“We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed, the crew of Apollo 17.”

As those words echoed from the Moon in December 1972, astronaut Eugene Cernan did not know he was delivering a farewell that would last more than half a century. When Apollo 17 lifted off from the lunar surface, humanity quietly closed the door on the Moon, without realising it.

Cernan became the last human to walk on that world on December 7, 1972. No footprints followed his. No voices returned. Moon quietly went into silence.

Fifty-three years on, that silence is about to be broken.

Nasa is preparing to send humans back towards Moon with Artemis-II, a four-astronaut mission that will take people farther from Earth than ever before, beyond the Moon and into a new era of exploration. It is not a landing mission, but it is the boldest human journey of the 21st century, and the first step toward resuming the journey Apollo began.