'This is not easy stuff': How a Cudahy company played a crucial role in the Artemis moon mission

MILWAUKEE/CUDAHY, Wis. (CBS 58) — Artemis II has launched into the history books.

The three Americans and one Canadian, who make up the crew, boarded their Orion Capsule on Wednesday afternoon and took off into space around 5:30 p.m.

The mission will take them a record-breaking 252,000 miles from Earth.

If all goes well, the astronauts will see and photograph regions of the moon never seen by human eyes and return to Earth later this month.

"We're just exploring; we're just seeing what's out there," explained Bob Bonadurer, the director of the Daniel M. Soref Planetarium at the Milwaukee Public Museum. "I was a young kid, 8-years-old, when Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon, but that inspired a generation."

Bonadurer is ecstatic to track the Artemis mission, and it isn't lost on him how much work goes into it.

"There's over million gallons of fuel, and a thousand people working on this, so everything's got to be right to launch these astronauts safely," he explained. "This is not easy stuff, going to the moon."

A piece of Wisconsin joins Artemis II in space - several important pieces, in fact - as some of the spacecraft's most crucial components were manufactured in Cudahy.

"Our unique capability here is to make a very large components that are not possible elsewhere," said Vikas Saraf, the senior director of engineering at ATI Forged Products' Cudahy plant.

For decades, ATI has worked with NASA to support the space shuttle program.

They have a large facility, highly skilled team, and unique thermal engineering process that can create incredibly high-strength metals.

"They are made on Earth, but they have to perform millions of miles away from here," Saraf said.

ATI built parts for Artemis II's rocket boosters, from top to bottom, at the Cudahy facility.

They also built seamless rings that encompass the astronauts.

"They are designed in such a way that there's no seam that could be the cause of failure or high stress concentration," Saraf explained.

The components weigh tens of thousands of pounds, and are made of specialized steel and aluminum alloys, meant to withstand extreme temperatures.

"These components have to perform at a very, very high stress level, when the rockets are travelling at thousands and thousands of miles per hour," Saraf explained. "Then, going to outer space, where the atmosphere is way different than what we are used to here."

The Wisconsin-based engineers are proud to be a part of the mission.

"It's also a reminder that what we produce, we need to produce making sure it's produced with integrity, produced with the performance we meant for," Saraf said.

ATI is already working on the next rocket for NASA, that needs to be able to carry a heavy load. The hope is to use it to build a space station on the moon.

"We have a chance to set a base here and then go to Mars for the next great leap for humankind," said Bonadurer.