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Artemis II Launch Day Updates
https://www.youtube.com/live/Tf_UjBMIzNo https://www.youtube.com/live/Tf_UjBMIzNo
- rpozarickij 6mo agoDirect livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf_UjBMIzNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf_UjBMIzNo
- dotancohen 6mo agoI tuned in for 60 seconds, the presenter got everything wrong, and I just tuned out until liftoff. She called the top of the ET (well, it's no longer an ET, but it's the stage that was the STS ET) the "upper stage". She said that the propellents are stored at thousands of degrees below zero. And so on. This is a NASA presenter?
- chasd00 6mo agoi'm sure the whole talk track was piped through an AI for clarity and excitement and the presenters were told to read the script.
- rdevilla 6mo agoYou are not the target audience for this sort of presentation. Media directed at the laity is more about being directionally than quantifiably correct, and is full of metaphor and embellishment to capture the imagination rather than communicate something with precision. People who want the actual details and numbers will read.
- robotresearcher 6mo agoI firmly believe you can have both exciting, inspiring, and factually correct communication if you make that a priority. The experience of hearing factual things presented with passion and obvious expertise is in itself inspiring. Why settle for less?
- jeffrallen 6mo agoBring back John Insprucker.
- tigerlily 6mo agoI for one am begging God that this is merely April fools all the way down.
- lukan 6mo agoIf it would be, then a fake explosion after start as climax before revealing it, would be quite a joke. Probably will yield mixed reception, though.
- magicalist 6mo ago> She called the top of the ET (well, it's no longer an ET, but it's the stage that was the STS ET) the "upper stage". She said that the propellents are stored at thousands of degrees below zero. And so on. This is a NASA presenter? To be fair to her, she seemed to explicitly refer to what sits on top of the core stage, it just wasn't in the diagram she was gesturing to the top of at the time. To be fair to you, I think the cryogenic comment was worse and she actually said "thousands of degrees below Fahrenheit". The problem is they're trying to run hours of programming leading up to this launch for some reason, but aren't willing to force the experts to come in to do the commentary. They should have given her a script.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 6mo agoJesus! Why is there a presenter? Why isn't it just a livestream of the mission control radio chatter? That sort of shit belongs on some 24/7 news broadcast.
- gm678 6mo agoSame reason the livestream mentioned jobs about a dozen times in the 10 minutes I watched, NASA is in a fraught position and this is their way of fighting for some continued funding. A 'mass media' event captures more attention than a minimalist stream of chatter. (And a less cynical interpretation is also that getting the public interested in and engaged with space missions is part of their mandate.)
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- birdsongs 6mo agoI feel like they really fumbled the video feeds, it was a mess. Rapid shifting of camera angles as it left the pad, black video, switching to a grainy video of the crowd during booster separation, and a hasty switch back well after they separated. Come on guys. You're going to the moon. You couldn't plan the launch camera / video feed better? This is how the world sees it, gets excited about it.
- whywhywhywhy 6mo agoQuality just looked so poor too it honestly felt 90s quality on some of the feeds, will be criminal if they don’t sort their cameras out before the moon landing
- kzrdude 6mo agoLaunch at around 5h 35m
- erelong 6mo ago[flagged]
- barbazoo 6mo agopolymarket or gtfo :)
- chasd00 6mo agoMy opinion is 60/40 in favor of launch today. It's not unusual at all for something to come up in the final 10-30 minutes. Kalshi is more optimistic. https://kalshi.com/markets/kxartemisii/artemis-ii-launch-date/kxartemisii-april https://kalshi.com/markets/kxartemisii/artemis-ii-launch-dat...
- LorenDB 6mo agoIt's been 54 years since humans last visited the Moon. Hopefully, in a few years we will get boots back on the surface.
- CoastalCoder 6mo agoOut of curiosity, why do you see this as a worthwhile endeavor? My personal perspective is that the resources are better used for other purposes, but it's possible that I just haven't encountered some compelling reason yet.
- xattt 6mo agoThe moonshot is a halo program that, when executed in a non-profit form, ends up benefiting society as a whole due to smart people being cornered and forced to solve hard problems that typically have applicability elsewhere on Earth. Edit: remember the Kennedy speech — We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.
- WalterBright 6mo ago> when executed in a non-profit form For-profits are of no benefit to society? Are SpaceX rockets a loser for society?
- anonymous_user9 6mo ago> Are SpaceX rockets a loser for society? That remains to be seen. By giving Musk the prominence to set up DOGE and destroy USAID, they've indirectly led to the deaths of almost a million people. By launching starlink, they're also increasing the amount of aluminum in the upper atmosphere, which may have catastrophic effects on the ozone layer.
- WalterBright 6mo agoDo government non-profit spacecraft not use aluminum? SpaceX rockets also are re-usable, which is environmentally better. They also cost about 10% of what non-profit rockets cost to launch. > they've indirectly led to the deaths of almost a million people. DOGE is a non-profit entity. Besides, why can't other non-profit governments pick up the aid?
- hghid 6mo agoEven though you could question the whole Artemis concept, it's still extremely exciting watching the countdown with my son. I just missed the original Apollo flights and had assumed I would never see a moon landing in my lifetime. We may well not have a landing for quite some time yet, but it's still cool to see a Moon bound rocket standing on the launchpad...
- pjmorris 6mo agoWe lived ~60 miles North of the Cape when I was a young boy, and watching the Saturn V's go on the way to the moon was a forming experience.
- chasd00 6mo agoI lived in Port Orange FL until i was 12, during night launches my dad would take the family to New Smyrna Beach or some where a short drive South where we watched the shuttles come up over the water somehow. I can't remember the details it was a lonnnng time ago haha. I do remember the launches sounding like popcorn popping. I live in Dallas now and will be turning 50 soon, i want to catch the next Starship launch live but would have to time it perfectly to get time off of work ahead of time.
- largbae 6mo agoYou probably watched from the Florida side of the intercoastal waterway between the main part of Florida and Cape Canaveral. Because of the 3-mile minimum and Patrick AFB it is pretty hard to find a good watching place that is actually on the cape.
- nobleach 6mo ago80 miles for me! I was a Space Shuttle era kid though. Saw the Challenger disaster during my lunchtime. And then on perpetual replay for the rest of the week on WESH/WCPX/WFTV most likely. Even still, just knowing we were launching all those people into space was awe-inspiring.
- markus_zhang 6mo agoGonna watch with my son if it doesn’t get postponed.
- instagib 6mo ago4.5hrs to go
- edm0nd 6mo ago17 minutes to go now!
- duped 6mo agoThis opinion may be unpopular here but it's hard to get excited about a colossal waste of taxpayer money after all the damage DOGE did. I don't understand how these NASA missions with questionable scientific value and obscene budgets get off the ground. I mean I do understand, NASA funding is important to oligarchs. But still.
- lp0_on_fire 6mo agoArtemis was already set in stone well before DOGE came about and IMO if the federal government is going to set mountains of cash on fire I'd rather it be to NASA than half the crap the government wastes every year.
- duped 6mo agoMy point is that DOGE killed a bunch of government programs that help people while saving no money, yet this giant waste of money survived. Cancelling Artemis II alone in favor of III would save a billion dollars by itself.
- cosmicgadget 6mo agoIt was never intended to save money. It was about a crusade against remote work, eliminating civil servants who might be loyal to the Constitution rather than the president, and planting a seed of government dysfunction for later years.
- longislandguido 6mo ago> government programs that help people Like spending $1.5 million on DEI programs in Serbia? That actually happened.
- mememememememo 6mo agoMultiply by 1000. Then multiply by 10. And that is expenditure on another country but instead of for promoting equity (how can anyone be against DEI as it is properly defined???) it is spent on slaughter.
- jcon321 6mo agotoo windy outside for this to happen imo
- rogerrogerr 6mo agoWhat is your opinion based on?
- blitzar 6mo agolicked my finger and stuck it in the air
- jcon321 6mo agowalking outside, and the surf report... they cancel all the time for less wind shear
- cosmicgadget 6mo agoThey should switch out to a quad fin fish, it'll handle the chop much better.
- conradfr 6mo agoAnd yet they didn't.
- _moof 6mo agoYou better run over there and let them know.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- iamkonstantin 6mo agoThere is also a stream on ESA Web TV https://watch.esa.int/ https://watch.esa.int/
- adamsb6 6mo agoIt is a bit chilling to watch these astronaut profiles having just read yesterday about the heat shield issues observed on the prior mission, and that this will be the first time we can test the heat shield in the actual pressures and temperatures that it will have to endure. Godspeed crew of Artemis II.
- willis936 6mo agoThat was the intent of the piece. It is impossible to assess the true intent of such a piece when it so blatantly is asking for attention.
- propagandist 6mo agoSome people are great at self promotion.
- magicalist 6mo ago> Some people are great at self promotion. We're commenting on NASA's live stream that exists to get us pumped up about the tens of billions of dollars we overpaid for this launch. I'm probably much more happy than the next guy about getting to see a flyby of the moon this week even if I really wish we'd gotten here another way, but the accusation is a bit funny in this thread in particular.
- amykhar 6mo agoFingers crossed that this https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... doesn't have any effect.
- proee 6mo agoThere is a LOC (Loss of Crew) number that is typically calculated for these missions. I'm curious what that is? Early Apollo missions were on the order of 4%.
- malfist 6mo agoThe official minimum standard is 1:270
- baggy_trough 6mo agoHilarious!
- WalterBright 6mo agoAfter the moon landing, Armstrong allowed that he had estimated the survivability at 50%.
- WalterBright 6mo agoBefore the Apollo launch, von Braun was asked what the reliability of the rocket was. He asked 6 of his lieutenants if it was ready to fly. Each replied "nein". Von Braun reported that it had six nines of reliability.
- glimshe 6mo agoI'm just SO HAPPY we can talk about something that doesn't involve the Iran war, ICE etc. This is a really historic moment, I hope that the current and future administrations continue investing in space exploration. I've waited my whole life for this as the entire "action" happened before I was born. Hubble/James Webb/ISS are cool but Artemis is something else!
- floxy 6mo ago>we can talk about something that doesn't involve the Iran war, ICE etc. And yet, you did bring them up.
- cosmicgadget 6mo ago... federalized voting, birthright citizenship... it is amazing how space exploration can be a unifying moment of positivity.
- happy-go-lucky 6mo ago[dead]
- jeffrallen 6mo agoReally hoping those of us who think NASA has jumped the shark won't have to keep ourselves from saying "I told you so" next week out of respect for the dead. This is four people putting their lives at risk for poor engineering and bad project management. The "right stuff" applies to the engineers too, but they've all unfortunately left Boeing and NASA.
- 1970-01-01 6mo agoYou're supposed to have peanuts, not popcorn, tonight: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/what-are-jpls-lucky-peanuts/ https://science.nasa.gov/missions/what-are-jpls-lucky-peanut...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ReptileMan 6mo agoSafe trip to the crew. I do hope that they have ironed out all the issues.
- zimpenfish 6mo agoFound a stream on YouTube earlier (which presumably wasn't an official one because it disappeared 15 minutes later after a claim by "FUBO TV") and it had a poll attached: "Will the Artemis astronauts land on the moon?" 40% of people had voted yes. Which is somewhat worrying given the mission plan and hardware.
- malfist 6mo agoIf these astronauts land on the moon, something has gone seriously, seriously wrong.
- RealityVoid 6mo agoMaybe they'll just stop for some pictures on the way back. I mean, it's a shame to go all that way and not at least get a cool selfie!
- kzrdude 6mo agoCaptain's discretion
- kqr 6mo agoIs there any website that gives me updates mirroring the livestream but in plain text? I won't be able to tune in for the launch but this is exciting and I'd like to follow the developments! I'm sure the answer is "Twitter" but I don't understand how that platform works.
- dima55 6mo agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4g4ygw0r02t https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4g4ygw0r02t
- floxy 6mo agohttps://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/01/live-artemis-ii-launch-day-updates/ https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/01/live-artemis-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47601017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47601017
- dryarzeg 6mo agoOh hell... Thanks for this reminder, I have almost forgot about it with all the problems I'm trying to solve now.
- coldcity_again 6mo agoI'm watching it rapt, but also wondering which KIND of leaky will result in a scrub..
- coldcity_again 6mo agoCan't understand why there doesn't seem to be much wider excitement at all, around "our Apollo 8", that I've been waiting decades for (late 40s here). Apparently here in the UK our schools are hardly even hyping it.
- coldcity_again 6mo agoglad to have been wrong on this one!
- melonpan7 6mo agoWish them all the best and safe travels. I’ll be tuning in as you never know when the next crewed mission will be, probably not another 50 years if advancements in space travel happen.
- mathieu4v 6mo agoI will be watching the launch from Europe, so it will be not earlier than half past midnight for us. My kids (9 and 10) are sleeping on the couch in front of the projection screen, so that they do not even have to get up when I wake them up at midnight, which I promised. Just wanted to add my grain of positivity here. Godspeed Artemis 2!
- heresie-dabord 6mo ago> add my grain of positivity The best of science, reason, research, engineering, training, expertise, co-operation... The best of humanity. Le meilleur de l'humanité.
- mcmcmc 6mo ago[flagged]
- healthworker 6mo agoDo you prefer that we not even try to spread beyond our one planet, when an entire galaxy, or maybe even the neighboring ones, might be in reach if we try? What if someday at the very end of the lifetime of our sun and similar stars, we look back, and regret not trying?
- cdot2 6mo agoThere have always been lame people like this and for all of human history we have continued to explore and expand. I think at this point those people can safely be ignored.
- mcmcmc 6mo agoExactly what I mean. People who obsess over space are so egotistical they can’t imagine someone not thinking it’s “the best”. It’s interesting, but no more important than any other science or field of study. And no, I’d prefer we take care of our home planet and make it a sustainable place to live first. It’s ludicrous to think we have any chance of surviving elsewhere if we can’t stop ourselves from making our natural habitat unlivable. Yes we can do both. I still think it’s stupid to place human spaceflight on a pedestal. It’s putting the cart before the horse.
- ginkgotree 6mo agoFrom here on the space coast of Florida: GODSPEED THE CREW OF ARTEMIS II
- longislandguido 6mo agoI find it interesting the MSM is too busy sperging out about Trump to not treat this as page-three news and place it below the cut. It's also the first woman and black guy to go to the moon, for those keeping score at home.
- fny 6mo agoTrump scored an own goal. Military conflict tends to hijack the front page.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo agoWhy do this? Why look to space and understand Earth's smallness? So we can understand reality as Carl Sagan explains in his pale blue dot speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
- areoform 6mo agoThere are tons of comments here that say, "this could have been a robot." And no, it really couldn't have. The best of humanity is remarkably capable as compared to the best physical machines / robots. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22/212515 https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf > “the expert evidence we have heard strongly suggests that the use of autonomous robots alone will very significantly limit what can be learned about our nearest potentially habitable planet” (Close et al. (2005; paragraph 70). > > Putting it more bluntly, Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, has written: > > “[t]he unfortunate truth is that most things our rovers can do in a perfect sol [i.e. a martian day] a human explorer could do in less than a minute” (Squyres, 2005, pp. 234-5). Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times. But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ – and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity – for exploration is much harder. Healthy, smart humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home. So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.
- gus_massa 6mo agoThey are not going to land on the Moon! They are just going to sit in a can for two weeks and take photos. (OK. Tthe can is on top of a lot of burning explosive material and if they don't aim correctly they will get in a weird trajectory that will kill them. Not for the faint of heart.) I'm not sure if they can override the commands send from Earth, but turning on and off the engines like in the Apollo XIII movie is like 100 times less accurate than the automatic orders. It's not 1969, now computer can play chess and aim to go around the Moon better than us. Also, there is still Artemis III to test the live support equipment with humans inside, before Artemis IV that is spouse to attempt landing on the Moon.
- _trampeltier 6mo agoEven I'm a big space fan, at moment I just can enjoy anything that comes from USA. I just can't applause to a super bully.
- pc86 6mo agoWhat a sad, disappointing instinct. It completely divorced from reality to assume that "enjoy[ing] anything that comes from [the] USA" implies any sort of political allegiance to whoever happens to sit in the Oval office at that particular point in time. There's no way you're "a big space fan" if the first thing you think of when you see a rocket launch that was announced 9 years is Donald Trump.
- boringg 6mo agoThat's your own thing. Think about it to applause the dedicated work of people who have spent their life building these missions and have to do this work through multiple different administrations.
- chinathrow 6mo agoRange is go after they worked to verify the FTS. Great news.
- vibe42 6mo agoMild Space Weather: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ Moderate geomagnetic storm watch until April 2.
- jgord 6mo agoRegardless of whether this particular mission is perfectly planned, this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement. It is a noble endeavor - science, engineering and peaceful exploration hold the keys to our survival and prosperity. It is also important psychologically to our survival - a reminder there is a bigger pie, that we can solve hard problems, that progress can be made, that competence and education counts, as does courage, and that we can work together for a common cause. This is the best of America, and for a while we can be proud of the human race.
- lapcat 6mo ago> this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement. How do you figure? The previous Moon missions certainly didn't accomplish that.
- rhubarbtree 6mo agoSparked the environmental movement, to name but one major impact.
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoAlso wrt. "climate mismanagement", pretty much all tools we get to measure climate exist because of space program, and many require it to function.
- 113 6mo agoOkay well we have those already and it hasn't really changed anything.
- TeMPOraL 6mo agoDisagree about the change. Even the fact that you know and care enough to argue this on-line is a change that can be attributed to space missions - and it's even more true about the overall global conversation about climate situation, and all activities taken to help with it. These things do take time though.
- sandworm101 6mo agoKSP irl. I still dont know how they keep the framerate so high with so many parts.
- LightBug1 6mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- sgt 6mo agoLiftoff! The planning that went behind this is mind boggling. Well done
- parpfish 6mo agoI can’t deploy a stupid little app at work without something breaking. Im impressed when people can build something so complex that works on the first try.
- mrbonner 6mo agoGodspeed AI-I
- reimertz 6mo agowatched this with teary eyes. it truly shows what we can do when we come together and challenge ourselves for the greater good of humanity.
- anonymars 6mo agoA real bright spot compared to lately. The messages of positivity and comradery in the live stream were a nice contrast (That being said, I can't believe they cut to people on the ground during SRB separation!) edit: here's better footage from Everyday Astronaut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsSRRBMNoc&t=24512s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsSRRBMNoc&t=24512s
- hagbard_c 6mo agoIt was probably deemed a relatively high-risk moment which they did not want to broadcast in case of failure like it was when the Challenger mission exploded.
- exitb 6mo agoStill an odd choice. It is what it is. It’s a fairly risky mission and they chose to go ahead with that. Yet they avert their eyes, like a child watching a scary scene in a movie. Like it’s somehow ok to actually risk lives of four people, but not ok to televise that.
- Electricniko 6mo agoNASA had another feed that was just the view of the launch from Kennedy Space Center, no commentary. It was a few seconds ahead of the main broadcast, so it seems they already had a delay built in for the masses.
- dryarzeg 6mo agoI certainly missed that one. Is it available somewhere recorded? If it is, can you please send a link to it? I'm sorry if I'm asking something stupid, it's just that I can't find anything like that and I also want to see this badly.
- nodesocket 6mo agoThe SpaceX cameras of live launches are way better. This NASA stream is mostly all computer generated art after the initial pad launch. Hardly any live space feeds from the ship.
- nodesocket 6mo agoThe lack of NASA live feeds from space is very disappointing. Our tax dollars at work.
- randomNumber7 6mo agoSpaceX can also reuse their rockets by landing them backwards.
- xeromal 6mo agoI don't think I'll ever not get chills when watching a crewed launch. Godspeed!
- 0xffff2 6mo agoI do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
- Blackthorn 6mo agoLet's not jinx them; let them get home safe before we take a victory lap.
- oofbey 6mo agoExactly. The heat shield problems and lack of full disclosure are quite troubling.
- cyanydeez 6mo ago[flagged]
- bradhe 6mo agoI have a really hard time telling if this is despite the current administration’s best efforts, because the current administration’s policies, or just an artifact of government inertia. Top level: Super excited to witness this in my lifetime. Edit: Also, my 40 years of life leads me towards the latter category.
- ls612 6mo agoNASA has been well treated by both parties in general, with their budget rising faster than inflation most years. This administration also appointed Isaacman to be the NASA administrator which I think is a 10/10 choice for that job.
- ryandrake 6mo agoAll of NASA's climate work is under attack by the current administration.
- kiernanmcgowan 6mo ago"We have a beautiful moon rise, we're heading right at it" got me a little choked up. Here's to the ever unfolding adventure of mankind.
- ed_mercer 6mo agoOrbiter, the space simulation predecessor to KSP, has exactly such a mission where you see the moon in front of you as you ascent into the sky.
- LorenDB 6mo agoAnd NASA proves that it's still got game!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- y1n0 6mo agoReally it’s all the primes and sub contractors. NASA is more like a management layer. The difference between this and what commercial space companies do comes down to who’s paying and what’s the penalty for poor performance. Not much motivation to get things done in a timely manner with cost-plus programs.
- mrcwinn 6mo agoI’m so glad they lifted off safely. I hope they re-enter safely too.
- fsloth 6mo agoLongest trip since 1972. 54 years. I hope we as humanity never stop again. Good luck!
- IshKebab 6mo ago[flagged]
- spike021 6mo agoIt's hard enough to train a camera on race cars speeding by at 250+ kilometers an hour.
- thombat 6mo agoBut it isn't speeding by, it's heading away following a closely predetermined trajectory. A better analogy would be filming a high-altitude aircraft flying away from you, using a gear-driven tripod mount.
- mobilefriendly 6mo agoSpaceX manages it for their launches
- exitb 6mo agoThey also launch every 2-3 days. They’ve just had so much opportunity to perfect that.
- dmix 6mo agoSpaceX also has Starlink which helps provide live video feeds on the ships and also higher bandwidth for telemetry. https://www.spacevoyaging.com/news/2024/02/08/now-we-know-how-spacex-can-livestream-falcon-9s-landing/ https://www.spacevoyaging.com/news/2024/02/08/now-we-know-ho...
- ssl-3 6mo agoIt is hard, but Everyday Astronaut had a manually-operated camera with a 2,000mm lens that captured everything from engine start all the way through a reasonably-clear view of SRB separation. In 4k, at 720fps. (I didn't bother with watching the NASA feed.)
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoApril 6: flyby April 10: splashdown After that, the exciting work will be in Starship making LEO and testing propellant transfer (a humanity first) [1] and Blue Origin testing its rocket and lunar lander [2], both scheduled for 2026, to enable Artemis II (EDIT: III), currently scheduled—optimistically, in my opinion—for next year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starship_launches#Future_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starship_launches#Futu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1
- aethelraed 6mo ago[dead]
- mulmen 6mo agoThis mission is Artemis II. Is Artemis III the one with a lander?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> Is Artemis III the one with a lander? Not anymore. Artemis III is now a LEO systems check [1]. Comparable to Apollo 9. (Side note: when did we switch from Arabic to Roman numerals?) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III
- fluidcruft 6mo agoI don't know but the rockets and missiles have done that (Saturn V, Minuteman III, etc)
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- xattt 6mo agoThere’s definitely “notation-fluidity” in Apollo mission patches. 10 is Roman, 11 is Arabic, 12 & 13 are Roman again.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- bluGill 6mo ago[flagged]
- briandoll 6mo agoThis is the first live launch I've seen on TV (well, YouTube in this case) since the Challenger disaster. Was a nice relief to see this one go so smoothly.
- hagbard_c 6mo agoYou never watched any of the SpaceX launches? The first landing attempts? The massive explosions or 'RUD' - rapid unscheduled disassembly - events? The epic launch and synchronous landing of the twin Falcon Heavy side boosters? Why not? Maybe you're not interested in space launches, in that case I understand. Otherwise I wonder why you did not follow SpaceX in its path to reusable rocketry.
- hagbard_c 6mo agoOK, the down-votes were the answer I more or less expected. Sad, really. Sad to see how some of the supposedly intelligent denizens of this site are incapable of separating the aspirational from the personal, how they can not marvel at the achievements of a company like SpaceX only because they are supposed to hate everything the leader of that company does. Also sad to see that the down-voters - or single down-voter with a few accounts - again down-voted all my recent - totally unrelated - posts. Grow up, man-child, it is high time.
- hagbard_c 6mo ago...rinse... ...repeat...
- deadbabe 6mo agoIf the crew were to be lost into deep space or something, is there a protocol for self euthanization?
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoThey will be in a free return orbit so that can’t happen - just other bad things.
- okdood64 6mo agoWhat’s the margin of error on a free return orbit burn though? Isn’t there a scenario of being pointed slightly in the wrong direction or burning for too long throwing them off?
- sd9 6mo agoMinutes after launch they reached "ten thousand miles per hour". That's 2.78 miles per second. Nuts. No doubt the speeds go even higher later too. I'm sure people here are already familiar with the speeds these things go, but that's the first time I've confronted a fact like that and it blew me away.
- devilbunny 6mo agoI knew someone who knew someone, so I got to see STS-133 from the VIP area. Nine minutes after launch, it was in orbit. Nine minutes.
- colechristensen 6mo agoYup, that's how long it takes. There are a bunch of competing requirements and 9 minutes to orbit is the sweet spot, you can't change it much in either direction. If you go slower you waste all of your fuel just holding yourself up against gravity ("gravity drag" which is a bit of a tongue in cheek engineering term) If you go much faster you're accelerating too hard for your passengers or your structure. To understand gravity drag think about the rocket firing just hard enough to hover 1 meter above the pad, you burn out all your fuel in 10 or 15 minutes and go nowhere... In the other direction if you want to accelerate harder you need to make your structure stronger so you need to burn more fuel per second and have to displace some fuel in exchange for more structure and you keep doing that until you're so heavy you can't produce any more acceleration and you're all engine and structure and no fuel.
- devilbunny 6mo agoI get the physics and engineering intellectually, but it’s very different to be standing there, still watching the smoke clear, and hear the announcement.
- kypro 6mo agoI was thinking the exact same thing when they announced the speed. I assume the top speed of Artemis will be at least double that too...
- randomNumber7 6mo agoThere was an interesting thread on HN yesterday about the safety of the heat shield. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043
- curiousgal 6mo ago[flagged]
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- xeromal 6mo agoSometimes we need to disconnect from the internet and realize we can't solve all the world's problems. The best thing you can do is solve things in the communities you are in. The entire world's problems is too much for one human.
- taurath 6mo agoThere’s not a lot of sweet left in the world of bitter. But there are far more people that want peace than war, and the powerful are not as protected and immune from concequences as they think.
- general_reveal 6mo agoWell. You are getting down voted but here I am in later stages in life watching this Moon launch, and unlike other times in past, I didn’t feel any inspiration. Honestly, it’s a waste of money. That’s my final answer, there’s kids that need food. I am no longer inspired by this stuff. I’ve seen enough advanced technology for many lifetimes, we need something else as a species (more of that humanity thing).
- Trasmatta 6mo ago> Honestly, it’s a waste of money. That’s my final answer, there’s kids that need food NASA has a tiny budget - 0.35% of the US Federal budget. Kids aren't going hungry because of Artemis II. There are much better candidates to be upset about in that regard.
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- rcv 6mo agoDoes anyone know of a good status tracker for the mission? I'm watching the official feed on Youtube and it's great for commentary but I'd love a live Kerbal-style UI I could poke around.
- rcv 6mo agoAh, I found the official one: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ Unfortunately the UI seems pretty busted. The tour is trying to point out a bunch of UI elements that don't exist and the mouse interaction just doesn't work at all.
- spullara 6mo agoHere is the official one from NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ but I admit that it isn't what I would really want.
- sprobertson 6mo agoThe official one doesn't work for me on mobile but this does: https://artemistracker.com/ https://artemistracker.com/
- em-bee 6mo agobut it's not accurate. it claims TLI (trans lunar injection burn) happens two hours after launch when in reality that is going to happen about a day after launch
- em-bee 6mo agothat issue has been fixed. in the graph orion is now shown at the correct approximate location and the time for the TLI has been updated.
- stephenhuey 6mo agoJust listened on the radio driving the kids to swim class! I'm curious, does anyone think the show For All Mankind provided any peer pressure or influence to help propel NASA to this moment?
- BuyMyBitcoins 6mo agoIt’s a fun idea to consider, but I suspect the true push is due to how capable China is proving to be in spaceflight. They’ve got plans for a manned mission to the moon and are eyeing the same craters at the Lunar South Pole as we are. While the outer space treaty forbids claiming territory in space, it doesn’t forbid building a base and putting a “Keep Out” sign on the airlock.
- lnx01 6mo agoI doubt it, SLS and Artemis predate 'For all mankind' by many years.
- y1n0 6mo agoTrue but they have been drag-assing for years.
- y1n0 6mo agoI think spacex and now blue origin lit a fire under their butts.
- mrexroad 6mo agoAs a huge fan of Ron D. Moore’s shows, and especially For All Mankind, I don’t see how it could possibly have (or have had) any meaningful impact on NASA or NASA-adjacent efforts. Especially Artemis.
- KnuthIsGod 6mo ago[flagged]
- sollewitt 6mo ago[flagged]
- akerl_ 6mo agoIf your read is that this is a vanity project, I guess that's a take.
- beeflet 6mo agoIt's more of a DEI/Jobs program
- SecretDreams 6mo agoIt's being marketed like it's a vanity project, but it's not. This has been in the works for some time and so many people have given everything they have to make it happen. Completely agree with you re: climate change being an existential threat, but disagree with your hyperbole about the US being the worst offender. The US should lead because they are supposed to be a world leader - but they alone are not singularly or in majority responsible for climate change. Mixing fact and hyperbole together weakens your overall message.
- sollewitt 6mo agoI didn’t mean to be hyperbolic, for carbon footprint I’m looking at cumulative footprint since 1750 and not only recent annual footprint. I’m glad we agree, I take your notes.
- raptor99 6mo agoYou are right. China should be ashamed of itself.
- bluescrn 6mo agoThe coming nuclear winter will solve climate change.
- partiallypro 6mo agoThe politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.
- simplyluke 6mo agoI pray to never reach a point of cynicism where my response to watching humans leave the planet on a rocket is immediately "meh, whatever, here's my political complaint of the week" Global hunger's a great example. When we last left the moon (1972) 35% of the global population was undernourished. Today it's ~8%. Optimism is a choice, and generally a more rational one. That doesn't mean we don't have real issues.
- throwaway132448 6mo agoIn many ways I agree with you, but you have to acknowledge that things change when the _benefits_ of going forwards are funnelled to fewer and fewer people. That is what colors people’s view of what is happening in the way you are seeing.
- fortran77 6mo ago[flagged]
- GaryBluto 6mo agoIt is very disconcerting to see so many completely disregarding incredible technological innovation because other problems exist, especially on HN. If we were not allowed to progress technology until everybody is 100% free of suffering, we'd never be able to create technological that may potentially lead to the alleviation of suffering. It all feels very crabs in a bucket - "I don't feel happy so nobody else should, and nothing should happen unless it is things that directly, immediately do things I want and solve problems I care about."
- matthewmcg 6mo agoIt’s interesting to compare to Apollo 8 (circumlunar Apollo mission). That mission culminated a year that saw escalation of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
- Gagarin1917 6mo agoThe Apollo 8 book I read once ended with a letter to NASA thanking them and saying “You saved 1968.”
- quink 6mo agoIt was a telegram, not a letter. As also immortalised at the end of the 1968 episode of ‘From The Earth To The Moon’, attributed there to an apparently fictitious person.
- dmix 6mo agoIt's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet. Virtue signalling etc.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet Is it more popular? Or is it just easy? Dismissive “reads” are done by the picosecond; there is just much more to choose from than constructive thinking, which takes work.
- GreenSalem 6mo agoWaiting to see what happens to the heat shield on reentry... https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-raise-stakes-for-nasas-artemis-ii-moon-mission-275853 https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-rais...
- kokanee 6mo ago> the agency said it was confident that a change to the re-entry trajectory would be more than adequate to offset any spalling issues. Somewhat confusingly, they also announced their intention to switch to a new heat shield design, starting with Artemis III. It's fine to be concerned, but this kind of take is why public agencies are damned no matter what they do. In the private sector, operating with the suboptimal resources you have while working on a better iteration is standard practice, even in industrial settings. But when you're a public organization, if anyone can find anything that is less than 100% optimal, the same people who complain about how slow the public sector is will complain that you're cutting corners, or that you're inept.
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoIn the private sector, risking astronaut’s lives when you know a problem exists can result in jail time - what will happen to NASA?
- sarchertech 6mo ago1. The entire mission is “risking astronaut’s lives”. 2. NASA employees don’t have criminal immunity.
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoWho went to jail for the STS deaths?
- 6mo ago
- Singletail 6mo agoAs someone who watched the Apollo 11 launch live on TV, this is no less awe-inspiring. This transcends nations, languages, and politics. This is of and by all humanity. (If anyone managed to get the perfect shot of the spark-filled separation feed, please share. That was... incredible.)
- darepublic 6mo agoGod speed
- joeblubaugh 6mo agoGood luck to the astronauts https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....
- mikelitoris 6mo agoGods peed
- GMoromisato 6mo agoI get that not everyone, even on HN, thinks crewed-spaceflight is worth doing. And I certainly get that launching people to the moon doesn't makes up for the latest crap thing Trump is doing to the world. But I really think that space exploration could be the thing that unites everyone, and the more unified we are--the more we feel like we have a common purpose--the easier it will be to solve our other problems. I for one pledge to support space exploration (crewed or uncrewed) regardless of who is running the government. I will cheer Artemis II even though I voted against Trump. I will cheer if/when China sends people to the moon. I will even cheer if Russia does something cool in space.
- armanj 6mo ago[flagged]
- keithnz 6mo agogiven you are new, check out HNs guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- vjvjvjvjghv 6mo agoThe camera work was just terrible. They really need to learn from SpaceX how to do this right. Minus the obnoxious cheering. SpaceX does these beautiful drone shots and live telemetry so well. Considering that each SLS launch costs in the billions it would be nice to do a little better on production I felt the commentary during the launch also wasn't good. And I am not too interested in hearing from some Hollywood people before the launch
- mvkel 6mo agoI love listening to the cheering because it really drives home what an accomplishment it is for the people who work on it. Starlink launches don't get the cheering, so it's not like it's a laugh track.
- wileydragonfly 6mo ago[flagged]
- 3RTB297 6mo agoI thought the same thing - hopefully by the time Artemis III launches they'll remember the gaps and blank screens from this launch. Even the live telemetry model at the core stage separation seemed to not match what the on-board cameras showed. Artemis I's camera work was better. Why???
- techteach00 6mo agoFinally something interesting. I'm familiar with dead Internet theory, the whole Lindy thing where culture died in the early 2010's etc. Economy stinks, global violence everywhere. Going back to the moon is really acceptable distraction. I mean that seriously. I know it's technically not new but it will be amazing to see modern video and photographic pictures of the moon close up.
- sqircles 6mo agoI'm having trouble finding a simple tracker of whereabouts the craft is at in terms of the path to the moon? Might just be me but the fancy 3-d rendering thing on the NASA page just shows me a close-up of the craft and not much else?
- ValidateKorea 6mo ago[dead]
- SwuduSusuwu 6mo ago[dead]
- ValveFan6969 6mo ago[dead]
- rayiner 6mo agoPraying for these astronauts to have a safe return. The heat shield stuff has me really rattled. These folks are really brave to go through with this.
- HDBaseT 6mo agoDid anyone else even know this was happening?
- MattCruikshank 6mo agoAn okay unity app for tracking: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/ https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/
- Kuyawa 6mo agoI'd like to see views of the moon and the earth from the spaceship on every hour. Is there any link for that?
- DanDeBugger 6mo agoNeil Armstrong 2: A New Moon?
- Ethanalker 6mo ago[dead]
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- mmaunder 6mo ago24/7 coverage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs
- bch 6mo agoIs anybody aware of audio-only coverage of this mission? I'd have loved to just tuned into most of the launch like radio, rather than having my unwatched youtube running.
- Nick_Finney 6mo ago[flagged]
- DubOfWeek 6mo agoThat was awesome! it's better to invest in human progress than in war
- ju571nk3n 6mo ago[flagged]
- botiomez 6mo agoAfter spending years as a kid seeing footage of these things on TV outside living outside of America, I finally got to see it live! Brought my camera and got a few good pics too! Very invested in this entire mission! Someone behind me kept whisper crying "That's it! Go baby, go baby go" like it was his child and was encouraging them on. Very emotional, loved it. Also when that engine sparked it really hit me just how many hours of deep thought and technical innovation goes not only into getting us as humanity to that point, but also the crews at NASA planning, building and executing these missions
- mileycyrusXOXO 6mo agoThat’s awesome! I want to go watch IV in person
- laweijfmvo 6mo agoI watched the livestream and at one point (several points, i guess) they cut to the crowd watching and the thing that stood out the most to me was that every single person was staring at their phone pointed at the rocket. Nevermind the fact that better quality videos will live forever on the internet available to anyone who wants to watch them, but I cannot fathom having that opportunity and not watching it with my own eyes with my full attention.
- s99850 6mo ago[flagged]
- shreyssh 6mo ago[flagged]
- siruwastaken 6mo agoI really hope the report from a few days ago about the heatshield not sustaining earth reentry does not turn out to be true.
- user_7832 6mo agoI desperately hope so too. It will be absolutely terrible if there were to be an issue, and moreso if people can say “We knew about it beforehand but still went ahead”.
- kunley 6mo agoSomebody needs to say that: What was the AI usage in this endeavour? Zero, huh?
- maximgeorge 6mo ago[dead]
- amai 6mo agoKelon Mus is surprised that the rocket didn't explode at all. “You can't learn anything from a rocket that doesn't explode,” Mus said.
- Blackstrat 6mo agoIt's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.
- amai 6mo agoWhat did Apollo 8 accomplish more than Artemis 2?
- Blackstrat 6mo agoApollo 8 actually went into orbit around the moon. This flight is more similar to Apollo 13, hopefully without the life threatening problems. The risk on this flight is far less than on Apollo 8 obviously. Still, it's more than time for the US to step up and have an actual space program. The shuttle program and ISS fall far short of the trajectory of the US space program at the end of 1972.
- monegator 6mo agowhat about the fact that it is a joint effort between different agencies?
- Blackstrat 6mo agoDoesn't mean a thing in the grand scheme of things. Nor does having a woman, a minority, and a Canadian. Those are irrelevant. It makes some people feel good and others virtuous, but it doesn't further the mission one iota. Show me technical accomplishments, regardless of the crew composition and the agencies involved. The crew can all be women or minorities, I don't care. I'm looking for progress and accomplishments, not virtue signaling.
- monegator 6mo agobeing european, i'm really glad of the role that ESA has in Artemis. ESA is bringing new tech to the table.