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Lunar Flyby
- sachahjkl 6mo agowhat about a video ?
- ranger207 6mo agoI have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspiring, and it proves to me that maybe we can still do hard things
- jameslk 6mo ago> $4 billion per launch lol The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day (~$3 billion/day[0]). Not that adding to the debt helps at all, but the old proverb about being penny wise and pound foolish seems relevant 0. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951
- ToucanLoucan 6mo agoAlso we spend that much every 4 days we're in Iran, and that's only ONE of our neo-colonialist irons in the fire, as it were. If you want to make the US financially solvent, cut defense. Defense LAPS every other budget category. Whether you want to take the conservative position on why that is (our allies freeload on our defense spending) or the Progressive one (the U.S. is an empire in decline and every major empire through history has spent vast sums to maintain itself why would the U.S. be different) doesn't change the fact that our military budgets exceed over a dozen other nations' combined, the vast majority of whom are allies.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Jblx2 6mo ago>Defense LAPS every other budget category. I suppose it matters how you lump things, but for federal spending: - $678 B, Social Security - $478 B, Medicare - $425 B, Net Interest - $419 B, Health - $412 B, National Defense - $320 B, Income Security - $184 B, Veterans Benefits and Services - $75 B, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services - $53 B, Transportation - $43 B, Administration of Justice - $15 B, Other https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- fwip 6mo agoI think the common miscommunication here is that defense is the largest part of the US discretionary budget (about half overall), but that doesn't include those non-negotiable things like Social Security, Medicare, etc .
- actionfromafar 6mo agoTrump doesn't want to do Medicare etc anymore. The states can do that now.
- anon84873628 6mo ago"Please note: Values displayed are outlays, which is money that is actually paid out by the government. Other sources, such as USAspending, may display spending as obligations, which is money that is promised to be paid, but may not yet be delivered." The Biden administration's FY2025 defense budget request was $850 billion for the DoD, with the total national security budget reaching over $895 billion. The FY2026 proposal submitted by the Trump admin is 1.5 trillion for DoD.
- JKCalhoun 6mo agoNot all of those are discretionary spending? Maybe not equivalent to include, for example, Social Security.
- shimman 6mo ago
- typeofhuman 6mo ago> LAPS every other budget category. Except for social security, health, medicare, debt interest
- icegreentea2 6mo agoThe absolute cost isn't the problem, it's the value that we're getting from it. SLS and Artemis are both incredibly expensive and ramshackle programs, and regardless of how bad the rest of the USG might be in terms of their cost, or value, if you are a true space fan and a true American space fan, you should want this little corner of humanity to hold itself to a higher standard. Acceptance of over costing and under delivering is exactly why the US is stuck with SpaceX as its prime space launch provider. It's only through the miracle of the vanity of billionaires that there's even a realistic second choice (Blue Origin) that might develop. It's also this type of attitude that let's us be in a situation where we honestly don't know how well the heat shield will work on reentry (SLS launches are so expensive, and so slow to build and prep to launch, that we cannot fit in a uncrewed mission between 1 and 2 to test or validate fixes or models). If Artemis as a program succeeds, it will be despite the incredible graft, pork, and ass covering, not because of it. I want Artemis to succeed because the achievement will be beautiful and amazing, and I want everyone to be safe and sound. I want Artemis to fail, to force a reckoning. I still believe that America has great things to offer to the world, but it's not going to be able to do that by muddling it's way through and cobbling together random pork filled programs into a vaguely inspiring shape.
- trothamel 6mo agoThis is about to change. New NASA administrator Isaacman has redone the Artemis program. The changes were announced at the Ignition event a few weeks ago: https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ If you read one thing, read the sides on building the moon base: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-the-moon-base.pdf?emrc=69d5956c1ab7e https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-t... The goals it to fly often - adding a SLS launch to 2027 and a second launch to 2028. This drops the cost-per-launch, which is mostly fixed. It redoes SLS to make it less expensive and more capable. It moves the lunar space station down to the surface of the moon. And it's budgeted at $10B/3 years, which fits into NASA's budget. Isaacman took the Artemis program and fixed it. The reckoning came, and it's looking good.
- icegreentea2 6mo ago
- monkpit 6mo ago> The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day Spends, or accrues?
- bruckie 6mo agoSame thing (for now, at least). The U.S. has only defaulted a handful of times, none that I'm aware of since 1971.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- dogemaster2026 6mo ago[flagged]
- pavon 6mo agoWe spend more on debt interest than we spend on the military or anything really other than social security. That isn't a useful comparison anymore.
- system2 6mo ago[flagged]
- Fourier864 6mo agoOk I realize you're making a point, but 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year, that's like half of the US GDP
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year At SLS prices, yes. Falcon Heavy runs at $141mm per launch; 3,650 launches would cost half a trillion.
- system2 6mo agoNot as much, but we were okay to spend $12T on the Iraq war.
- sublinear 6mo agoThe longer term value of having moon outposts for observation, mining, etc. will pay off massively. This is way bigger than just putting people on the moon or hubris. It's the prerequisite for everything we've also said about Mars. Elon just muddied the waters so much that people are so negative about anything else.
- chrismcb 6mo agoIgnoring the fact that we aren't using money for rocket fuel (that is people are benefitting from us spending that money) the potential upside is immense. There are a time of resources available in the asteroids and a moon base makes mining those resources easier and cheaper.
- moralestapia 6mo ago>we can still do hard things Absolutely! What do you have in mind?
- delta_p_delta_x 6mo ago> $4 billion per launch This is not a lot of money on a nation-state scale. It's equal to giving every person in the US about US$12.
- dogemaster2026 6mo agoNewsom, Mamdani, please stay away.
- dbvn 6mo ago*taking* $12 from every person in the US... But I still think it's worth it.
- dogemaster2026 6mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> There's no track laid Wow, you aren't kidding [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_High-Speed_Rail#CP_4_(Tulare/Kern_%E2%80%93_Poplar_Avenue) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_Hig...
- lostlogin 6mo ago> $4 billion per launch If Trump gets his $1.5T military budget, that would be about the military spend per day I think?
- jaspa99 6mo agoAnd 9 hours of entitlement spend
- themafia 6mo ago> $4 billion per launch lol $1.3 billion for the mission hardware. $2.2 billion for the single use SLS. $0.5 billion for the launch pad. > watching people go back around the Moon Two of the missions were actually meant to land. One of them still may.
- jaspa99 6mo agoThose $4 billion per launch are about 9 hours of entitlement spending (social security & health programs).
- shimman 6mo agoWhy is entitlement spending bad? Do you think the government should only give welfare to corporations and not people?
- ge96 6mo agoWonder how it feels after being out there, seeing that, then coming back like alright back in the system I go.
- steve_adams_86 6mo agoI imagine it depends a lot on your outlook. Someone could see the system as the thing that made the experience possible in the first place, and feel a lot of gratitude and a sense of possibility as a result.
- typeofhuman 6mo agoYou might like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
- sph 6mo agoI can experience it just by watching these pictures, I cannot imagine how intense it must be for astronauts.
- ge96 6mo agoIt's a movie but I felt it in 2001 Space Odyssey when they show the transition of the bone to space exploration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q
- _august 6mo agoAre full size/larger images available somewhere? 1920x1280px seems low. Edit: Found 'em: https://images.nasa.gov/search?page=1&media=image&yearStart=1920&yearEnd=2026&keywords=Lunar%20Flyby https://images.nasa.gov/search?page=1&media=image&yearStart=...
- spartanatreyu 6mo agoAnd my screensaver folder grows larger...
- dylan604 6mo agoThe external shots seem to just be from the GoPro strapped to a solar panel. Didn't seen anything that looked like the shots from the Nikons onboard. Was hoping for a couple, but I know I'm just being greedy wanting all the pics edit: exif data shows some are from a Nikon. I just want to see them all!!! My greedy line still plays
- tharkun__ 6mo agoHah! Funny how everyone here seems to be thinking the same: They said something about "finally 4k moon rocket images" and the stuff we got in the news was like blurry 800x600 type with lots of JPEG artifacts and such. Even the smallest resolution images I see in the link that the parent edited into their comment have better quality than what news outlets posted. I want TIFFs that takes ages to download and I need to scroll around in/zoom out on!
- dylan604 6mo agoThey will be posted when they get them. Right now, NASA doesn't have them because they're still on the SD cards in the capsule (probably been copied to their PCDs too). There's not a lot of bandwidth to be pushing large RAW files. They have to share the bandwidth with all of the telemetry and comms. They sent some small files down just to make some PR announcements and tease what will be coming.
- 6mo ago
- drfloyd51 6mo agoThe solar eclipse pictures are absolutely beautiful.
- sph 6mo agoI shared some of these pictures with family members that hadn’t even heard of Artemis, and one asked if the blue thing was Mars. I am shook.
- ramesh31 6mo agoThere needs to be a word for that feeling of dread you get when reminded of just how feeble and weak the average human mind is, and how tenuous of a grasp on reality most people have.
- sho_hn 6mo agoMaybe I'm an eternal optimist, but sounds to me like they actually tried to put themselves into space, made the assumption that anything visible past the moon must be further out and were left with "wait, I thought it was supposed to be red?" Uninformed, but not ignorant and perhaps even interested. I hope your response started with "No, actually, even cooler: ..." and you made a space fan that day.
- i_love_retros 6mo agoHave you talked to most people about space? Absolute disinterest. You're optimism is wasted I'm afraid.
- dboreham 6mo agoI'd be genuinely curious to see a list of the things they had heard of, since Artemis has been in the news constantly for a month. E.g. have they just not heard of anything (consume no news), or are they in some news silo that excludes rockets, and if so what other things does it include? We may be missing something important that we've never heard of!
- dylan604 6mo agoIt just goes to show how normal space flight is compared to the Apollo era. All the way up to Apollo 11, people stopped what they were doing to watch. Apollo 13 grabbed some attention with the near disaster. The first Shuttle missions were watched, but people quickly lost interest. Even this going back to the moon was nothing new to the average person. When people claim it was all over the news seems like someone in an echo chamber. It might have been in your news feeds, but I doubt it was as predominate as you might think. If your "news" feed is nothing but influencers and celebrities, then NASA probably never even interrupts their feeds
- cruffle_duffle 6mo agoThese things are so damn cool!
- jflessau 6mo agoJust wanted to say how moving I find these pictures. Proof of what humanity is capable of :)
- suzzer99 6mo agoI hope they listened to Dark Side of the Moon on the flyby.
- arduanika 6mo agoMatter of fact, it's all dark.
- ahazred8ta 6mo agoIt can be any colour you like.
- mememememememo 6mo agoLuckily the far side of the moon wasn't the dark side of the moon on this trip.
- NooneAtAll3 6mo agoit mostly was, it looks like it's full moon
- Almondsetat 6mo agoWe're so not accustomed to moon pictures taken with "normal" cameras. These almost look like 3D renders to me, it's incredible
- dylan604 6mo agoWhy is normal in quotes? Do you mean visible light vs filtered monochrome with false-color outputs or infrared/radio/x-ray like some other telescopes use? Would that be the abnormal you are referring? The Apollo images were taken with Hasselblad film cameras that were "normal" cameras[0]. [0]https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/hasselblad-in-space/ https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/hasselblad-in-space...
- oliyoung 6mo agoI think they mean "consumer" or "off the shelf" as opposed to "custom build for the mission", we've seen iPhone and GoPro photos
- dylan604 6mo agoWhat's custom built? They're using stock Nikon bodies, and as you've said iPhone and GoPros. Where's the confusion?
- linzhangrun 6mo ago[flagged]
- dylan604 6mo agoI understand what cameras were used. I'm asking why normal was in quotes. What else would there have been?
- mememememememo 6mo agoA camera you can order on Amazon in the next 5 minutes
- madrox 6mo agoThere is something uncanny about the bandwidth and quality of all the artifacts coming from this mission. I've subsisted on photos from the Apollo missions and artistic renditions for so long that seeing the modern, high resolution real thing to be quite stirring in a way I didn't expect. It actually does make me believe that the future could be quite cool.
- poszlem 6mo agoYeah, I think we got so accustomed to that analog look that seeing them like this feels almost like viewing a World War I photo in full color and 4K.
- dylan604 6mo agoWe haven't even seen the full quality images yet. They've commented that the live feed from the GoPro is a limited bandwidth because they have to share the bandwidth with running the capsule. The images from the Nikons onboard are just scaled down. My initial guess was from an export specifically to get an early dump to get everyone on the ground chomping at the bit something to see. They'll get the full images when the SD cards splash down. When those are released, I'm expecting quite a few OMG images
- madrox 6mo agoThat’s really exciting!
- zamadatix 6mo agoI wouldn't mind some raw files but I honestly don't think they'll be too strikingly different than these (make sure you're looking at the full 20 MP images which should be several MB, not the 2 MP previews at ~200 KB).
- geerlingguy 6mo agoThe raw files have a ton more dynamic range, however. You could pull out a lot more detail in shadows.
- LorenDB 6mo agoI think my favorite of all these images is https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009287/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009287/. The sheer size difference, while simply a trick of perspective, makes Earth feel tiny and insignificant.
- andrewstuart2 6mo agoYeah, gives me very similar vibes to the famous "pale blue dot."
- aanet 6mo agoSome of my favs: 1. The moon eclipsed, with the Orion capsule (outside POV, from GoPro) - https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009567/art002e009567~orig.jpg https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009567/art002e00... 2. The moon eclipsed, with the Orion capsule, and Earth crescent (outside POV, from GoPro) - https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009567/art002e009567~orig.jpg https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009567/art002e00... 3. Crescent Moon, Crescent Earth (my fav!!) "A New View of the Moon" - https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009287/art002e009287~orig.jpg https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009287/art002e00... 4. Artemis II in Eclipse (new fav!) - https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009301/art002e009301~orig.jpg https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009301/art002e00...
- asimovDev 6mo agoIf you stare at the picture, there's an illusion of the shadow growing and enveloping the moon further. At least for me. Quite neat. Might be something about the eyes focusing on the dark part of the photo?
- dylan604 6mo agoI listened to pretty much the entire fly by yesterday, and I was imagining how I would have spent my time at the windows with a camera. Listening to the comms made me think of that episode from From The Earth to the Moon where they take the astronauts out and give them geology lessons so they could be more productive with their descriptions. I was also very curious of their descriptions during the eclipse where the Earth shine was lighting up the dark side of the moon to such a surreal look they couldn't really describe it. They were even commenting that they didn't feel the photos being taken were doing it justice either. I also was wondering if they will make any modifications to the capsule since covering a window to block the Earth shine caused concern on the ground from some of the readings they were getting. Assuming it was overheating as they redirected air flow to the window. Then again, the following missions won't be so concerned with a single fly by so probably not something they'll address.
- jrmg 6mo agoIt was amazing listening to it in real time. If I had any doubt about crewed missions, this Artemis moon flyby is extinguishing them. Hearing the crew discussing observations with Mission Control, moving cameras around, describing what they see, reacting to events and to curiosity and changing what they’re doing accordingly. And obviously just SO EXCITED to be doing it all. It was just amazing. They’re still live streaming. It’s not as exciting anymore - ‘just’ on the way home now - but you can just put it on in the background and experience a tiny bit of what it’s like to be in the capsule. They’re exercising right now. https://www.youtube.com/live/m3kR2KK8TEs https://www.youtube.com/live/m3kR2KK8TEs
- spike021 6mo agoI've been trying to keep the 24 hour stream on in the background as often as possible. Some of it is silly but it just feels exciting to be able to partake in the experience remotely like this.
- hydrogen7800 6mo ago>that episode from From The Earth to the Moon where they take the astronauts out and give them geology lessons so they could be more productive with their descriptions. My favorite episode of the series and I was thinking of it during Integrity's flyby.
- wishfish 6mo agoZoomed into several of the lunar surface photos and noticed some of the very small impact craters are in a regularly spaced straight line. Looks to me as if a meteorite came in at a shallow angle and basically skipped across the surface. Leaving dimpled craters as it bounced. Looks very similar to rocks skipping on a pond. Am I correct or is there another explanation for these?
- xnx 6mo agoA chain of meteors would strike the surface in a line as the moon moves
- ninkendo 6mo agoA single “rubble pile” asteroid will easily break apart when nearing a celestial body, once it crosses the Roche limit. It will break apart into a perfectly straight line too (at least the impact craters will.) I would guess most of the straight-line series of craters are all caused by something like this.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 6mo agoStrafing fire from an alien warship will leave similar craters, assuming sufficiently large kinetic energy weapons.
- maccam912 6mo agoIf I am understanding correctly you are seeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_chain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_chain which are craters caused by debris blasted out when another crater is formed.
- wishfish 6mo agoThank you! Glad to see there's a Wikipedia article about it. And good to learn the formal name for this formation: "catena" (plural "catenae").
- balajeekalyan 6mo agoReally cool! Artemis III will be even more breathtaking I think https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/
- joemi 6mo agoI started rewatching For All Mankind a week or so before the Artemis II launch, so it's been pretty wild to watch an alt-history about people going to and settling on the Moon and Mars, and then to see real life people just starting to return to the Moon at the same time.
- PedroBatista 6mo agoVery cool pictures, especially those ones backlit by the Sun are something new. ie real photos that we usually only see in sci-fi games or movies. But the real question is: Who of those 4 clogged up the toilet? That's what the public demands to know.
- aosaigh 6mo agoI cannot fathom what it must be like to witness this in-person. The pictures are spectacular but to spend time experiencing it outside the window in your proximity must be overwhelming in the most incredible way.
- SegfaultSeagull 6mo agoCan someone ELI5 how it is one side of the moon is never seen on Earth? The moon orbits and also rotates, does it not?
- written-beyond 6mo agoThe moon is tidally locked to earth, we only ever see one side.
- kshacker 6mo agoIs it 2-way? I guess moon see all around earth, or no?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- johnwalkr 6mo agoIf you are on the near side of the moon[1], you will always see Earth see around Earth as it rotates and as the moon orbits it. You will also see it in different phases, like how we see lunar phases from Earth. If you are on the far side of the moon, you will not see Earth at all as you will always be facing away from it. [1] The Earth does move in the moon's sky a bit. If you are on the near side but getting close to the far side, the Earth will be below the horizon sometimes.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- eterm 6mo agoConsider what it'd mean if there were parts of the Earth that could not be seen from the moon, it would also mean those locations could never themselves see the moon. Ignoring the orbital period implications, I think it'd be bigger news if either US or Europe, or Asia couldn't ever actually see the moon.
- 6mo ago
- irickt 6mo agoThis is the best animation of the trajectory I've seen: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260406.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260406.html
- pkaye 6mo agoSomeone did a nice animation on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNQ7MoL7erI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNQ7MoL7erI
- sandos 6mo agoI really liked this video! Orbits are hard to visualize but I think the choices here were very good.
- geokon 6mo agoIt's interesting that the flights are not timed for when the moon is in the magnetosphere shadow. As far as I could gather it seems they're intentionally exposing astronauts to more radiation to test equipment (maybe with an eye to future Mars missions?). Hard to get hard details from all the press release fluffy https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/noaas-space-weather-mission-protecting-artemis-ii-astronauts-and-society https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/noaas-space-weather-mission...
- matheusmoreira 6mo agohttps://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009286 https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009286 Stunning!
- cogogo 6mo agoAre the bright spots to the lower right in this photo galaxies or just camera artifacts[0]? Unreal photo either way. [0]https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009301/art002e009301~large.jpg https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009301/art002e00...
- dylan604 6mo agoThey said they were able to see a few planets during the eclipse. I know they definitely saw Mars as they were discussing the red color. They saw Venus which was visible in the live feed from the GoPro on the solar panel. IIRC, they were thinking Saturn would have been visible. My guess is the really bright dots are planets. It looks like some horrendous compression artifacts along with some possible lens distortion. My exif app says no exif data in the jpg you linked. Did you come to that image from their website that provides the EXIF to see what lens it was? Nothing looks like a galaxy in the image to me. Edit: After further looking and some zooming into it, I'd say the bright dot closest to the moon is Venus, the next one has a red tint making it Mars, and then the last one would be Saturn with the rings. There might be a couple of galaxies in the upper left corner. I was quick to dismiss and blame on compression. The benefits of not having to shoot through atmosphere. I wouldn't have expected that detail in what I'm assuming to be a fairly fast exposure
- cogogo 6mo agoAppreciate the detailed response. I think it would be a borderline miraculous photo if they are planets aligned in that way. Zooming they look more like artifacts or galaxies to me. I spend a good amount of time looking at planets from earth through binoculars and even with an atmosphere they resolve better than that.
- dylan604 6mo agoI'm pretty sure I'm right about the planets. The planets are aligned that way. If you're experienced looking at them with binocs, you should be aware of that. The line the planets are on is known as the ecliptic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic Also, if you look at the famous family portrait, you'll see they're in a pretty straight line as well https://science.nasa.gov/resource/first-ever-solar-system-family-portrait-1990/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/first-ever-solar-system-fa...
- neverkn0wsb357 6mo agoI wish they would’ve flown by and taken a picture of the Apollo 11 lunar landing site. I think it would’ve been a super cool throwback to the history of lunar exploration; maybe it’s just me but I think it would’ve been really exciting. It would basically be the like visiting a UNESCO (moon?) heritage site.
- CookieTonsure 6mo agoThe main point of the voyage was to see the far side, and also to report on previously-unseen portions of the Moon that hadn't really had human coverage in the past. Since all the Apollo landings were on the near-side of the Moon, they were in fact less accessible to this crew. My disappointment lay chiefly in their L.O.S. periods, because in 2026 why does Earth lack operational satellites that could relay comms from the other side? Or a space optical/radio telescope that would benefit massively from the darkness and shielding of a Moon-sized body? No humans necessary for that. Of course, you couldn't power such a craft with solar power...
- dylan604 6mo ago> because in 2026 why does Earth lack operational satellites that could relay comms from the other side? The moon is not an easy body to orbit. Keeping something in orbit around the moon requires a lot of station keeping which requires a lot of fuel. Once that fuel runs out, the orbit will not be stable. People have talked about trying an Earth-Moon L2 point, but that's not as stable as Sun-Earth L2 where things like JWST are located.
- _moof 6mo agoMostly because there's been very little US activity on the Moon to justify it. Orbiting the Moon can also be a pain - its gravitational field is "lumpy" - but you can manage that by making your orbit bigger (higher). See this paper if you're interested in details as they pertain to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been flying since 2009: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070035736/downloads/20070035736.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070035736/downloads/20... China has a lunar comm relay IIRC, to support some surface operations on the far side.
- ggm 6mo agoodd they don't do a carousel. I get that it's not necessary and minimalism has a joy of it's own, but click-through would be useful.
- ashton314 6mo agoAmaze, amaze, amaze! Loved the Project Hail Mary quote from one of the mission controllers. :) This bright spot in world news has been good for my mental health and general motivation. Thank you NASA!
- cmos 6mo agoWhat a trip. They must all be so excited! I hope they will come back as ambassadors of peace.
- linzhangrun 6mo ago[flagged]
- gasi 6mo agoI built a zoomable collection viewer for all NASA Artemis II + Apollo 8 gallery images at their full original resolutions—nearly 2 gigapixels across 104 images. Spanning 1968 Earthrise to 2026 Earthset: https://zoomhub.net/showcase/photography/nasa https://zoomhub.net/showcase/photography/nasa Try different layouts with L (grid, masonry, spiral, etc.), filter by gallery or camera, WASD/Q/E/Tab to navigate.
- pomian 6mo agoVery cool! Nice work.
- NooneAtAll3 6mo agoI've been thoroughly disappointed in NASA's handling of "public relations" part of the mission every significant achievement point became a publicity stunt of lowest quality, with forced line reads and little practicality I'm eagerly awaiting future engineering challenges and science results - but I'd want NASA to concentrate on that first, and farce show-making second
- dylan604 6mo agoAt one point, they were telling NASA that they didn't have the right words or enough superlatives. I kept waiting for them to quote Contact with "should have sent a poet"
- boguscoder 6mo agoThere’s something off about gps coordinates in EXIF data
- kooshball 6mo agowhich photo has gps in the EXIF?
- ben_yuan 6mo ago[flagged]
- nsim 6mo agoWhat is the licence on these images? I can't seen anything on the site or in the HTML. I've been waiting for a new Earth Rise/Set shot (which is thankfully at least 5568x3712px from a NIKON D5). Edit: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ > You may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages.
- modeless 6mo agoWorks of the US government are not copyrighted.
- habinero 6mo agoThere is none, they're automatically public domain.
- _moof 6mo agoMostly true. There are some restrictions on images containing NASA logos or NASA employees, for example. https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/
- mathgeek 6mo agoOnly the ones not containing the NASA logo or the astronauts are public domain.
- html5cat 6mo agoIt's a bit tricky to navigate between all the amazing photos NASA Artemis crew captured so I vibe coded (Codex) a simple site with full screen full res view and arrow navigation: https://nasa.puma.tech https://nasa.puma.tech feedback welcome
- suzzer99 6mo agoThat's awesome. Since you asked for feedback, can you vibecode up a thumbnail view? Also I see a bunch more images on the NASA site. How are you pulling them?
- html5cat 6mo agoyeah, this was a one time sync. which source do you prefer for full list? and for thumbnail view, would you like a T shortcut or any other button?
- suzzer99 6mo agoThe thumbnail view looks great. I like the extra info. It's tough to remember the commands for thumbnail view since you only see them for a second. Maybe a little chicklet that stays in the upper right would help. If I was doing this, I would start in thumbnail view, then go to slide view when an image is clicked. I'd add clickable left or right arrows in addition to the key navigation, since it won't be immediately obvious that the viewer is in slide mode. Maybe an up arrow, and also the escape key, would take the viewer back to thumbnail view (instead of the chicklet I mentioned). As far as the image sync I'm not sure how that works. Maybe NASA has an API where you can filter on keywords? If not you might have to just keep syncining until they're done posting pics of Artemis, and manually curate them. If you're looking for future expansion, you could add other categories too, maybe groups of thumbs based on mission or something.
- html5cat 6mo agoadded more from https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/lunar-flyby/ https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/lunar-flyby/
- asimovDev 6mo agoGorgeous, awe-inspiring photos. Tangentially, did the NASA website move to WordPress? I thought it was Drupal, the Drupal official website even had a case study about nasa.gov. I see wp-content links on the site and there is no Drupal behaviors in JavaScript and I didn't notice any of the usual drupal classes in the source
- sha-3 6mo agoNASA migrated thousands(!) of their sites to WordPress back in 2023. I think it had to do with user-friendliness of the Gutenberg editor.
- asimovDev 6mo agothanks for clearing this up. a bit sad as someone who started out as a Drupal dev. It was hellish as a junior but the overall ecosystem is so expandable and the community is great. At least the Tesla website is still Drupal heh
- hulitu 6mo ago> Lunar Flyby I though they were going _to the moon_, not "flyby". NASA is a pale reminiscent of its former self. Sad.
- _moof 6mo agoThis is a new vehicle, and this is a test flight to work out the kinks before attempting a landing. It's exactly the same way Apollo was done. Go read about Apollo 8.
- voidUpdate 6mo agoThey're "going to the moon" in the same way that going to the drive-through is "going to mcdonalds". I think NASA is still as good as it was, they just don't have unlimited "beat the soviets" budget anymore
- shafyy 6mo agoGod, they must have hated being forced to speak to the president
- voidUpdate 6mo agoSome of these photos look so "fake". Maybe because of how they are lit or the lack of atmospheric distortion, they don't quite looks real (I'm not disputing that they are authentic, they just look a bit weird)
- tokai 6mo agoIts a classic feeling when seeing things there one not normally see. There's a whole conspiracy that the war in Ukraine is fake, because video of combat looks weird compared to movies and video games.
- pavon 6mo agoYeah, it is common for pictures in space to look like simplistic raytraced renderings because the lighting and shadows are so sharp, lacking atmospheric diffusion and scattering.
- juleiie 6mo agoI am really worried about their return entry. I got emotionally invested in the crew, meanwhile there have been voices saying Orion’s heat shield is made of garbagium and tested with undergrad level simplistic physics models. Then I read about the NASA administrator being some sort of “charisma” bravado guy and the government pressures to get to the moon during Trump presidency. How NASA safety standards are somehow 1/10 of the ones they impose on external private companies who would never be allowed to do crew launch with that kind of level of risk. I think I am just going to forget about it for now until I hear about hopefully safe return in mainstream news so I don’t end up with heart attack. They really should take mainly single people without families on these missions imo.
- LLLDP 6mo agoSurpassing Apollo 13’s distance record after so many decades is kind of wild. It really shows how infrequent deep-space human missions have been, despite all the progress in other areas.
- arc_light 6mo ago[dead]
- zkmon 6mo agoWas there any writeup on the actual goals and accomplishments of this mission. I'm sure there is some very valuable scientif8c data and observations done, but what exactly are those (other than 'wow' media)?
- spanjer 6mo agoGetting the public excited also has its place. Also sending humans so far from earth has enough challenges to make it worthwile. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II) has the experiments listed.
- zkmon 6mo ago> sending humans so far ... I see that they travelled 1.6% more distance compared to a tech that was used 56 years ago. If NASA is really excited about this, I think they are having a low news day. I'm sure they must be other goals.
- pknerd 6mo agoFrom Google AI Review: > No, the Artemis II mission will not land on the moon. It is a 10-day crewed, deep-space flyby test flight designed to verify spacecraft systems before future landing missions. The crew will circle the moon before returning to Earth, serving as a critical step toward landing later in the decade. Don't get mad at me. My question is, why did we have to send this mission? This is not the first time we are going to land on the moon, so why this prerequisite?
- assimpleaspossi 6mo agoTo come up to speed and see what still works and what doesn't. To try out the new stuff.
- tw1984 6mo agohonest question - why any talented people would still work for NASA when real projects are from companies like spacex?
- infinity_logesh 6mo agoAmazing ! looks cool!
- sethammons 6mo ago> that's no moon. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/55194334756/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/55194334756/ This is an amazing image.
- dcchambers 6mo agoThe eclipse photos are absolutely jaw-dropping.
- soci 6mo agoWe already have images from the far side of the moon since the 2009's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [1]. In theory, LRO is currently flying at lower orbit than Artemis I mission [2]. Shouldn't the LRO images be better? Maybe NASA has not disclosed all images? Honest question: why the hype with these pictures? [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4109 https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4109 [2] Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) -> ~50 km vs. Artemis I -> ~129 km
- syncsynchalt 6mo agoIt's the difference between buying a postcard of a place you've never been and having a photo you took as a memento.
- nom 6mo agoi choose to believe it is done solely to annoy the flat earthers
- pierrec 6mo agoThey are not shy about publishing LRO data. It looks like this (one for each LRO camera, narrow angle then wide angle): https://data.lroc.im-ldi.com/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M1520481550LE https://data.lroc.im-ldi.com/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR... https://data.lroc.im-ldi.com/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M1520482189CE https://data.lroc.im-ldi.com/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR... Feel free to assemble these into nice composites or 3D renders.
- m3kw9 6mo agoThis is the best shot, as it is shown with the perspective of a person inside the space ship. All the other ones are just high res versions of the Moon pics we've all seen before. https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e012279/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e012279/
- nirav72 6mo agoThat one pic with Solar eclipse is amazing. Especially with the visible stars in the background. it's rare to see a pic from a man missioned with stars being visible in the background.
- HALtheWise 6mo agoTangentially related, but there's a bunch of extremely high-resolution panorama images from the Apollo landings available at this site, for anyone who enjoys this sort of thing. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollopanoramas/ https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollopanoramas/
- liuruyan 6mo ago好清晰呀，真的很期待再次登录月球，不得不说NASA很强