ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
The Artemis II astronauts are getting reaccustomed to Earth's gravity after spending nearly 10 days in space. The four astronauts traveled more than 600,000 miles around the moon and back then splashed down yesterday evening off the coast of California.
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UNIDENTIFIED ASTRONAUT: Houston, Integrity splashdown. Sending post-landing command now.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Splashdown confirmed.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Copy splashdown.
SCHMITZ: This was the first moon mission in more than half a century. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce wondered what young people thought of this moon shot, so she checked in with visitors to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Next to the National Archives, where the Constitution is on display, a bunch of kids I talked to had no idea that people had just flown around the moon.
Tell me your name.
ARIN PATEL: Arin Patel (ph).
GREENFIELDBOYCE: All right, so what, if anything, do you know about the moon stuff going on right now?
ARIN: I don't know anything.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: You don't know anything at all?
ARIN: No.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: It was the same for John Rodriguez (ph), who knew about past moon missions.
JOHN RODRIGUEZ: I learned in, like, history about Neil Armstrong.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Just then this other kid came over, named Connor Barnaba (ph). He said he wanted to give a shoutout to Reid Wiseman, the commander of the Artemis II mission.
CONNOR BARNABA: He went to the high school that I'm going to go to.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: That's Dulaney High School in Maryland. He watched the Artemis II launch and says, personally, he's open to the idea of space travel.
CONNOR: Maybe one day, like, to go to, like, if they have space hotels.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So you would go, like, on a vacation?
CONNOR: Yeah, yeah.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Over in the National Gallery of Art's sculpture garden, I met a girl who'd also seen the astronauts blast off.
And who are you, stranger?
EDITH BARROWS: Edith Barrows (ph). My dad was looking at the computer, and he saw it, so he just turned on a video.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: What are your feelings about this? Are you into space flight? Do you care? What do you think?
EDITH: Well, I think space is cool, but I don't think I ever want to go up there.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: To her, it seemed risky. But outside the National Air and Space Museum, not surprisingly, I found some kids who were psyched.
ROSALINE DYER: I'm really interested in space. So with this moon launch, I was just like, whoa.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Rosaline Dyer (ph) knew details about the Artemis II mission, like the fact that one of the astronauts was a woman, and had thoughts on NASA's long-term lunar plans.
ROSALINE: I feel like we shouldn't really be focusing on building a moon base there, but in my opinion, I feel like we should be focusing more on Mars.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Other Artemis II fan, Ben Burtslaw (ph), said he would absolutely want to leave Earth, even if it was a little scary.
BEN BURTSLAW: Just that I want to explore something new.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I called up one person who often talks to kids about space travel to see what he thought the impact of Artemis II might be. Charlie Bolden is a former NASA administrator. He's also an astronaut who went on four space shuttle missions. The first was in 1986. He says, way back then and through, say, the mid-1990s...
CHARLIE BOLDEN: When you ask kids, you know, how many of them would like to go to space, how many of them would like to be an astronaut, almost every hand went up.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: But when he's asked the same question over the last couple decades...
BOLDEN: I would see a few hands go up. Not very many hands.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: His sense is that Artemis II is changing that. For example, the group Jack and Jill of America recently had him speak with some 10- to 13-year-olds.
BOLDEN: They were genuinely excited and genuinely interested.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: In his own family, he's got a couple of grandchildren who are still young, just 2 and 4 years old.
BOLDEN: This is the first time they're seeing anything about space, and they're seeing people go to the moon.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says when he goes to their preschool, the little kids gather around and want to talk about being an astronaut or at least dressing up as one for Halloween. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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