NASA begun fueling its moon rocket Wednesday for humanity’s first lunar trip in more than half a century, aiming for an evening liftoff with four astronauts.

On Wednesday three men and one woman are set to embark on the first crewed journey to the Moon since 1972, a landmark odyssey that aims to launch the US into a new era of space exploration.

Artemis II will reach a distance of 252,799 miles from Earth, the farthest that human beings have ever traveled from Earth — 4,144 miles farther than Apollo 13 was when it needed to swing around the m...