on it.

Eggl says the activity is becoming easier to predict. “I think before 1990, folks weren’t quite aware of how many asteroids are out there, and now we know of about 30,000 asteroids that are close to the orbit of the earth, and we suspect there is probably going to be three times the number of asteroids that are big enough to enter the atmosphere and cause substantial local damage.”

As for Artemis II, Eggl would like to see the moon as a refuge.

“If there is a global catastrophe,” Eggl said, “we need to know how to save our species, and going to space, ultimately, is something we have to know how to do, because nothing lasts forever. Our sun is going to run out of fuel, eventually.” 

Artemis II represents, in the professor’s words, “America at its best.”