Artemis II Moon mission lifts children's ambitions
TECgirlsAs Nasa's Artemis II mission looped the Moon, something important changed back on Earth, says Caitlin Gould.
She is the founder and director of TECgirls, a Cornwall‑based organisation aiming to increase the number of women in technology and engineering.
Gould said children often struggled to believe careers in space genuinely existed for them, but "actually seeing a mission within their lifetime makes them realise this is real".
She said: "Realising that it's a real thing, and with future missions planned, it could be something that they're involved in, that's huge."
TECgirlsGould points to teams at Goonhilly Earth Station, the satellite communications centre that supported the Artemis mission, as proof that "space work was not just something that happens in America".
"Although it seems very far away, actually it's been really nice to be able to connect it back to how we are connected to it in Cornwall," she said.
Gould is also keen to break down myths about who works in space: "The people that went up into space, they came from a mixture of backgrounds, pilots, engineers and scientists."
For TECgirls showing where those careers begin is key.
Its Reach for the Sky festival, the aviation and aerospace festival for girls, has been held for the last three years at Spaceport Cornwall, the £20m centre for space and aeronautics near Newquay.
Interest in the latest event on 20 and 21 June, had been overwhelming, she said.
"We almost sold out within the first week on our Saturday, so we've had to make it Saturday and Sunday because so many young people and their families are interested in this and want to learn more."
The festival brings together universities, employers, colleges and training providers and Gould said there were a range of career paths routes on offer through universities, apprenticeship opportunities and local colleges.
Families play a key role too. Gould said parents did not always realise these careers were realistic options for their children.
Goonhilly Earth StationFor Gould, missions like Artemis II create a spark, but it is what happens on the ground that is crucial.
The Cornwall Space Cluster, representing Spaceport Cornwall, Goonhilly Earth Station and the National Drone Hub, a drone testing site at Predannack Airfield, is aiming to grow the data, space and aerospace industry in Cornwall.
It said in a 2024 report that since 2022, schools, outreach and public engagement had expanded, but training opportunities had declined, probably reflecting funding pressures.
The number of further education courses in the sector had also fallen, while degree courses focused on software, data and environmental science had seen little change since 2022.
The report recommended a number of measures the data, space and aerospace sector could take to strengthen skills and recruitment in Cornwall.
On 1 April, Spaceport Cornwall announced it was pausing its education programme and ended an education outreach worker role blaming "funding challenges".
Spaceport Cornwall has been approached for comment.
On the upside, research from EngineeringUK in 2022 suggested that 16.5% of engineers are female, compared with 10.5% in 2010.
NASAMatthew Cook, head of space exploration at the UK Space Agency, said space was not just for astronauts or engineers.
"You don't necessarily have to be involved in the tech," he said.
"If you're organised, we really need project managers. If you're good at understanding geopolitical nuance, we need space lawyers. If you're good with finance and numbers, we need economists."
The Artemis II mission could play a crucial role in convincing young people that a future in space is open to them, he said.
"To say that the UK was involved in tracking Artemis II is really important," Cook said.
He said astronaut Christina Koch was a good role model as she was "experienced, competent and relatable".
"The past 24 people that have been to the vicinity of the Moon were all white men from America," he said. "Now we're breaking through those barriers."
He also pointed to the UK's own astronaut programme as evidence that space was becoming more inclusive.
The UK now has more female astronauts than male, and John McFall became the world's first astronaut professionally certified to fly to the International Space Station with a physical disability.
For 10 days, while many people watched Nasa's Artemis mission drift around the Moon through livestreams and dramatic spacecraft selfies, Will Parker was watching something very different.
A mission operator engineer at Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall, he spent the flight glued to live radio links from the Orion capsule, listening in on real‑time chatter between the spacecraft and Houston.
Goonhilly has been involved in events such as broadcasting the Apollo 11 Moon landing to the world in 1969 and landing a commercial spacecraft on the moon for the first time.
Its huge dishes form part of a private space communications network, which tracked the Orion spacecraft whenever the Moon climbed above the horizon, collecting and processing the data before sending it on to Nasa.
Parker described the experience as "fantastic" and "historic", a chance to pick up the torch left by Apollo.
In the operations room, screens showed the Nasa livestream while the team listened to the capsule's radio feed.
Every time the astronauts ran a test, Parker's team saw the signal change in real time.
"Seeing the effects of the various tests they were running actually modifying what we were seeing from the signal in real time, that was something really special," he said.
"Whenever the Moon was up in the sky, throughout the night, we were tracking the capsule and making sure that all the data we were collecting was processed correctly and sent off to Nasa."
Parker is clear that tougher challenges lie ahead.
"This was kind of the easier mission, so there's lots of work still to be done," he said.
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