For the first time since 1972, human beings will visit the moon. Well, visit near the moon, because this Artemis II mission, set to launch today during a window starting at 6:24 pm Eastern time, is just one that will go around the moon without landing, making it the fourth time such a trip has happened. It’s preceded by Apollo 8, a test run that went into lunar orbit, then Apollo 10, a full “dress rehearsal” around the moon before the first landing with Apollo 11, and then Apollo 13, which famously had a near-disaster and wasn’t able to land, but looped around the moon.
Even if we’ve sort of done this before, it’s significant how we’re doing it again. For one thing, this is an all-new spacecraft, Orion, which will carry four astronauts instead of three, and the first woman to go on such a mission. Also, the space toilet on Orion is vastly better than the awful stick-on-your-butt bags of the Apollo missions, and the Orion capsules can be re-used.
The Artemis II mission will also be the furthest from Earth that human beings have ever traveled, with its trajectory set to take this quartet of astronauts 250,000 to 252,800 miles away from home, beating the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles.
And, more importantly, this mission inaugurates what I hope will be a return to regular human space exploration beyond Earth orbit.
Orion is a very different spacecraft than Apollo, full of new technologies, and represents a new generation of spacecraft capable of going beyond the Earth. I’m very curious to hear about how it performs.
The Artemis program has had its share of delays and setbacks; some argue that the SLS (Space Launch System) launch vehicle was hamstrung because of the demands that it re-purpose Shuttle Program components, but the end result is a rocket that is the most powerful ever human-rated launch vehicle, making 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, which is almost a million more than what the legendary Saturn V moon rocket made in the Apollo era.
NASA has some live feeds available to watch the launch, which I recommend you do! Here, I’ll embed the feed for you, make it nice and easy:
Look, I know many of us have some pretty conflicted and complicated feelings about our country, the world, hell, humanity in general. I feel it, too. But despite it all, despite the inanity and stupidity and callowness and cruelty and madness we are confronted with every day, humans are still, deep down, absolutely incredible.
People, people like you and I, have given the world stunning works of art and pieces of music that fill us with emotion, movies we can’t forget, sandwiches we still reminisce about, inside jokes that make us crack up in the middle of a shower, cars that we love, kisses and adventures and novels and desserts and conversations and days in the mountains and held hands and spit takes and slaps and looking at stars and on and on and on.
And some of these people are smart. So smart that they got together and built a fucking rocket to go to the moon, just because something deep inside us pushes us to do these kinds of crazy things, to learn and discover and wonder and learn some more.
So, yeah, I’m fucking excited we’re going back to the moon. I don’t care if you think SpaceX could have done it better or that there are other problems in the world, because of course there are. Today, I don’t care about the idiots in power or their bad ideas, or all of the shitty things they’re doing, because some other people are going to try to go to the moon today.
Godspeed.
“inside jokes that make us crack up in the middle of a shower”
While eating shower spaghetti!
“There’s someone in my head but it’s not me
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon”
TO THE FUCKING MOON!
While I love space, at this moment I don’t really understand manned spaceflight anymore. Spend the money on more advanced robotics and use the saved money to improve earth first. There is nothing to see or do on the moon nor on mars, not with the machinery we have right now.
I love you too. There is something to do on the moon and mars if we really cared.
Using technology we already possess we would start the process of terraforming Mars and use a moon base as a stepping point. It would be an incredibly slow process but it can be done.
Hello Space! Yes I still love you, but terraforming terra, earth, might be a more feasible undertaking. We already have water, air, oxygen, plants, animals, reasonable temperatures and fairly decent geography to help us go from A to B, by car/truck, plane or ship.
We only need to keep the temperatures a bit in check, the balance of the atmosphere regarding chemicals and then we should be good to go for a long time!
Terraforming the moon or Mars, how long would it take and do we really need it the coming 100, 500, 1000, 10,000 years? Again we can send rockets to Mars and put some Optimus Prime robots on there to do some landscaping, but people? It was a thing in the 70s becauses there were no viable robotic solutions, but if you watch the videos of those dancing Chinese robots it looks we’re close to having metal friends being able to wrench and EVAs without the need of a suit nor oxygen etc.
With current technology (no nanobots or humanoid robots) 1000 years is the closest. It’s no exaggeration that this would be the greatest human endeavor ever undertaken. If this was building the great pyramid the Apollo program would be couple of blocks. But at the end we would have accomplished something truly remarkable that could last for billions of years.
Keeping earth’s temperature in check is pretty easy. Throw a few sun shades in the Earth/sun Lagrange point and call it a day blocking less tha 1% of the suns energy would be enough. Probably would cost less than decarbonizing all of earth’s economy. Couple of trillion perhaps?
Once the earth’s economy is MOSTLY decarbonized so we can keep the temperature in check we’re done. Once we don’t need to burn wood, candles, charcoal, peat and what not to give us light and warmth then won’t be causing so many harmful (for temperature control) emissions. Also our health will benefit from that (soot, NOx etc)
Just terraforming mars would definitely cost trillions alone, not even considering building (underground) cities and moving people and materials there.
It really is not the right moment now. Besides the fact that even IF you could terraform Mars in 1000 years and even IF by that time the earth is a hellhole to live on (think Bladerunner climate) then HOW are we going to move BILLIONS of people to Mars? I think it is safe to say that not even 1% would be able to get to Mars.
IMHO we first have to solve an energy problem. Either fusion or nuclear reactors/rockets, for example or a more simple approach ; massive solar and wind turbine systems. And to be honest ; building solar panels and wind turbines is just ‘work’. Expanding the electric grid – even across nations – is just work. It is not rocket science. Pun intended.
A lot of Africa could be powered by solar. Europe could be powered by wind. Eastern countries could get electricity from West Europe through a serious upgraded grid.
And the US .. so easy to have a ton of solar in sunny states. And if you plan properly you don’t even need to move electricity too far unless a state is unlucky enough to not have nor enough sunshine nor enough wind.
Once we have plenty of electricity, for our homes, the industry and transportation (and I really wouldn’t mind if planes keep using kerosene if batteries would not work for commercial aviation) then we don’t have an impending critical climate change on our hands.
When there are still people living on $1/day we shouldn’t be talking about trying to leave this place since those people would never be able to leave for Mars.
It’s totally bonkers we’re still playing WAR with other countries ON Earth.
The cost is even worse than that, terraforming Mars would measure in the quadrillions.
No underground cities needed though it would have a fully formed atmosphere.
Not certain about that ; the atmosphere doesn’t protect again the cosmic radiation. You’d need to build cities on the surface with a ton of radiation shielding.
Besides that during the terraforming process, which could take the mentioned eons, people how to work there and have to live there. Again underground housing would make most sense to protect again radiation and perhaps other effects on the surface. A ‘thick’ atmosphere also brings other things like … wind. Storms actually. And with billions of years of dust everywhere, the whole surface might become one big dust storm, ones you don’t even see in the Sahara.
Again while I think space exploration is great (I love you, space), but I really feel we have not enough resources now. From energy to simple money to finance the whole adventure. At best send robots, at worst leave it be for now.
Why would we want to terraform Mars?
Mars has lower gravity than earth but not so low that it would be harmful for long term human habitation (probably but we don’t know for sure). This is a huge advantage for space exploration because earth’s gravity is a huge barrier because it takes so much energy to escape.
And this opens up the holy grail of launches. The space elevator! Its much more possible on Mars or it’s moons than on Earth.
As far as I understand it is not yet clear if we can even live on Mars longer than X years, let alone have children there. No matter what it seems the impact of the lower gravity might mean staying a few years on Mars means it is a one-way ticket. Bone density in particular.
Still the lack of air, oceans/lakes with water, a magnetosphere and ozone layer to protect us from radiation … If you really look into the details then habitation on Mars doesn’t look feasible within multiple decades from now.
Sometimes starting too early is very costly. If you can’t use off-the-shelf proven tech and have to invent computers (think Apollo), alloys and ‘find out on the fly’ what you need and what works, then those projects are going to be very very very expensive.
And even when we have been to the moon, the current excursion was and is far from cheap. Imagine the hundreds (!) of launches necessary to bring enough building/construction material and people to Mars. Now we’re not talking about 50 or 100 billion extra dollars, but perhaps another 10 more than that.
I suppose it’s intriguing for the future of exploration, and it would be really neat to see a manned mission to Mars in our lifetime (l was taught in high school that our ETA was 1997).
I just don’t think this is really the right time for trying to terraform, with so many serious issues facing humanity, issues that we could solve with less resources than it would take to terraform a distant planet.
We are the ones paying for all of this yet still many are struggling to find stable housing on earth, let alone mars.
If I understand the reporting correctly, the Artemis program has spent about $93 billion since 2012. America spends over $800 billion on defense every year. Technically, if our nation really wanted to, we could improve the planet and explore space…
Sure if you put things in perspective, then $93 billion seems like a drop in a bucket. For the US. And we won’t stop at that $93 B mark, it will be more and more. Read up how many rockets Musk wants to send to Mars. That’d be a trillion dollar operation. That’s the budget of a LOT OF COUNTRIES whose people live abysmal lives. That’s what I mean about trying to solve things on earth first…
However that’s more or less a political issue, it’s about power and money and greed and fear and what not so probably not much will change and the poor people in the world in the poor countries will keep suffering for a long time while some billionaires will launch expensive rockets to places where nobody can actually live for decades if not hundreds of years.
We spend $100 Billion a year on food stamps. $93 Billion in 14 years is nothing.
If only these idiot politicians could be half as smart and brave as the Artemis crew. Science for the win!!
I sure hope it goes alright. It’s a shame the politicians got to deem how the SLS was built, as it’s more of a jobs program than a space program. It’s certainly not the most efficient way to do things, but it should work!
Hasn’t it always been that way? I agree it’s dumb, but maybe it’s the only way to get politicians to sign off on the program
I’m right around 10 miles from the pad, even got the wife to take meetings from the car, sometimes a 60min drive needs to be done for science!!!
Wow… preach brother Torch, PREACH!!
I so hope this goes well, the planet could use a good reminder right about now of what we’re capable of when we all work together.
Been watching NASA TV all day, don’t tell the boss. Watched the four being strapped, I think that at this moment they must be among the bravest people on Earth, as well as the most anxious. God Speed.
My thoughts can be perfectly summed up by the lyrics to Canned Heat’s “Poor Moon”, but I’m not here to harsh on anyone’s buzz if they’re into this.
Is anyone else slightly concerned that the orbit will place the capsule within range of the secret Nazi base on the dark side of the Moon? Or have we renewed the agreement we had in the 1960s?
In space, no one can hear you scream.
Or ask about the files.
Astronaut 1: I can’t find any milk for my coffee.
Astronaut 2: In space, no one can. Here, use cream.
You’ve had that queued up forever, haven’t you?
I hope it goes well but I can’t stand a certain someone taking credit for it. And you know he will.
Unless something goes wrong. Then he’ll throw somebody under the bus. But still claim it was a perfect mission.
Look, everybody knows this: Artemis II was a huge success. Tremendous. Maybe the most successful space mission ever—people are saying that. Very smart people.
Before me? Space was a mess. Total mess. Rockets late, plans weak—sad! I came in, said “We’re going to win in space,” and suddenly—boom—record success.
Other countries watched and said, “Wow.” They didn’t think it was possible. But when you have strong leadership—this is what happens.
Artemis II was great because I knew how to make space great again.
You forgot the ALL-CAPS and the spelling mistakes. Otherwise, spot-on!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!!
You can go either ALL-CAPS or You can just Capitalize random Words.
Dont forget renaming the Sea of Tranquility. Terrible name. Pathetic.
It’s the Sea of America now.
I’ve had an awful lot of awe throughout my life that we once did and will again put people on the moon. And as I’ve gotten older I’m more and more assured that there is no way in hell I would volunteer for this. Like it’s terrifying just to think of being in that little capsule while the Earth shrinks away and all the ways this could go wrong and how few options there would be if it did. No freakin’ WAY, man.
I can’t even process the feeling of exhiliration the men must of had who stood on another world, but unquestionably these people have balls that I can’t even comprehend, and I include the woman in that. They’re just different than us.
But just think: the papers would want to know whose shirt you wear!
And that’s how you end up on national TV dressed like a pirate.
We’re whalers on the moon,
We carry a harpoon,
For they ain’t no whales
So we tell tall tales
And sing our whaling tune.
The Moon Shall Rise Again
Gol-durn it, Crushinator, JUMP!
No, Pa, I love him.
But he’ll find his own Crushinator, with blackjack and hookers.
#unexpectedfuturama
I am also excited with the potential of today’s launch. I have been a NASA fan since I was a young kid as my dad was stationed at Edwards during the Space Shuttle testing and first few launches. While Artemis is overpriced, not reusable, and all the things it has going against it, it still makes that young kid inside happy to see NASA launching something themselves.
My robot army has been instructed to stay in the tunnels and resist waving as they go by.
No mention of the Ford Orion?
(Which was developed under the codename “Apollo“)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Orion
Or the Buick Apollo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Apollo
(Developed by significantly less intelligent people than those at NASA)
Although the prime contractor was Boeing, GM did most of the work on the chassis and propulsion of the Lunar Rover. Greg Bekker was one sharp guy.
I’m still surprised at Jared Issacman getting the administrator job, he actually seems very competent. Canceled the stupid Lunar Gateway and pivoted to something more practical, has questioned SLSes future, etc etc. I’ve seen a lot of talk from people I trust of a reinvigoration at NASA about their work. I hope to see it continue.
Bang Zoom, to the Moon!
The cynic in me says this is a big April Fools joke.
Otherwise, I am stoked we’re dreaming big dreams again.
I’m excited too! It’s awesome! One day I hope to watch one of these take off in person!
Let’s do this! I’m psyched!
I will be very surprised if it launches today. They skipped testing the last repair because they were worried it would leak again. That’s like not test driving your car after a repair because you’re worried it will break down, and then just driving off to work the next morning.
Congress designed the SLS. I just hope nobody dies.
I… Isn’t that what everyone does? Is it just me?
I really hope this goes well. The world needs good news. Just one piece of good news. I know nothing is ever certain in launching a tube full of hundreds of thousands of pounds of stuff that really wants to react extremely energetically, but if this just works, I’ll be just a little happier.
I have great news! The Yellowstone supervolcano has not erupted today and has not killed tens of millions and plunged the world into darkness. We did not get hit by a gamma ray burst that killed all life on earth and nobody caught smallpox today.
Well there are a few hours left in today.
Daughter’s on her way to try to see it in person – a car full of aerospace engineering nerds is probably stuck in traffic between Daytona and Kennedy right now…
Very excited, i’ve booked a conference room at work to have it up on the big screen! i turn into a 8 year old kid every time i think about launching people into space!
That last paragraph was very well said, Amen brother!