• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 6, 2026

The romance of the Artemis II moon launch is driving traffic for publishers. 

On April 1, the day of the launch, readership for “Artemis II” surged by 407% and “moon” in general by 210%, Taboola reports. 

Moreover, interest in NASA has risen by 75% over the past 45 days. 

And people are showing a nostalgic interest in historic moon shots. Readership for “Apollo” has skyrocketed by 879%, with readers focusing on past missions like Apollo 11 ahead of launch.

And the astronauts? Interest in the four is fairly evenly spread, with only a 6% between the most- and least-read astronauts. Readers are following the mission as a whole, but are curious about the first woman and first Black astronaut to participate in a lunar mission. 

Here is a page view count for the respective astronauts:

• Reid Wiseman—340,000
• Christina Koch—326,000
• Victor Glover—320,000
• Jeremy Hansen—319,000

The Artemis II crew has traveled further into space than any previous astronauts: 248,655 miles from Earth. That was expected to grow to 252,760 on Monday. 

In 1970, the Apollo 13 crew was due to land on the Moon but an oxygen tank explosion endangered the astronauts and led to a scuttling of the mission.