Artemis II launch "Go For Burn"

[Kryztian]

The astronauts on the Artemis II mission are scheduled to make their closest approach to the Moon today,
Monday, April 6, 2026, at approximately 7:02 p.m.

Artemis II astronauts will see parts of the moon no human has before. Here’s how
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/06/scien...-flyby-geology

The highly anticipated lunar flyby of the Artemis II mission will take four astronauts on a pioneering survey of the moon Monday, including the rarely glimpsed lunar far side, which always faces away from Earth.

The crew, including NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will see features on the lunar surface that human eyes have never observed before.

In fact, the astronauts have already experienced what mission control in Houston described as “moon joy” as they’ve drawn closer to the silvery orb over the past few days.

Using a camera equipped with a 400-millimeter lens has enabled them, from a distance of more than two-thirds of the way to the moon, to point out specific lunar craters, features and topography — including the vast Orientale Basin, which had never been seen or photographed by humans prior to this mission. The crater, which is 600 miles (965 kilometers) wide, represents a key transition region between the near and far sides of the moon.

Article continues here: https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/06/scien...-flyby-geology

[Isserley]

Posted by Kryztian (here)
The crew, including NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen

Which reminded me of this Mel Brooks parody from the 80s 🫣😂

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZAZhtT-dUyo

[Szymon]

Here's the latest from Artemis II.

[mountain_jim]

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2041...911676771?s=20

The White House
@WhiteHouse

THE ARTEMIS II ECLIPSE.

April 6, 2026.

Totality, beyond Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed. Photo: NASA


https://x.com/BlackwoodBrief/status/...442397695?s=20

[Bluegreen]

Artemis II

(10:08:29) / (1:33)

https://x.com/NASA/status/2041214639988478110

(1:40)

https://x.com/NASAArtemis/status/2041881085424930840

Eclipse glasses – necessary equipment



Moon Eclipses Sun



Orientale Basin

It’s just indescribable. No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing this image in front of us. It is absolutely spectacular, surreal … There’s no adjectives. I’m going to need to invent some new ones, there’s absolutely no words to describe what we are looking at out this window.

- Commander Wiseman

https://earthsky.org/spaceflight/the...n-to-the-moon/

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3nzoPopQ7V0

[ExomatrixTV]

• Spying On Artemis 2 Astronauts Tablet!:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jk1R918MbX4

After Artemis 2 Moon flyby, astronauts wer watching the pictures and they didn't realize we were also zooming on their tablet. What we saw was super weird and suspicious...

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Bluegreen (here)

Eclipse glasses – necessary equipment

Nonsense. Those are obvs 3-D glasses. Who wouldn’t want to see the Moon in 3-D?

Not the standard red and green lenses, NASA is way more fancy! They will deny it, of course, because Never A Straight Answer.

[Ewan]

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)

Posted by Bluegreen (here)

Eclipse glasses – necessary equipment

Nonsense. Those are obvs 3-D glasses.

Is this humour?

Hi res image, you can read clearly what it says on top right glasses.

In addition all the other glasses have an eclipse underway printed on them. Slightly less hi-tech than I would have expected.

[norman]

IMO, it's ALL a joke/show. Here we are in the middle of a 5th generation war and a few pictures of the back of the moon fixate the hypnotic induction back into narrative, narrative, narrative, all over again.

And what a unique narrative it is this time. They've completely abandoned that old 60s style and gone for playing right directly into our pre entrained 'conspiratorial' impulse playing the role of our instinct and masking the real one. I wasn't following this story until I heard about the "pin holes" of light shining out of/from the moon, here.

[sdv]

I asked AI what the purpose of the mission is ...

Crewed Systems Test: The primary goal is to verify that the Orion spacecraft’s life-support, propulsion, and navigation systems function properly with human crewmembers on board, ensuring safety for future missions.
Lunar Flyby and Navigation: The crew will perform a "hybrid cycler" trajectory, manually piloting the spacecraft in Earth orbit and then flying around the Moon to test maneuvering capabilities, testing systems beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in over 50 years.
Deep Space Operations: The mission serves as a test for deep space navigation and communication, including how systems handle the extreme distance (over 250,000 miles from Earth) and communication losses while behind the Moon.
Paving the Way for Artemis III: By proving the hardware and crew capabilities, Artemis II directly enables the future Artemis III mission, which aims to land humans on the lunar surface.
The crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will be the first humans to travel to the vicinity of the Moon since the Apollo program in 1972.

What AI does not list is the PR aspect. The narrative emphasizes that the crew have gone further from the Earth than any other human being (We beat China, so we are the greatest, ever!) and have taken some photos, which are actually nothing that we have not seen before, nor does the mission tell us anything significant about the Moon that we do not already know.

So, did someone lose all the data from the Appollo missions and all the data sent back by rovers trundling around on the Moon's surface and satellites orbiting the Moon? And we have plenty of data from the Space station and the ferrying of people and cargo to and fro to answer all the above questions.

And surely a crucial aspect of building a base and putting people on the Moon is the landing on the Moon and then taking off? And does Artemis have enough space for all the cargo that would be needed?

Thanks to everyone posting on this thread about all that is odd about this mission. At first I wondered if there is a secret aspect to the mission ... placing some kind of AI robotic thing on the Moon or taking some kind of special photographs and measurements at a site where a future Moon base will be built? Or something else?

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Ewan (here)

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)

Posted by Bluegreen (here)

Eclipse glasses – necessary equipment

Nonsense. Those are obvs 3-D glasses.

Is this humour?

Hi res image, you can read clearly what it says on top right glasses.

In addition all the other glasses have an eclipse underway printed on them. Slightly less hi-tech than I would have expected.

Poe’s Law strikes again!

[Ewan]

Well exactly. This conversation has been had before, in a forum where there are readers all over the world many of whom would not have English as a first language it behooves us all to signal humour via a or etc.

Text does not lend itself to facial expression or intonation of speech after all.

[rgray222]

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman with his late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman; craters on the moon as seen from the Orion spacecraft, Monday. Wiseman family via NASA;

The most interesting thing about Artemis II so far is the profound human and emotional moments captured during the mission, particularly when Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen proposed naming a lunar crater after Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, who died in 2020. The crew fell silent, Wiseman wept, and fellow astronaut Christina Koch was seen crying. It was a raw, unscripted moment that underscored the mission’s emotional weight.

Also, the astronauts talked about experiencing the overview effect, which is a cognitive shift reported by astronauts who view Earth from space, characterized by a profound sense of awe, appreciation for the planet's beauty, and a deep feeling of connection to all humanity and the Earth as a single, fragile system. This is almost always a transformative experience that often leads to overwhelming emotion.

Space exploration is more than just an adventure; it is a journey of spiritual awakening. By exploring the stars, we will come to realize that we are all connected at a base level through our own planet Earth. The deeper we venture into space, the stronger this connection becomes. If we fail to recognize and respect the connection that we all share, it is my belief that we will not survive as a species. Ultimately, space exploration is about discovering our spirituality.

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, 4th Edition: https://frankwhiteauthor.com/

[Biocom]

Posted by Adi (here)
As they get closer to the far side of the moon, I’m thinking about Ingo Swann’s book, ‘Penetration’. Wouldn’t it be something if the Orion crew saw some interesting things up there!

Mas se eles viram alguma coisa, não vão poder revelar, o que você acha ?

[Johnnycomelately]

Splashdown in a bit over an hour from this posting.

NASA’s Artemis II Crew Comes Home (Official Broadcast)

NASA
14.6M subscribers

Apr 10, 2026, livestream started ~1825 EDT.

Around the Moon and back. Watch the Artemis II astronauts come home.

NASA's Artemis II mission is splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at about 8:07 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 10 (0007 UTC April 11).

Four astronauts — three from NASA and one from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) — make up the Artemis II crew:
• NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander
• NASA astronaut Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot
• NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist
• Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis II mission specialist

The Artemis II astronauts launched on April 1 for a journey of ten days that took them farther than any humans have traveled from Earth. On their Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, they flew around the Moon, making observations which will help enhance scientific understanding.

Artemis II is the first crewed flight test of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, testing the technologies we'll need for long-term lunar exploration and human missions to Mars.

Read the latest Artemis II mission updates: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/artemis/
Learn more about the mission and why we're going: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nfhDuOHMp0A

[JackMcThorn]

There are no borders in space exploration. This is proof that humanity as a whole could grow past any violent conflicts. A feather in the american cap.

[muxfolder]

Posted by JackMcThorn (here)
There are no borders in space exploration. This is proof that humanity as a whole could grow past any violent conflicts. A feather in the american cap.

Yep. The timing is right on the spot but then again, this has been planned for years and there's space race II so.. Anyway I just happened to wake up in the middle of the night. It was 3am here so somehow I ended up seeing the official live feed and there seems to be a lot of people who don't think this was another diversion or hoax. So maybe there's still some hope.

[mountain_jim]

I have not verified this is accurate but sounds about right

https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/2...615760760?s=20

Wall Street Mav
@WallStreetMav

Artemis was a great test of going around the moon.

However the Artemis rocket system has the same problem as the Apollo missions to the moon. It costs too much.

The Artemis rocket, SLS, was designed by the US Senate. $4 billion per launch. And can only launch once each 2 years. We can’t build a moon base with this system.

SLS was a rocket designed by politicians to create jobs for the old Space Shuttle contractors. They spent 15 years and $25 billion developing it, and it will never be cost effective at $4 billion per launch.

It is an obsolete rocket already. It works, but it will eventually die due to budget cuts.

[JackMcThorn]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
I have not verified this is accurate but sounds about right...

The costs are accurate but the schedule of launches is not.

Artemis III is scheduled for 2o27 - Artemis IV is scheduled for 2o28 [moon landing] - So I am not sure. Space has always been a money sink. We used to question why they skipped the moon all these years. Or why nobody else went there.

But, NASA budget is o.35% of the federal budget. We should at all costs be able to afford that for such an important peaceful endeavor.

And one more thing, the moon habitat is a problem besides the SLS. No protective atmosphere and I wonder how they will solve that problem...

[Tintin]

Footage as Artemis II enters Earth's atmosphere

Shared by Brian Roemmele via X, and it's really pretty staggering footage, not just visually, but audibly too

Source: https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/2043143722569965606

___________________________________

Artemis 11 astronauts saw and heard this at the entry interface and plasma display in to Earth’s atmosphere.

The thumping sound? Those are beats.

Actually… it is the Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters firing.

Orion has a set of 12 small hydrazine-fueled thrusters (part of the attitude control system) arranged around the capsule.

During the hypersonic re-entry phase (starting at the "entry interface" around ~400,000 feet altitude and ~25,000 mph), the guidance computer commands these thrusters to fire in short, precise bursts/ sequences.

This keeps the capsule properly oriented, manages lift for a controlled "skip" trajectory if needed, and counters any aerodynamic forces or plasma-induced torque that could cause tumbling.