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#Futu...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1

Just wanted to add my grain of positivity here. Godspeed Artemis 2!

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.

Godspeed crew of Artemis II.

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

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/what-are-jpls-lucky-peanut...

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.

40% of people had voted yes. Which is somewhat worrying given the mission plan and hardware.

(If anyone managed to get the perfect shot of the spark-filled separation feed, please share. That was... incredible.)

it's better to invest in human progress than in war

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

54 years.

I hope we as humanity never stop again.

Good luck!

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... // 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). 

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.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

Moderate geomagnetic storm watch until April 2.

https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....

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.

What was the AI usage in this endeavour?

Zero, huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

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."

https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....

https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-rais...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043

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.

I mean I do understand, NASA funding is important to oligarchs. But still.

It's also the first woman and black guy to go to the moon, for those keeping score at home.

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.