On Thursday, people from around the world watched as Nasa’s Integrity spacecraft launched the Artemis mission — the first to go beyond low Earth orbit in over half a century.
Watching the action from their classroom were year 3 students from St Clair School, who were excited to see a ‘‘once in a lifetime’’ moment.
Teacher Verity Kerr said it was not every day pupils got the chance to see such an event.
‘‘It's fantastic for our children to get to be part of history.
‘‘These children love learning and something like this gets them really excited.’’
The pupils’ great-grandparents and maybe their grandparents, would have got to watch the first moon landing live in 1969, as well as subsequent moon missions, she said.
The last time humans went anywhere close to the moon was in 1971.
‘‘You can see how excited they get when we're talking about it, they are really, really into it.’’
Blast-off happened at 11.35am, with the pupils counting down the final 10 seconds.
Pupils brainstormed what they thought the astronauts were feeling as they prepared to launch into space.
They decided they were most likely nervous and a little scared, but also excited for the experience.
Year 3 pupil Ada Harington, 7, said she did not know much about previous visits to the moon as she was not alive yet, but was excited she would get to watch the launch of Artemis 11.
Ada said it was particularly exciting because she did not believe humans would be going to the moon very often, as it would be ‘‘quite impossible’’ to grow food to eat.
However her classmate, William Hardy, 7, said he would like to give growing an apple tree in one of the moon’s craters a crack anyway, because you did not know until you tried.
William was very excited to see lift-off, which he had never seen live before.
