NASA is going back to the Moon! We’ll follow the crew of Artemis II every step of the way.
It’s not everyday that humans make a trip around the Moon — in fact, most of us weren’t alive the last time it happened. In recognition of the occasion and the incredible engineering that made it possible, we’ve decided to do something a little different: this post will remain on the front page for the entirety of the Artemis II mission, and will be regularly updated with new information and images.
Use the comment section below to share your thoughts and hang out with other Hackaday readers as we experience this historic event together in real-time.
Day 1 – Liftoff!
After resolving a last-minute communications issue with the Flight Termination System (FTS), the Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 PM EDT.
Main engine cutoff (MECO) for the SLS rocket occurred at 6:43 PM, placing the Orion spacecraft and crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen safely into orbit around the Earth. Just before 7:00 PM, all four solar array “wings” were successfully deployed from the European Service Module.
The perigee and apogee raise maneuvers were completed as scheduled — two burns by the RL10 engine on the interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) lifted the Orion spacecraft to a higher orbit, and put it in position for the eventual trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn which will put the vehicle on course for the Moon.
Between the execution of these two maneuvers, audio and video communication with the Orion spacecraft was briefly lost. Mission Control was still able to receive the telemetry downlink from the vehicle during this period, and was able to determine the spacecraft was operating normally. The cause of the communication glitch is still being investigated, but according to statements from NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman during the post-launch press conference, engineers do not believe it to be a critical issue.
Day 1 – Proximity Operations Demo
Following the separation of the ICPS, the Artemis II crew performed the Proximity Operations Demonstration.
Pilot Victor Glover took manual control of the Orion spacecraft, and performed a 180 degree turn to face the discarded ICPS. While flying the Orion, he told Mission Control that the vehicle’s real-world performance was better than in the simulator, and specifically commented on the accuracy of the controls and the clarity of the camera system.
The crew reported a rumbling sensation coming from the Service Module, and were advised by Mission Control that they were feeling expected thruster firings. They noted that crews on both the Soyuz and Dragon spacecraft have reported similar experiences.
Glover spent slightly more than an hour at the controls of the Orion spacecraft, before finally backing away from the spent ICPS and returning the vehicle to automatic control. Once the Orion was a safe distance away, the ICPS performed its own disposal burn which put it on target to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
Day 2 – Trans-Lunar Injection
Approximately 25 hours after launch, at 7:49 PM EDT, the Orion spacecraft completed the trans-lunar injection burn that put it on course for a rendezvous with the Moon. As Artemis II is utilizing what’s known as a free return trajectory, the maneuver also put the spacecraft on target for its eventual return to Earth in nine days.
Although the final figures may change slightly as the spacecraft’s course is refined over the coming days, it’s currently calculated that its closest approach to the Moon will put it 6,617 kilometers (4111 miles) over the lunar surface. The craft will achieve a maximum distance from the Earth of 406,840 km (252,798 miles), which will set a new record for the farthest crewed spaceflight — a record previously held by Apollo 13.
Day 3 – Settling In
While a brief course correction burn was scheduled for today, Mission Control decided that yesterday’s TLI maneuver was so accurate that it was not needed. At the same time, the Moon is still too distant to perform any of the planned observations. This left the crew with a relatively light agenda to get through.
Most of the day was spent settling in to life aboard Orion, which included performing exercises and unpacking equipment that will be used in the coming days. The crew will spend only a relatively short amount of time in the vicinity of the Moon, so they also rehearsed the various activities that are scheduled to take place during their closest approach on Monday. While they have trained extensively for this moment on the ground, being in space literally adds a new dimension to everything they do within the capsule. Rehearsing their movements now can help save precious seconds later on.
The crew also ran through several emergency response demonstrations, focusing specifically on what to do if an individual was choking or required cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). As humanity ventures farther into space and for longer periods of time, these sort of scenarios will only become more likely.
Arguably the most important task on today’s agenda is a demonstration of using NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) for backup communications. While the high-speed Optical Communications System (O2O) offers enough bandwidth to transmit live HD video from lunar distances, the nature of laser communications means that poor weather back on Earth could degrade or completely block reception. The “old school” DSN link might not be able to handle 4K video, but it can still provide a secondary channel for communicating with Mission Control if necessary.
Day 4 – Prepping for the Moon
While Artemis II is primarily a demonstration of the Orion spacecraft and the overall architecture for future crewed lunar flights, sending humans into the vicinity of the Moon provides an excellent opportunity to make detailed observations of our nearest celestial neighbor. This is especially important as NASA begins to select the landing sites for future Artemis missions.
Unfortunately, as mission planners didn’t know when Artemis II would actually launch, there was no way to accurately predict which parts of the Moon would actually be visible to the crew when they made their close approach. But now that the Orion spacecraft is well on its way, today Mission Control was finally able to tell the crew which areas of the lunar surface the science team wants them to focus on. Given the importance of these observations, the crew was also provided time to focus on studying the new information.
The agenda called for another course correction to take place today, but Mission Control once again determined it wouldn’t be necessary. Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen did get the opportunity to take manual control of the Orion spacecraft however, providing further data on the spacecraft’s performance now that it’s beyond low Earth orbit.
Although the mission has been progressing smoothly, it hasn’t been without a few technical hiccups. Today the crew continued to struggle with the Orion’s toilet, or as NASA likes to call it, the Universal Waste Management System. A burning smell was noted — not for the first time — when the toilet was in operation. The crew reported this to Mission Control, but at least for now, they don’t believe it to be a serious issue.
More pressing is the fact that the vent that’s used to pump the liquid waste out into space seems to be freezing up. Mission Control reoriented the spacecraft to face the vent towards the sun in an effort to thaw it out, but for the time being the crew has been instructed to avoid using the system.
Of course, the fact that the Orion capsule even has a toilet, much less one in an enclosed room, is a considerable luxury as far as lunar spaceflight is concerned. Even if it only works occasionally, it’s a big improvement from the plastic bags that the Apollo astronauts had to use during their missions.
Day 5 – On Final Approach
After skipping the last two course correction opportunities, today Mission Control decided to have the Orion spacecraft fire its Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) for a little over 17 seconds to fine-tune its approach to the Moon. Not long after, the craft entered the lunar sphere of influence — that is, it’s now close enough that the Moon’s gravity is the primary force acting on its trajectory.
With the closest approach to the Moon now less than 24 hours away, the crew took more time to study the list of 30 lunar surface features the science team would like them to focus their attention and instruments on. They also held a conference with Mission Control to make sure everyone was clear on the timeline and their individual assignments. As Orion is performing a lunar flyby and won’t be entering orbit, they’ve only got one chance to get everything right.
After making preparations for tomorrow’s close approach, the crew performed a demonstration of the Orion Crew Survival System suits. The astronauts already wore the striking orange spacesuits during launch, but this was the first time they were tasked with not only putting the suits on in space, but getting themselves strapped back into the seats of the spacecraft.
This was not only a dry run of the procedures they’ll need to perform before Orion reenters the Earth’s atmosphere and splashes down at the end of the mission, but also evaluates their ability to put on the suits in the event of an emergency. The suits are designed to protect the crew should the capsule depressurize or the life support system fails.
Day 6 – Lunar Flyby
Just before 2 PM EST, the Orion spacecraft reached its peak distance from the Earth — 406,771 kilometers (miles 252,756 miles). This officially breaks the record set by Apollo 13, meaning the Artemis II crew have traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history.
They didn’t have long to celebrate however, as within the hour their lunar observation period started. Their trajectory through space meant they would spend just seven hours in close proximity of the Moon, and not a moment was to be wasted. Being the first humans to directly observe the lunar surface from this distance since 1972, they got to work not only taking photographs and videos, but dictating what they were seeing into wearable recorders as they swung around to within 6550 km (4,070 miles) of the surface.
The crew was especially taken with the colors visible on the surface. From our vantage point here on Earth, we see the Moon in shades of gray. But when when viewed from such a close distance, the astronauts reported seeing shades of blue and brown on the surface.
At approximately 6:40 PM, Mission Control lost contact with the Artemis II crew. But there was no cause for alarm, as this temporary communications blackout was expected. Once the Moon itself was between the spacecraft and the Earth, the radio and laser data links were blocked for approximately 40 minutes. As data couldn’t be sent back to Mission Control during this period, all of the astronaut’s observations were recorded locally on the vehicle until communications could be restored.
Day 6 – Solar Eclipse
With the Moon between themselves and the Earth, the Artemis II crew became part of the exceptionally small group of individuals who have seen the far side of the Moon with their own eyes. But as luck would have it, an even rarer sight was yet to come. Leaving Earth on April 1st meant that the position of the Moon and Sun was such that the crew experienced a solar eclipse in space.
Up until this point images and video from the Orion spacecraft were devoid of stars, as they were during the Apollo missions. But with the Moon blocking out the Sun, the crew were able to see the blackness of space in a way that’s not normally possible. The photographs that have been downlinked from the spacecraft so far are stunning, but seeing the celestial phenomena in person was even more breathtaking. As Victor Glover commented during the hour-long eclipse, “Humans probably have not evolved to see what we’re seeing. It is truly hard to describe.”
The darkened Moon combined with the unique perspective offered by their retreating spacecraft provided the Artemis II with an opportunity to see meteoroid impact flashes on the lunar surface in real-time. Six such flashes were described by the crew during the eclipse, but it’s possible even more will be detected when teams on the ground get the chance to analyze the imagery recorded during the flyby.
Day 7 – Homeward Bound
Given the flurry of activity that took place during the lunar flyby, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the Artemis II agenda called for the crew to spend most of today off-duty — or at least, as off-duty as one can be when they are responsible for a spacecraft operating in deep space.
But before they got too comfortable, the crew was debriefed by the mission’s science officers. The idea was to get the astronaut’s first-hand accounts of the lunar flyby while the experience was still fresh in their minds. Combined with all of the data recorded by Orion’s systems, the testimony of the crew will play an important role in planning future missions.
The crew also took time to place a call to the International Space Station. The audio-only conversation between the Orion and Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Chris Williams, and Sophie Adenot aboard the ISS lasted approximately 15 minutes. Given that crewed spacecraft regularly visit the ISS, performing this sort of ship-to-ship call isn’t particularly unusual. But everything is just a little bit more noteworthy when it happens around the Moon.
Day 8 – Change of Plans
The original mission agenda listed two major tasks for the 8th day of the mission: a demonstration of how the crew can shelter themselves in the event of a solar flare, and another period of manual piloting. But as occasionally happens in space, the reality of the situation ended up being a bit different.
With just two days left in the mission, it was decided that the crew’s time would be better spent getting the capsule ready for reentry and splashdown. As such, the radiation shelter demonstration was truncated considerably and the manual piloting exercise was canceled entirely.
Given how many times the crew have taken control of the Orion capsule already, and how well those demonstrations went, skipping this latest piloting opportunity makes sense. However the radiation shielding demonstration was billed as a fairly important milestone for the mission, so this last-minute change of plans is fairly surprising.
But as explained in today’s press conference, the radiation shielding demo was actually cut short for similar reasons. According to Entry Flight Director Rick Henfling, a considerable chunk of the demonstration had to do with moving stowed materials around to reconfigure the inside of the capsule — a task with which the crew has already become very familiar with during their week in space.
Day 9 – The Final Countdown
Today was the crew’s last full day in space, and as you might expect, all of their activities were focused on getting home safely.
The bulk of the day was spent reconfiguring the interior of the Orion for reentry and splashdown. After living and working within the confines of the capsule for the last 8 days, there’s plenty of gear and personal items that need to be packed up and stowed away. The spacecraft and everything in it will be subjected to just under 4 Gs as it rips through the upper atmosphere at more than 38,000 kph (23,600 mph), so anything that works itself loose pose a major hazard to the crew and equipment. The crew also reinstalled their seats, which were removed shortly after reaching orbit to free up precious space inside the spacecraft.
Towards the end of the day, the spacecraft’s engine was fired for 9 seconds during the second Return Trajectory Correction (RTC) of the mission. It’s expected there will be one more RTC maneuver tomorrow afternoon to put Orion on target to splashdown less than 160 km (100 miles) off the coast of San Diego.
Day 10 – Homecoming
NASA will be providing live coverage of all of the events leading up to the crew’s eventual return to Earth, with the ultimate splashdown of the Orion capsule currently expected to occur just after 8:00 PM.
Artemis II Timeline tracker: https://www.sunnywingsvirtual.com/artemis2/timeline.html
An excellent comment – thanks! Super-detailed status.
That’s a good resource, though a legend of what all the acronyms mean would be useful
That’s against HaD policy.
What doe HaD stand for?
Our actual style guide, FWIW, is to spell out acronyms when we think they are not commonly used. So not PCB, or even CVE in the context of the Week in Security article, but absolutely for the kind of things that NASA is pulling off in that link.
Maybe your style guide doesn’t spell out what an acronym is but “HaD” isn’t one. The acronym would be H. Generally people who ask “What does S.A.S. (such and such) mean?” get slammed and techshamed. Apparently the era of geeks and nerds and I mean that in T.B.P.W. (the best possible way) needing payback will never end.
Feynman made the same complaint about NASA in the write up of his investigation of the Challenger disaster.
Thank you.
A wonderful perspective from the Carl Sagan of our day
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3Dy6Zd30g
Literally never heard of this person.
Same. “Science communicator,” he may be. Carl Sagan, he is not.
I am still fascinated by all the space stuff but the ISS and the Mars missions have shown how unrealistic human space travel is in any substantial form for hundreds of years to come.
All these missions can’t do anything without ground control babysitting every little detail. The autonomy is a Potemkin village. So if you need that anyway, just send robots: they are way more robust than us bags of water and nobody cares if you blow one up or leave them stranded. Get the basics down first, then worry about adding humans.
Actually, robots are not very robust. For the simple reason that they badly adept to unforeseen situations. Humans can asses and adept to a lot more situations.
I’m curious how you think humans will adapt to deep space radiation, the lack of oxygen and extreme temperatures. we can adapt to situations on earth, but not in space
Radiation shielding,
Mining oxygen from silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, iron oxide, calcium oxide, magnesium oxide, etc
and finally proper spacesuit/vehicle/habitation design.
Radiation shielding can be done in various ways.
Forms of water (ice, liquid, gel etc), lead, electrostaticity etc.
People just have to get a bit creative here.
Electrostatic shielding is certainly creative.
OP meant unforeseen situations. Humans are great at thinking on the fly, adapting to failure modes not previously considered.
The things you mention are problems to be solved ahead of time.
Survivor bias.
Most people put in positions requiring that, fail, die and are forgotten.
Some get lucky and spend the rest of their lives telling the world that playing the lottery is a good financial plan and to ‘keep dreaming’.
well yea survivor bias. Thats how we grow.. by people doing dangerous things and then learning from those experiences. Not all of those experiences will be good ones.
How would humans react if their urine-to-water system failed on a Mars mission? In case of abort return flight takes about 2 years. That’s not an issue when it’s a bunch of electric motors powered by a piece of red-hot plutonium instead of a human.
And how would a robot execute a nonstandard, non-documented repair process invented on the fly by ground control to fix an issue (which is apparently what was done to solve the urine-to-water issue)? Humans are flexible and adaptable, with onboard AI (Actual Intelligence) that can grasp concepts and infer data much quicker than a machine.
When the human mission goes wrong, the objective changes from science to bringing the humans back alive. The science is lost while the costs keeps racking.
When a robot mission goes wrong, the loss is a tiny fraction of the cost of the human mission, so it can just be abandoned without further loss.
“When a robot mission goes wrong, the loss is a tiny fraction of the cost of the human mission, so it can just be abandoned without further loss.”
Exactly.
And because human spaceflight missions are inherently VASTLY more expensive than unmanned ones, the question SHOULD be “What science REQUIRES a highly fragile biological unit which requires food, water, a room temperature pressurized oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere with CO2 scrubbing, massive shielding and exercise machines for long flights, low G loading, and functional Zero-G toilets, all in an otherwise empty, large volume that can’t be done with a unit in a much smaller space that only requires sunlight (or Pu-238) in a vacuum?”
NASA, in my opinion WASTES 50% of its budget on human spaceflight thanks to lobbies, their politicians, and NASA administrators selected because they love Spam in a can spaceflight as Chuck Yeager called the Mercury capsule. That’s why the, according to NASA’s OIG, $4.1 BILLION per launch SLS is also called the Senate Launch System. Science via lobbyists and politicians. Brilliant.
I’d rather see MORE surfaces of planets and moons through HD robotic eyes than send people on what are mostly just taxpayer funded joy rides that millionaires/billionaires pay millions to experience.
And on the myth that it requires human payloads to hold public interest, the public quickly bored of the Apollo missions until Apollo 13 temporarily renewed interest while record web site hits have been seen for some of NASA’s robotic missions.
Book: The End of Astronauts: Why Robots are the Future of Exploration (2022)
@Dude @Winston The way you speak makes me wonder: Do you value human life, at all?
When you talk about costs, it’s not clear to me what you guys mean.
If it’s a high cost to send humans into space or if it’s a huge loss if humans get lost in space.
That’s why I’m asking for clarifying, because someone could misunderstand it and think you value robots over real people (and not just in space).
Thanks in advance.
In the USA, maybe. People on other places on earth with a longer attention span and less sensationalism might beg to differ!
Alas, it probably doesn’t matter to you guys.
To you guys, “to all mankind” wasn’t more than a PR stunt, right?
While the rest of us saw human beings landing on the moon, your kind saw nothing than a flag and some tax money spent on a rock. So sad! I pitty you. 😮💨
So it looks like you’re trying to say that robots aren’t very adept at adapting.
Have you seen how far Perseverance has traveled on Mars in five years? 25 miles. The lunar rover on Apollo 17: 22 miles. In 4 hours, with 1970’s battery and motor technology. And with dudes and movie cameras running.
The moon isn’t Mars, and the science missions were different, so I’m not saying one mode should be favored exclusively over the other. But watching people tooling around on the moon…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJW2Za9sg0c
Although now that I think about it, the first two lunar rover missions were purposefully limited to a radius that the astronauts could plausibly walk back from if things broke. But the third, they had enough confidence to push out the boundary even further.
Risks are higher with people in the seats. But so are the rewards.
I think the reason no one has been to the moon in half a decade is because all the possible rewards were reapt. They did an incredible proof of concept but discovered so many pitfalls along the way that they simply could not reason or justify to push that concept any further at the time.
Since then it seems all that institutional knowledge has been lost and we are bound to discover again that not having a million-million ton-cubic-kilometers big life support system will make things really really hard for us. Given the amount of humans that will actually travel there: for the rest of us it does not make a difference if we send a robot who does the exploration.
Maybe slower now, but until humans can actually set foot on the Moon again the artificial agents will easily be good enough to do the same job much better much faster. We can even send some crates with backup units if failure occurs.
Personally I have no problem with the Moon inhabited by Boston Dynamics Bots running on OpenClaw agentics – let them roam the Moon wild and free and see what happens.
I don’t think the possible rewards were realized, I think the politicians lost their will. There was no motivation to beat the other guys to whip people up to justify the budget which was a significant part of the Federal budget, now it’s not even a 10th of that. There wasn’t the memory of murdered young(ish) visionary to drive pride and to also distract from a very unpopular war and multiple missteps in socio-political fronts. NASAS’s engineers wanted to do a lot more, but the reality of budget restrictions caused them to re-evaluate where to put effort.
There’s a lot more to discover on the Moon. We’ve barely scratched the surface, literally and figuratively. However, I’d rather see them spend effort on capturing an asteroid and mining it, but maybe a private company should be doing that work?
What would you do up there that can’t be done on the ISS or on earth?
That would be mainly studying the geology of the moon, which might be interesting from an academic point of view, but not very useful in any other. To sell it to the public, you’d need to use the old rhetoric about developing new technology as a side effect, which is begging the question that we couldn’t develop the same without actually going to the moon.
The “new technologies” argument about the original moonshot was also a bit fake, since the major technologies that did come out of it existed prior and were adopted into the program. They scoured the market for things that they needed and put a NASA spin on top for marketing.
@Dude China doesn’t seem to care about that.
If the US doesn’t want to participate in manned moon missions, it doesn’t have to. That’s fine.
The US had its heyday and relevance in the 20th century, anyway.
Now follows the inadvertible decay, as you and your sameminded fellows had wished by the virtue of your mindsets.
Other nations would be happy, even, if Coca Cola and Starbucks wouldn’t set a foot on the moon, eventually. ;)
So far, China has been sending robots.
Like everyone else, so far? Artemis II hasn’t even left orbit “so far”.
And it’s not even sure that the expertise for a moon landing is still there.
The flyby is an historic event for sure, but it’s less ambitious than Apollo 8 (real orbit) and it’s not sure if 50+ years of standstill can be overcome so easily.
US space program has fallen behind a lot since the late 20th century.
While China by comparison has done a lot since it had been excluded by the US from an ISS partnership.
China has its own space station right now, which other nations haven’t attempt so far.
It’s a nation that rises, unlike the US, which looks like an old empire on a descent.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking forward to that, it’s worrying.
But the very obsession with money and profits now shows its consequences.
You over there have shaped a culture that values human life very little.
And it shows on all levels. Health, food production, quality of appliances.. Profits about everything.
If people have no ideals and dreams anymore they become mere consumers and producers, rather than human beings.
In the end, they might be become or replaced by robots, too, maybe?
They’re further up the far than China. Your point?
So far it’s been catching up to what the Soviet Union did in the 1980’s. Launching orbital stations is not new, it’s just a matter of how much other people’s money you’re willing to spend on it.
Ah, I see. Money. The k*ller argument again.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s more in life than money.
It could maybe cross someone’s mind that some nations care about the future and the development of their society?
Last time I’ve checked space programs were also peace projects and a matter of international co-operation.
They allowed certain acts of diplomacy that were not possible here on earth.
Which are priceless in times of war and international conflicts.
The co-operation of space programs between US and US/SR maybe prevented WW3 in the height of cold war.
– I know sounds sentimental and naive. But really, this co-operation built a certain level trust and mutual respect. At least among adults.
It allowed both opponents to de-escalate without loosing face.
This is something that robot missions alone can’t do.
Astronauts are heros or do represent humanities, best, at least.
Like philosophers or priests. And right now, the US needs some heros the most.
Not Superman or Captain America, but real people they can look up to.
People who remind them that everything is possible, even reaching for the stars.
And this is priceless. Because people don’t just seek power and wealth but also purpose in life.
People want to be useful, want to be needed. Even the rich.
That’s why they do these crazy projects when money becomes irrelevant to them.
They want that their live has a meaning, a purpose, want to be truely loved for something done right.
Dude, I see that your knowledge is very profound in terms of business and various forms of goverment (capitalism, socialism, marxism etc). Kudos.
But what I’m encouraging you to do is you try to learn more about human psyche, how people feel inside.
Money is important to pay safety and to provide comfortable living, but it alone doesn’t bring people an inner fulfillment.
China is a high-tech nation, though, which the UdSSR wasn’t exactly.
And it already has surpassed the US and Europe in certain fields.
Solar panels, for example. Or engineering, mechanical high-precission, e-car production, microchips etc.
Unlike the US it also has clean streets, trams and subways and health care.
With their average citizen being well educated, disciplined, not obese and good mannered in public.
By direct comparison, the US looks like a slum most of time.
The cities, not the breathtaking North American nature, I mean.
The subways are dirty and are running on 80s era technology (the one part I find fascinating),
most cars run on conventional petrol.
Public transportation (trams) is barely existing, because of cars. Buses lines are next best thing.
Bikecyclists and pedestrians are people second class.
Kids have no place to go to nowadays (few playgrounds, malls, etc).
Playing on street is dangerous, again because of car centric planning.
In political sense both have more in common than what sets them apart, I’m afraid.
Both are lead by authorian regimes that spy on their people and want to dominate the rest of the world.
And they’re both into ice cold capitalism, too. Business comes first, diplomacy second.
The interviews of their leaders make it seem like that, at very least.
The lunar rovers had a limited range of 57 miles with single-use batteries, while the Mars rovers are built to move indefinitely using solar power. They’re power-limited to move very slowly.
And they generate more data faster than scientists can write papers about, because the Mars rovers actually stop and take photos and measurements along the way.
Or an RTG, but that’s the same point: it only has 110 Watts to run everything, with a margin to account for the RTG fading over the years.
The popular Voyager RTGs are no reference, though.
They were designed for a small lifespan of a few years.
The radioactive material itself isn’t even the problem here, but the decay of the Voyager RTGs themselves.
In simple words, it’s like with a carbon battery that dissolves before the material itself has lost its value as an energy source.
I’m not talking about Voyager’s RTGs, but the one in the Perseverance rover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mission_radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
A great deal of the power will be consumed on the computers running the communications, data collection and path planning. Relatively little is used for actually moving the rover because it does not need to travel very fast.
It’s more fun to drive a slow rover fast then a fast rover slow.
American rovers should have capacitors for bursts of extra power.
Roosting gravel as the probe starts moving or makes a turn is America marking territory.
The lunar rovers had 1 HP of power in total, and an effective weight of 73 kg fully loaded under lunar gravity, so in terms of sticking to the ground they were driving around like a kid on a minibike.
Of course, weighing 73 kg while having a mass of 440 kg meant that you were going around like a curling stone on ice. Lots of inertia, no traction.
The Martian atmosphere is as useless as the lunar atmosphere for human purposes. Mining oxygen? Pull the other one.
Shoot, I better go tell the scientists with an experiment on Perseverance doing exactly that that ialonepossessthetruth on Hackaday says they’re wrong!
Young whipper snapper !!! Heresy against the church !!! If man were meant to fly, he’d have wings !!
And this thing called, eeellektrissity… it is demonic !!! work of the Devil !!!
We must get horses !!! God is angry at these abominations called – aautowmobeels ! (why do you think so many people are taken to the firey pit every year ?)
Heathens !!! all o ya ! Repent ye sinners !! tek-na-la-gee is evil !!!
Muahaha! Best answer around, even if it misses the point of my post. ;-)
Did you see too much Catweazle?
You can never see too much Catweazle!
Science fiction novels have some interesting ideas here.
Traveling inside solar system isn’t too unrealistic, also, I think.
Colonies on moons and asteroids are possible even with our primitive technology of today – and the more sophisticated one from 50 years ago. ;)
It has the “fiction” part in its name for a reason. ;-)
Take a look around you unless you are in downtown somewhere: even the tiniest garden on a balcony is a bigger and more extensive life support system than even the whole of ISS can provide. 100m² are the rough requirement for sustainable self sufficient food supply for a single person on Planet Earth. And that does not cover oxygen supply, medicine requirements, and other little things.
An algae bioreactor capable of supplying oxygen for one person typically requires a volume of up to 100 liters of dense, highly illuminated Chlorella culture, To maintain this, a surface area of approximately 8 square meters (86 sq ft) of illuminated area is generally required. If using artificial light and spiralized tank design you can pack the that surface area and a greater than needed volume into a 1 meter diameter cylinder that is 1.25 meters tall.
Food production would naturally reduce the total algal requirement as well but its a reasonable size on its own.
As to your 100m2 calculation for food production is a very earthbound notion where space is not at a premium. Most plants have performed poorly in low grav so it will likely be necessary to use simulated gravity to efficiently grow in space. A 6 meter diameter cylinder that is only 3 meters in height exceeds your 100m2 requirement. That would require ~17.25rpm to approximate 1G.
Scaling for multiple spacepersons could be accomplished either by increasing these cylinders heights or by nesting multiple units together.
Another option would be to surround the first growth cylinder with a larger diameter, slower rotating cylinder for additional growth/simgrav environment.
There was a guy on Youtube that actually tried to make enough oxygen for one person from algae, and with several 100 liter barrels full of it he still failed. Turns out the algae is a bit picky on how it likes to live.
Yes a guy on youtube certainly represents the potential for the greatest minds on earth to construct an algal bioreactor capable of the task. /s
Sure. Because without actual testing things do remain a mind experiment only.
But many of the ideas are scientifically being backed rather than being based on, say, magic.
A lot of science fiction authors do spend some deep thinking into their imaginary worlds and their physics.
That problem is being covered by sci-fi novels, too.
There are various ideas that try to solve it.
From genetically modified plants and humans over alternative types of food (protein bars etc) to food synthesizers..
Star Trek picked up the latter, before replicators were introduced.
One notable reason as to why space exploration is so delayed is the conservative thinking, maybe.
It’s been over 50 years since the first moon landing and best that space agencies have to offer are flying cigars.
If, for example, other types of propulsion had been tried out in the past 70 years, then the situation would be different now.
Ion drives are one of them which materialized and they are useful for longer travels.
Ion drives are limited by the amount of electricity you can generate, so they’re not powerful enough to push you off the ground.
Generating electricity up in space is another matter entirely. If you want high thrust, you need hundreds of megawatts of electricity. That’s one mighty solar array. Batteries simply don’t have the energy density to drive the system, and other types of generators run into trouble with thermal exhaust into the vacuum, because there’s no convection to carry the heat away.
Not in human time scales, because the thrust is so low that it takes years to accelerate and stop.
Ion drives provide a steady acceleration over a long period of time that can build up, which is already used for space probes.
Putting humans in winter sleep might be one way to make a 10 years journay happen, maybe.
I’m just a layman here, of course, so I don’t know the exact numbers.
Another, more radical concept was using atomic power directly for propulsion.
“If, for example, other types of propulsion […] Ion drives are one of them which materialized ”
The concept of ion drives dates back to the 1910s. The first ion thruster was built in the 1950s and flew in the 1960s. The only propulsion type that is remotely reasonable that we haven’t tried yet is nuclear thermal (nuclear electric is just an ion thruster), and we’ve flat-out built those – we just haven’t flown them.
And as impressive as it sounds to say “nuclear thermal” they’re not that much better than chemical rockets. It’s like a factor of two, and it might not even be that depending on what’s needed for the humans.
What you’re not understanding is that it’s not propulsion that’s been limiting deep space travel. It’s biology. Nothing you do is going to get people even to Mars in less than ~month time scales, which means you need to understand how humans survive in space for months.
And guess what we’ve been doing for the past 50 years? And we’re actually getting to the point where we understand it now!
“Putting humans in winter sleep might be one way to make a 10 years”
Do you have any idea how long it would take to prove that you could put people to sleep for a decade safely?? Something like that is centuries away. Biology research is slow. It has to be. Because biology is slow. You can’t speed up the Universe.
“Not in human time scales, because the thrust is so low that it takes years to accelerate and stop.”
Ion drive thrusts just depend on how much power you want to throw at them. NASA actually worked out how realistic Andy Weir’s Hermes trajectory was in the Martian – to make it work was a VASIMR-style ion engine at 15 MW, obviously nuclear powered, but certainly not crazy. (Weir’s original estimates sidestepped the details by just assuming a constant acceleration, not a practical drive).
And there are studies for extremely large solar arrays, because it’s not like there are actual fundamental constraints there: multi-thousand square meter solar arrays also aren’t impossible, although the nuclear option makes more sense to me.
I was thinking in a minimum time scale of months, actually.
Sailors on sea had to spend a long time abboard the ship.
Up to 12 weeks (3 months), depending on the journey.
From a psychlogocial point of view it was doable centuries ago already, obviously.
And the men had no entertainment or mental support.
In a space ship there’s more piracy and companionship than on a 15th century sailship.
I was thinking about something more, um, radical, actually.
Wikipedia: https://tinyurl.com/45bsfund
How to properly stop remains a question, though.
Simply turning around is a tad bit too simple, obviously, I guess.
Another kind of propulsion was featured in Space:1999 decades ago.
It was in episode “Voyager’s Return”.
It might haven been a fusion drive, according to the sources.
https://tinyurl.com/2mcexy4s
@Joshua
“Up to 12 weeks (3 months), depending on the journey.
From a psychlogocial point of view it was doable centuries ago already, obviously.”
Psychological? The issue is PHYSIOLOGICAL.
Astronauts lose approximately 1% to 1.5% of their bone mineral density per month in microgravity
Astronauts can lose up to 20% of their muscle mass within just 5 to 11 days in space due to muscle atrophy in microgravity. Without the need to support their weight, postural muscles in the back, neck, calves, and thighs deteriorate rapidly, with significant loss occurring within the first two weeks This can reach up to 50% loss in long term missions.
The absence of gravity confuses the inner ear and brain, leading to “space motion sickness,” spatial disorientation, and difficulty in controlling movement.
And thats just some of the issues that weve spent the last few decades attempting to sort out in low earth orbit.
Goes quite a bit deeper then youre considering
@joshua
PS A complete round trip to mars takes over two years (roughly 6–9 months there, over a year waiting for proper alignment, and 6–9 months back)
If you do not wait for the optimal planetary alignment (which happens every 26 months), you must cross a much greater distance to reach Mars. This requires significantly more fuel reducing cargo capacity.
Is that so? Um, did I say (write) anything wrong so far? If so, what exactly? 🤷♂️
The loss of muscle mass, bone density and other physiological issues had been a topic in both science fiction and research for ages.
And I think I’ll leave it that way for now.
To my understanding, the mental health for a crew is most important.
In case of trouble, it has to keep calm and rational all time.
A panic would be worse than loss of muscle mass, I think.
As long as they’re in zero gravity, that issue is econdary.
Okay.
Physiological effects are NOT secondary. Theyre the primary obstacle to deep space travel. Mental stress is far easier to overcome than the degenerative physical conditions.
You cite 3 months at sea, and shrug off the reality of 2 years of low G that mars really requires. Yet Valeri Polyakov 437 days, 18 hours and Frank Rubio 371 days, the two longest continuous periods a human has been in space fall far short.
it’s not propulsion that’s been limiting deep space travel. It’s not psychology, Its biology.
“100m² are the rough requirement for sustainable self sufficient food supply for a single person on Planet Earth.” Without hunting or fishing? Not buying it. Challenge.
It’s a “spherical cow” approximation, or “first principles” as Elon Musk would call it.
You can grow X calories of food on a square meter of land, a person needs Y calories to live…
Still not buying it. Metaphorically is this the 100m² you want to die on? Again challenge. Double jinx super challenge.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+land+is+needed+to+sustain+one+person
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+square+meters+in+an+acre
And because I’m fair-minded, https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/ayiz0t/400kg_800lb_of_home_grown_produce_over_12_months/
Elon Musk? Hmm, that’s the Hypertubelink guy, the guy who got government subsidies, innit?
https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117956/documents/HMKP-119-JU00-20250226-SD003.pdf
Why yes it is.
Health and safety culture.
Kill it.
Look at mega projects on earth in the 21st century.
In the so called first world we spend a fortune on site safety which is very over the top. It’s a huge amount of the budget in any project.
Look at HS2 in the UK for an example and whilst corruption is rife, the H&S culture is a massive part of it.
Now lets just do away with it.
Hire people with common sense. but tell them hey, this is dangerous but we’re going to pay you a ton of money and if you get injured these are the agreed payouts.
No one is forcing them to sign up, but you’ll have a queue round the block.
Many competent people just hate the H&S culture which stops them from doing the actual job because some moron with a clipboard whose never done the job or any physical labour let alone anything remotely dangerous in their life has “risk assessed it” and they have decided as the dictator in charge that it’s too dangerous.
Climbing a ladder….
That doesn’t mean that corners would get cut. No, have peer review. No H&S culture doesn’t mean everyone starts running with scissors!!
It would cost less than enforcing the H&S culture in the first place which actually doesn’t stop accidents anyway.
Meanwhile in developing nations, people die and they hire a new guy.
It’s how we got stuff done back when we were building infrastructure in our golden ages.
I most ly agree, but this one reminds me of Alien 1, the crew of the Nostromo and the evil Weylan corp.
To non-US citizens, this film is less sci-fi but more of an documentary of American work culture.
People should never be treated as resources, otherwise they’ll stop to really care about their jobs and their missions.
Weyland-Yutani were not evil in the first Alien film. I assume you are referring to order 937? “Return organism, crew expendable.”
It’s a sensible order, if a vessel encounters alien life, return it. Due to the value of that discovery nothing else matters. Callous, sure, but not evil.
Greens are that way too.
Hydroelectric dam to power hospitals?
Nah, there is some make of hair-lipped, two-anus snail-darter that has a red spot above one eyebrow instead of a blue spot behind the other like all the rest.
It is in this cave…only one of its kind.
Two weeks later, everyone on the site is poor and jobless, and a beaver blocks that same bloody creek and that darter is 100% as dead as it would have been anyway.
Now Cabada’s family having to have a GoFundMe after the SpaceX accident? That’s sad.
Speaking of the movie ALIEN, I don’t believe Ash was a company man.
If so, he would have taken Parker’s advice, and put Kane in the shuttle in a frozen state. NOSTROMO returns with no problems.
I think Ash looked down on his fellow space truckers, except for Kane….the only true explorer.
Had Ash prevailed, not only would the crew die, but he would probably rescue it from the company. That edict probably enraged him too. I often wondered what he meant by “there is an explanation” before Ripley attacked him and damaged a circuit.
Part of me thinks Kane took the spore on purpose, a pact made to leave the Xenobon another planet—looking at it as an endangered species…just growing faster than he thought.
Reminds me of the steel workers falling from Empire State Building in the early 20th century.
They too had no safety or worker rights. They were simply disposable.
That’s NewSpacers
Rockets reusable…workers expendable.
https://www.workerscompensation.com/daily-headlines/workers-file-lawsuits-against-spacex-for-workplace-injuries/
Common sense won’t help anyone if the people making the decisions are not effected by the results. Most recent example I have here, is I work on medical products. We ran into an issue where the device goes into error. Reaction: “Disable that error, it’s not needed, other checks cover the risks”.
As software developers, our spider sense tingled. And after sitting down for 30 minutes, we found two scenarios where disabling this error could kill people.
Proper investigation of why the error happens takes time, and will delay rolling out the product. So management decides that it’s worth risking other peoples lives for profit.
Common sense? These are the same guys who do override a fuse in a CB radio with a bit of alu foil “to fix things” and then do wonder why some magic smoke comes out of it! 😂🥲
I’ve actually heard using a ladder (for anything) in an industrial setting being a ‘huge red flag’.
They didn’t mean you should use a pallet on a forklift and get a ride.
‘They’ mean you should always get a scissor lift when you see something you can do with a ladder.
But give ‘them’ some credit, their rules are written with ‘tards and scammers in mind.
OMG! I recommend watching “Staplerfahrer Klaus”. 🥲
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJYOkZz6Dck
Best training video ever.
Also classics are “Elektriker Horst” (Electrician Horst) and “Schadensmeldung eines Dachdeckers” (Damage report from a roofer).
I don’t think they have English subtitles, though.
But that’s okay. The pictures alone tell most of the story anyway.
In the roofer video it’s basically about the roofer himself telling the events that caused his damage.
He types a letter to his health insurance very politely on a typewriter.
The funny part is also how calmly he describes everything (action/reaction),
which is in stark contrast to the cartoonishly violent events that happened to him.
Even with limited German skills it can be understood by the sound of his voice.
“Schadensmeldung eines Dachdeckers”
Also known as “The Bricklayer’s Lament.”
Mythbusters had a go at attempting to reproduce this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-XLvINquy8
They do that in Russia. The problem isn’t safety culture, which doesn’t exist there, it’s unaccountability, which is prevalent in both places. Your payouts – are they financially debilitating to the company? Do they target executive wealth? Are there jail terms for executives for willful endangerment? Are there precisely zero ways for the company to get out of paying these payouts? Are lawyers engaged in blocking these payouts under mandatory threat of investigation for malpractice and disbarment? Of course not! that’s why we invented safety, because we would have to turn our society literally upside down to avoid turning our citizens into disposable meat.
Health and safety culture.
Kill it.
Your the type of guy that safety videos feature on what not to do.
Let’s not forget that the Service Module is built by ESA, the European Space Agency. This is not an all-American effort. :)
That part was gleefully ignored by all news anchors on the call. I had to look it up myself, yes, Lockheed-Martin and ESA.
wrong ESA.
AIrbus and the European Space Agency worked on the service module
Lockheed separate from those organizations built and ESA Electronically Steerable Antenna
“…Airbus / ESA (Europe): Built the European Service Module (ESM-2), which provides propulsion, power, and life support…”
That’s quite a LOT and shouldn’t be ignored.
On the outside it has an US flag decal with ‘united states’ under it, a stretch below it a large round NASA logo with right underneath that the ESA sign and the letters ESA, and the lettering of the ESA sign are equally wide as the US flag and NASA sign, but the letters are bigger because there are fewer of them of course.
So the actual rocket doesn’t hide the partnership.
Incidentally I like the coloring of the rocket. the amber/yellow combi looks nice in the sun.
Now if you want the ESA to partner with the US at this point.. that another question, it’s certainly not something that fills one with pride.
And those PR people talking ‘mankind’ and ‘humanity’ is so ludicrous, when it’s about the US and exploiting the moon for resources for the US and for the idiotic ego of Tr-mp.
And neither of those goals are inspiring for sane people.
RE: ESA partnering with NASA – they should because, I am afraid, NASA soon may find itself repeating what JAXA and ISRO did already – meaning accomplishing things using rather slim budget.
ISRO should be the NASA’s other partner, btw, and it should be truly international cooperation, but it never really was with the local (US) politicians’ egos growing too tall to notice their own shadows they are casting.
Pride, meh, if pride would be important to NASA they’d be on the Moon already many times over using 100% US technology and 100% US engineers. Apparently neither of the three were important to them, so there.
The US ego fears China being on the moon with people while they are not.
It’s that simple. And that is openly stated by people like the NASA administrator I might add.
China is a daily threat to Taiwan and India, neither of which is a threat to China. Allowing China to obtain military supremacy in space is suicidal; China would use it to threaten everyone else. It’s not a question of ego, it’s a question of survival.
The solar panels are also from the EU.
Could slip a few portable geiger counters see how the off the shelf stuff works, how much radiation over the whole trip does it log
Id be the type to slip some LSD and THC, how does that work in zero g, a hundred micrograms shouldn’t throw off trajectory, and a few edibles
Sure would help kill up to 48 hours, mostly just sitting around
I’m pretty sure that the crew are carrying personal dosimeters of some sort.
Probably the colour changing badges/stickers
I’m failing to see the point of this mission other than as a publicity stunt. The rovers on mars seemed like they were doing useful stuff but
THIS ??Just seems like a joyride into space. Robots on the moon seems like a much better idea IMO. Maybe humans could go there in decades to come, but not now.The point is usually located at the top of the rocket.
The point is that humans can’t go there in decades to come without testing / developing the tech now. You can’t just skip the small steps.
If the rinky dink bomb-disposal robots that the Delta II thumped up there were all that great–how many geologists have been replaced by them in the field?
Although I agree this looks mostly like a PR stunt, you are wrong about “decades to come”. Humanity should have been on Mars already, but we have done nothing since the ’70s. Also, because the previous first steps were taken by a previous generation, with no continuation, we now have to retake those first steps to rebuild the institutional knowledge.
Rebuilding the institutional / technical know-how.
Although my understanding (I wasn’t around at the time) was that there was a lot more Apollo planned, but funding dried up. Priorities for space exploration shifted to orbiting stations, space shuttles, and robotic missions and away from manned spaceflight outside of the earth’s sphere of influence.
Mars is a whole different order of magnitude, and if you asked me to draw a humans-this-far-robots-only-further boundary, Mars would be on the other side. But if you can’t set up a moonbase, it doesn’t make any sense to start thinking about people on Mars.
Judging from some of the comments here, there is apparently some real public sentiment against even doing further lunar exploration. To me, it’s hard to imagine how you can’t at least be curious. But I’ll absolutely grant that it’s expensive curiosity.
“Robots on the moon seems like a much better idea IMO.”
It’s seriously amazing what we’ve done with robotic exploration and rovers, etc. But they’re not people. What they can do is tremendously limited. Significant sample return is next to impossible. Bandwidth is incredibly small. Instruments need to be tight and compact.
I mentioned it elsewhere here, but one easy example is drilling. Drilling in space is just a massive pain. Go look it up – we’ve tried a ton. Several of the CLPS projects are drills, because our success rate with robotic drills is just pathetic. And their target depths are like, 1 meter. When Apollo 15 drilled to only 1 meter, it was a failure.
The US ego fears China being on the moon with people while they are not.
It’s that simple. And that is openly stated by people like the NASA administrator I might add.
(re-post to get it in the right thread)
OK I give up, bloody hell, working comments system knowledge is gone too.
The above comment was a reply to Mr Nobody April 3, 2026 at 5:40 am.
Don’t know how we can expect to land people on the moon if we can’t even manage to code a hierarchical comment structure.
So far so good, the toilet came up as an anomaly but they told ’em how to jiggle the handle.
I don’t like to comment where my comments are rejected for no reason, but.. a funny story:
I was checking a few live YT channels of the launch and one had a live chat and somebody in that chat said “why don’t they park the ISS over the launch site to film it”, and that person was not persuaded by people pointing out that is not possible saying that it was ridiculous and primitive that it can’t be done.
(And yet, it was one of the more coherent comments there, most of it was insane spam.)
Speaking of the ISS, is that the ISS near the center of one of the pictures of the earth taken from Artemis II? https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/fd02_for-pao/
Don’t know, hard to say.
What is interesting about that picture though is that I hear it was taken with the sun behind the planet and the light is from the moon, taken with very high ISO (Nikon D5 – 1/4s ISO5100 according to the EXIF).
And I’m told for that reason you can actually see the lights from the cities.
It’s ‘upside down’ with north being pointed down I’m told, so that would be Spain and north Africa then on the bottom right and the Americas on the bottom left?
Oops, I mean Spain and north Africa then on the bottom left and the americas on the bottom right of course.
Funny how you are used to see north being up.
I made another post as a reply to Winston, it did not go through but if by some miracle it does it will probably appear here instead of where is belongs.
You were warned, thanks for your attention.
Not Nikon.
Film cameras didn’t have EXIF back then.
What does the “D” in “D5” stand for?
“it was taken with the sun behind the planet and the light is from the moon”
You got some splainin to do Lucy.
I see now I was super wrong on this, completely. I apologize. IF THERE WERE A REPORT BUTTON I would report myself.
That photo ( https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/fd02_for-pao/ ) has a scale of about 3 km per pixel.
The ISS would have a length of about a tenth of a pixel.
And that halo around the Earth is about 50 km off the surface: It’s NOT the kilotons of Starlink debris — That’s ten times higher.
The halo is (says Scott Manley) sodium ions deposited in the upper atmosphere by micrometeors and fluorescing by the backlit sunlight.
Another giant leap in advancing mankind’s knowledge of our closest neighbor, the moon. Congratulations to everyone who made journey back to the moon possible for the 2nd time in our lifetime.
If and when China lands their variety of humans on the moon:
Dear China,
Welcome, FINALLY, to the club we started 57 years ago!
However, since it’s no longer the 1960s and is vastly safer and cheaper to do so while also helping to develop technologies actually useful on Earth like robotics and AI instead of zero-G toilets, we prefer to use robots now.
Sincerely,
USA
Yeah, we are too busy spending money on useful things, like healthcare and AI that automated menial tasks. These have allowed us to not be tied to our employment status to exist.
Right?
“we prefer to use robots now.”
The reason you think robots are just as good as humans is that’s all you’ve known. You want one thing that robotic spacecraft have proven terrible at?
Drilling. You can count the number of successful robotic drilling experiments on one hand. The robotic success rate’s like 10% or something like that. With humans? 100%.
Automated spacecraft and landers are great, but the tasks they do are extremely limited for a reason.
Wait, the poo part still works.
Also the Artemis-2 ship does not have a reclaim system and waste is dumped overboard, but since a Mars mission would take very very long, and supplies would be precious, it would have to reclaim the waste and extract the water from it.
So a Mars mission would not use that toilet, perhaps they would use the tried ISS one.
But I agree that they are decades away from going to Mars with humans, but if they don’t develop and try new technology nothing will happen of course.
And Isaacman said that his view is that you should not try grand projects in one go but do things step by step.
Also since the POTUS now seems to have lost interest (seeing there won’t be a base soon enough and within his tenure to name it ‘trump moonplaza’ is my guess) he is reportedly cutting funding again from NASA.
“he is reportedly cutting funding again from NASA.”
Under the current administration, the Presidential Budget Requests are complete and total fluff and have been totally ignored by Congress. Basically, everyone gets a small bump in funding and everything continues as normal.
It’s a mess for agencies because they are supposed to use the budget requests as guidance and they’re obviously pointless, but they’re managing.
It’s one of the things I have to explain to people that is worse than they think about the current administration – it’s a massive waste of money because no one can plan, everything has to be shifted and done last minute, and everything ends up costing more.
Hi! It’s honestly pretty cool that we can follow along with Artemis II like this. Seeing the live telemetry and orbital path makes the whole mission feel way more real than just watching a pre-recorded update. There’s something special about knowing exactly where that capsule is in relation to the moon at any given moment, especially since it’s been so long since we’ve sent people out that far. It really brings back that sense of wonder about space travel when you can track the journey in real-time.
Yeah, almost like it’s 1970 again, when we were glued to our grainy black & white televisions to watch the real-time broadcasts.
Despite how easy and accessible it is now, I wonder how many humans are following along now though, compared to back then.
I know I am. Can’t pass this up to see in real time. In ’69, I was only 5 years old…. So wasn’t ‘tuned’ in :) .
Why grainy? B/W TV has higher fidelity than the humble color standards (PAL/SECAM/NTSC).
Unless we watch b/w programme on a color TV, then the experience is inferrior than on a native b/w TV set (more blurry due to RGB mask).
RS-170 is the underlying standard in NTSC land, PAL has CCIR.
Of course, 525 lines (US) is not as high in resolution as 625 lines (EU). ;)
The former French system with 819 lines was far ahead of all of us, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/819_line
Hm. The grainyness probably was because of the lo-fi video transmission from moon.
NASA used a different form of animated slow-scan TV to reduce bandwidth to work with lower power etc (320 frames, 10 Hz).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television#History
Btw, I’ve watched the 2014 comet landing on my 14″ b/w portable just for fun.
I thought it was enough of a historic event that justified the extra work setting up the portable TV up (the SD satellite receiver had an RF modulator).
Info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20MFL9L8KEc
In the vernacular, “grainy” here refers to the image noise present in an image with low signal-to-noise ratio, which is what happens when you live 100 km from the transmitter site. We didn’t have cable television out in the boondocks in 1970. (Still don’t, actually)
Ah, I see, makes sense. My bad. I’m not a native English speaker. 😅
It’s “grainy” because with early photos you were seeing grains of the film (silver halide particles).
I was neat to watch the moon grow bigger as they got closer, then the eclipse, and then see the miles start to increase away from the moon. Would have been cool to see with one’s own eyes. That must be an awesome feeling. Something pictures just can’t capture.
I’ve seen images of the far side of the Moon probably a thousand times and I did not have a grasp on exactly how uneven the far side is compared to the near side until I saw those images. I always describe the far side as “featureless” because the maria are so striking, but featureless is totally the wrong word.
Spectacular 8000 x 11655 pixel 57.1 MB Earthrise:
https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/missions/webb/outreach/migrated/2015/STScI-01G8CXQRC14XRMCFSG2295AX28.png
Source:
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image from 2015
Insertion into lunar orbit: June 23, 2009 – still operational
The probe has made a 3-D map of the Moon’s surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites.
The total cost of the mission is reported as US$583 million, of which $504 million pertains to the main LRO probe and $79 million to the LCROSS satellite.
Thanks a lot for link! 🙂👍
Btw, the high resolution made me think of old Kodak Photo CD from ’91/’92.
In its highes resolution, 64 Base, Photo CD had featured 4096×6144 pels.
There also was a higher resolution medical variant, I vaguely remember.
Anyway, such high resolutions start to become good enough for posters and pre-press use cases.
So the Earthrise picture can be printed out on a DIN A3 printer just fine!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_CD
(In early 90s that’s when I had access to an 20″ CRT monitor and a 40 MHz 386 PC with Mitsumi LU-005S single-speed drive.
The Kodak access software was running on Windows 3.10.
Internet Archive still has sampler CDs in case someone’s curious! 😁)
Artemis II: To boldly go where man has been before…
not really.They went 4100 miles further from earth than the Apollo 13 mission did. Thats a littler further than Columbus’ trip from the canary islands to the bahamas.
It’s not an arbitrary benefit: it let the astronauts observe the full disk of the far side of the moon at once.
and for the 4 Billion spent, what have we learned? Absolutely nothing!!!!
Based on estimates as of early April 2026, the United States has spent over $33 billion on the war with Iran in approximately 39 days. On March 15, 2026, the average US gas price was approximately $3.58 gal, Average gas price today $4.164. 13 US servicemen dead. Human Rights Activists in Iran documented over 3,600 killed, including 1,701 civilians.
$33 Billion in 39 days.
Federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, totaled approximately $99.8 billion in fiscal year 2024.
What have we learned? Absolutely Nothing!!!!!
At least Nasa got some cool pics to frustrate flat earthers delusional minds.
Agreed–NASA needs half the Air Farce budget for my part
resources
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-moon-narrows.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-shield-safety-stakes-nasa-artemis.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-artemis-ii-crew-3000c-reentry.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-spaceflight-captures-audiences-centers-people.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-artemis-ii-space-politically-important.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-unseen-life-moon.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-nasa-tool-scout-moon-south.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-moon.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-laughter-historic-day-astronaut-jenni.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-chills-artemis-astronauts-lunar-flyby.html
Great channel:
Artemis 2 Orion Heat Shield – Is It safe?
Eager Space
16,844 views – Feb 9, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzZWs7CexYI
Quick Summary
This video from space analyst Eager Space examines whether NASA’s Orion capsule heat shield—damaged during the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022—is safe enough for the crewed Artemis 2 lunar flyby planned for 2026. The creator argues that while the astronauts will probably be fine, NASA’s handling of the issue shows poor transparency, questionable risk decisions, and deeper systemic problems in the agency’s human spaceflight program.
Key Points Covered
The Heat Shield Problem: Artemis 1’s Orion used a “block” ablative heat shield design (AV coat material in a honeycomb structure) meant to be stronger, cheaper, and faster to produce than the older Apollo-style version. During re-entry, it suffered excess charring and large chunks detaching—issues NASA knew about early but downplayed publicly.
NASA’s Response and Criticism:
A 2023 Post-Flight Assessment and 2024 NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report highlighted the char loss as a significant safety risk.
NASA formed a “tiger team,” conducted arcjet testing, and eventually blamed a new “skip” re-entry trajectory (unlike Apollo’s) that allowed hot gas to seep into the material and blow out chunks.
For Artemis 2, NASA decided against replacing the heat shield (too expensive/delaying) and will instead use a non-skip (Apollo-style) trajectory plus more permeable AV coat material. Tests suggest this should work.
The creator criticizes heavy redactions in FOIA-obtained reports (citing ITAR and deliberative privilege), delayed public disclosure, and what he calls a near “cover-up” until the OIG report forced action.
Expert Opinions:
In early 2026, new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman had the team brief astronauts (including Charlie Camarda and Danny Olivas) and journalists. Olivas eventually endorsed flying; Camarda was more critical, noting the team still doesn’t fully understand the failure mechanism, can’t quantitatively predict it, and is relying on simplified analysis—comparing it to the Challenger and Columbia mindset.
Broader Critique:
The video questions whether a high-risk lunar flyby is needed for Artemis 2 at all. Many key objectives (SLS performance, Orion systems, rendezvous, life support) could be tested in Earth orbit with a gentler re-entry, reducing risk without losing much value.
Artemis 2 data won’t fully validate the fixed heat shield for Artemis 3 anyway.
NASA faces schedule pressure and bureaucratic incentives that favor “we think it’ll be fine” over rigorous engineering. The host traces issues back to post-Shuttle engineering erosion, the failed Constellation program, and SLS development woes.
Bottom Line from the Video
The heat shield risk for Artemis 2 has been mitigated (different trajectory + material tweaks), and the crew is likely safe. However, the creator says the real question isn’t “Is it safe?” but “Are the risks worth it, and is NASA being properly transparent and rigorous?” He concludes that NASA’s current incentives and culture make “good enough” engineering too common for crewed missions, and a simpler orbital test flight would have been wiser.
The tone is detailed, technical, and skeptical—typical of Eager Space’s style—focusing on engineering realities, public accountability, and why human-rating spacecraft is hard. If you’re interested in Artemis program risks, heat shield ablators, or NASA oversight, it’s a solid watch.
“The video questions whether a high-risk lunar flyby is needed for Artemis 2 at all.”
In a wiener waving Moon Race v2.0 with a country we beat to the moon 57 years ago, it’s as “necessary” as was Apollo 8 – take care of multiple goals simultaneously while exposing the crew to greater risk.
Q: Are the Apollo 8 and Artemis II missions similar in that they were done to a significant extent to beat a political rival to a sensational event involving the moon.
Grok 3 AI:
Yes, Apollo 8 (December 1968) and Artemis II (April 2026) share a meaningful similarity in this regard: both were shaped to a significant extent by the desire to achieve a high-profile “first” involving the Moon ahead of a major geopolitical rival, thereby securing national prestige and momentum in a perceived space race.
From the NASA OIG report, photo of chunks missing from the Artemis I Orion heat shield:
https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ORION-HEAT-SHIELD-OIG-REPORT-MAY-2024-1920×895.png