The Air & Space Brief: Another try for Artemis launch; DOD’s pace of change; Nuke-policy fail?

Welcome to the Defense One Air and Space newsletter. Here are our top stories this week:  

Moon mission. NASA plans to launch its Artemis I rocket Wednesday morning, after a series of delays caused by weather and mechanical problems. The 1.3-million-mile unmanned mission is the first “in a series of increasingly complex missions” that will build toward a “long-term human presence at the Moon for decades to come,” according to NASA. Details about how to watch the historic launch, here.

Not-so-rapid change: Defense officials talk a good game about defense innovation, “but real, lasting change isn’t evident just yet,” Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams reports. That’s particularly problematic because China is “not standing still,” a former deputy assistant defense secretary for force development said. Read more, here. 

Nuclear-policy fail? President Joe Biden’s recently released Nuclear Policy Review “missed a golden opportunity to update our nuclear policies for a new era,” the Ploughshares Fund’s Tom Z. Collina writes for Defense One. “We cannot meet the Ukraine moment with Cold War thinking.” 

Sign up to get The Air & Space Brief every Tuesday from Jennifer Hlad, Defense One’s news editor. On this day in 1966, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell splashed down in the final Gemini mission. 

From Defense One

Is the Pentagon Changing Fast Enough? // Lauren C. Williams

So far, two former defense insiders say, new service organizations are more promise than improvement.

Biden's Nuclear Policy Fails the Ukraine Test // Tom Z. Collina

His administration's Cold War-style thinking is missing a golden opportunity.

Defense One Radio, Ep. 112: The especially difficult history of America's Black veterans // Ben Watson

Two historians join us to share the forgotten stories of dozens of Black American veterans across eight decades of service.