Artemis II launch and mission

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Jase2985

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#3479274 8-Apr-2026 16:31

Rikkitic:

Jase2985:

you realise its testing the life support, habitability, communications etc etc for future launches/missions

Sure, but that can be done with instruments. Or they can add a couple monkeys again. The human cargo is just that: cargo.

im sorry but you are 100% wrong there.

You can only test something so much with instruments and monkeys till you need to test it with real people.

Rikkitic

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#3479278 8-Apr-2026 17:02

Jase2985:

im sorry but you are 100% wrong there.

You can only test something so much with instruments and monkeys till you need to test it with real people.

Of course you are right but something feels a little off about this venture. Maybe it is just the group hugs and soppy comments. Not really what I expect from highly trained professional astronauts going where no human has gone before.

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#3479349 8-Apr-2026 20:31

Rikkitic:

Jase2985:

im sorry but you are 100% wrong there.

You can only test something so much with instruments and monkeys till you need to test it with real people.

Of course you are right but something feels a little off about this venture. Maybe it is just the group hugs and soppy comments. Not really what I expect from highly trained professional astronauts going where no human has gone before.

Just to add my 2c, I'm with Rikkitic, $4 billion is a lot of money for a mission with very modest goals. Artemis II doesn't get any closer than 4000 miles to the moon. Apollo 8 went to within 60 miles, and also orbited 10 times. Apollo 11 landed less than a year later. In the Apollo days, the astronauts were essential to the success. With this mission, the astronauts are there primarily for the experience. There are no technological hurdles to a fully automated mission. And in fact a few years ago India sent a lander and rover to the moon for $75 million. Almost all of the science from Artemis II doesn't require people. The stem cells being used to measure radiation can be sent solo, and they can use dummies with sensors just like Artemis I.

Of course, it is an exciting mission. But for my money, if you are going to risk the astronauts lives on a mission like this, you might as well iron out the kinks first with autonomous missions, and risk the lives of the astronauts on something a bit bolder. And not just a free return flyby at 4000 miles.

SaltyNZ

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#3479353 8-Apr-2026 21:00

+1 for this being a bit of a waste of time and money. Life support system tests? Absolutely necessary - could've done it in LEO with a smaller, cheaper rocket. As far as science is concerned the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter has been taking lots of pretty pictures of the moon from much closer up since 2009. Advancing the science of rocketry? I'm no Musk fan but Starship has demonstrated a clear developmental path to full reusability, developed from scratch. If anything SLS is a step backwards having taken refurbishable Space Shuttle engines and dumping them in the Pacific Ocean.

Luckily, it's not my money, and the US certainly wastes its taxpayers money on way worse things than moon rockets.

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mattwnz

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#3479354 8-Apr-2026 21:02

It is all about publicity though and manned flight gets that publicity . There is a reason the Apollo program got scrapped, people lost interest even though they drove a car on the moon and played golf etc.

Jase2985

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#3479357 8-Apr-2026 21:23

it's a new launch vehicle, it's a new launch capsule. It's what they are putting their future missions etc in.

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gzt

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#3479363 8-Apr-2026 22:38

If it was easy Musk and Bezos would be taking tourists to the moon already.

Dratsab

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#3479615 10-Apr-2026 06:59

Open photo

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#3479633 10-Apr-2026 07:37

Rikkitic:

It is kind of pathetic the way NASA commentators keep trying to justify their presence by insisting they are doing real science by looking at the moon. They are not. They are doing group hugs and singing kumbaya. These are not the no-nonsense astronauts I remember from the 1960s.

hmm i could do group hugs and kumbaya in my backyard. am i an astronaut too?

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#3480283 12-Apr-2026 21:42

Rikkitic: I don't want to disparage in any way the achievements of the Artemis missions. I think they are an essential step in human evolution and exploration of the cosmos. They should have happened in the 1970s. But I just can't see the point of the 'crewed' journey of Artemis II. I don't see what they are doing that couldn't be done with the mannikins of Artemis I. They are passengers, not astronauts, along for a fun and very expensive ride. It is kind of pathetic the way NASA commentators keep trying to justify their presence by insisting they are doing real science by looking at the moon. They are not. They are doing group hugs and singing kumbaya. These are not the no-nonsense astronauts I remember from the 1960s.

The first song ever performed in space was the Ukrainian folk song "Watching the sky and thinking a thought" requested by a Ukrainian flight director and performed by a Ukrainian cosmonaut in 1962.

The second was Jingle Bells performed December 1965 as part of a practical joke onboard Gemini 6A rendezvous module.

SaltyNZ

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#3480341 13-Apr-2026 09:46

gzt:

The second was Jingle Bells performed December 1965 as part of a practical joke onboard Gemini 6A rendezvous module.

Yeah if you only watch the really intense bits of the old footage, like the 13 minutes to the moon sort of thing, those are all business, as you'd expect. Neil Armstrong wasn't going to be cracking jokes while trying to put the lunar lander down on a safe spot. But there are plenty of examples of much more relaxed comms during the slack times. Was it Charlie Duke who brought a golf club and a bunch of balls to the moon? Not exactly rocket science, that.

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