A pair of monster rockets are set to make history before the new year.
There could be a tremendous amount of space travel history made in the closing weeks of 2022 as two long-awaited and game-changing rockets are now set to make their first trips to space within weeks of each other.
NASA says it is confident its new Space Launch System and Orion capsule are ready for blastoff on Nov. 14 for the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon, if the weather around Florida cooperates. Meanwhile, another vehicle that the space agency has adopted into its Artemis program to return humans to the moon -- the Starship from SpaceX and Elon Musk -- could finally fly beyond the bounds of Earth's atmosphere for the first time in early December.
Both mega rockets have been years in the making and are ready to set new marks when it comes to power and lifting capacity. If Artemis I does get off the ground next week after several delays, it will become the most powerful operational rocket in the world, and NASA's most powerful ever. But it could be eclipsed just a few weeks later by Starship and its Super Heavy booster, which is designed to deliver even more thrust than the SLS.
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