• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, April 15, 2026

Two different documentaries on the Artemis II moon mission are coming this week, but one will touch down on TV one day earlier than the other one.

The winner in this space race is PBS’ “Nova,” which is preempting an episode previously scheduled for Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern for its own Artemis documentary, “Return to the Moon.”

Discovery Channel has its own documentary, “Artemis II: To the Moon and Back,” scheduled a day later on Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern.

The two documentaries were completed just days after the Artemis II moon mission ended last Friday. Journalists received a rough cut of the “Nova” doc just yesterday.

Both cover the 10-day mission from launch on April 1 to splashdown on April 10.

The “Nova” doc, which the TV Blog previewed on Tuesday, takes a deep dive into the history of the Artemis program, the colossal design, engineering, construction and cost challenges that the program faced as NASA planned the moon mission and tested its equipment.

Artemis II’s trip to the moon was the first American moon mission since the last Apollo mission -- Apollo 17 -- in December 1972.

That mission represented the sixth time that Americans walked on the moon, and the last time ever since. 

That mission was so long ago that “Nova” was not yet born. The series would start in 1974.

“When humans first went to the moon, 'Nova' didn’t yet exist. But I did!” said “Nova” co-executive producer Chris Schmidt.

“I vividly remember the incredible excitement felt by the whole world in sharing that human achievement, and if we can generate something akin to that awe and wonder in this film, we will be tremendously gratified,” he said.

“Nova: Return to the Moon” was written, produced and directed by Tim Lambert. It is the best documentary the TV Blog has seen all year.

The film pulls no punches when it discusses the risks to the Artemis II’s four-member crew and the astronomical cost to U.S. taxpayers of this mission and the space program in general.

While NASA makes every effort to plan every space mission down to the last detail, astronauts nevertheless risk their lives.

As various interview subjects point out in “Return to the Moon,” the most vexing problem in the entire engineering process is preventing leaks of the rocket’s volatile fuel.

When rocket fuel leaks, fire and explosions follow, as demonstrated by the complete destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 that killed all seven members of its crew. The culprit was later found to be a fuel leak.

But that did not happen to Artemis II. In that mission, four Americans (photo above, and identified below) rode in the nosecone atop the most powerful rocket ever built and came home safely.

For the “Nova” documentary, film crews evidently had prime access to NASA facilities.

In the show, we get to see the construction of the great rocket and the setting up of the launch.

We also get an up-close-and-personal look at the Artemis crew, seen in the above photo. From left to right, they are: Mission specialist Jeremy Hanson (Canadian Space Agency), mission specialist Christina Koch (NASA), pilot Victor Glover (NASA) and Commander Reid Weisman (NASA).

Watching the coverage of the Artemis mission was great to do over the 10 days of the mission. But in “Return to the Moon,” you get a front-row seat.

Photo credit:“Nova”