Artemis II Astronauts Pass 100,000 Miles From Earth On Voyage To the Moon
- Reference: 0181217834
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/04/03/2326236/artemis-ii-astronauts-pass-100000-miles-from-earth-on-voyage-to-the-moon
- Source link:
> The astronauts -- the Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and a Canadian, Jeremy Hansen -- spent their first day in space performing checks on the spacecraft, which had never carried humans before. Later they had time to speak to US TV networks. "I've got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this," Wiseman told ABC News from the cramped interior of the capsule. "Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a herculean effort, and we are now just realising the gravity of that."
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> Orion will travel about 4,000 miles (6,400km) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side. If all proceeds smoothly, the astronauts will set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before -- more than 250,000 miles. The mission is part of a longer-term plan to repeatedly return to the moon, with the aim of establishing a permanent base that will offer a platform for further exploration.
After the final engine burn, NASA said Wiseman took two "spectacular" images of Earth.
The first photo, called [2]Hello, World , "shows the vast expanse of blue that is the Atlantic Ocean, framed by a thin glow of the atmosphere as the Earth eclipses the Sun and green auroras at either pole," reports the BBC. Another photo [3]shows the view of Earth from inside the Orion spacecraft.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/03/artemis-ii-astronauts-rocket-towards-the-moon-after-breaking-free-of-earths-orbit
[2] https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hello-world/
[3] https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e000191
Socialism (Score:1)
I hear private enterprise is hoping to catch up with what publicly funded science achieved decades ago.
Re: (Score:2)
The government wimped out and pulled funding repeatedly on re-usable launch systems even ones that were showing success.
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Yeah, it was cool watching those four $146,000,000/each RS-25 engines return to the landing pad. Stupid capitalists.
What illuminates the far side of the moon? (Score:2)
> providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side.
What illuminates the far side of the moon? It is full moon now, so the far side is the dark side.
Re: (Score:2)
The ass side of the Sun. Happy? You wanted the answer.
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Haha, you still believe the moon is real;)
Hoaxer commentary? (Score:2)
Anyone have any good commentary from flat earthers and moon landing deniers on this? I'm in need of some laughs.
Wrong timestamp (Score:2)
Fun fact, the first picture in here has a wrong timestamp, dated April 2nd 2016...
[1]https://www.nasa.gov/image-det... [nasa.gov]
Are they manually typing those fields? ...
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/artemis-ii-crew-inside-orion-7/
Why does it take 4 days? (Score:2)
I've read that the spacecraft is now travelling at 24,500 mph. Given the moon is ~250K miles away even my bad maths can figure out thats approx 10 hours travel time so why are they quoting a 4 day trip to get there?
Re: (Score:2)
I think 24,500 MPH is the peak speed for this mission, not the speed it is traveling now.
Its still going uphill. Earth has a fairly large gravity well.
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Currently: it's 2721 mph. It has slowed down continuously since the burn, due to the tug of the flat earth being instantiated as round during the mission.
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At this exact moment, their speed is about 2,700 mph, and they are slowing down.
[1]https://www.nasa.gov/missions/... [nasa.gov]
Escape velocity means the Earth's gravity will not pull them all the way back. It does not mean that Earth's gravity will have no effect.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/
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Calling up Kubrick's ghost is not easy.
Is the bottle half full or half empty? (Score:1)
I am so excited to realize human beings are going back to the moon. I was afraid it was just a bad joke happening on April 1st;-) But, no... ISS is nice, an incredible achievement, but it is too close to our home, few 100 km. I agree that our moon is also extremely close to home. But still, it remains a symbolic, important milestone. Perhaps, now, I could say that my dream is shining again.
But,
There is absolutely nothing exceptional here: This has been already achieved almost 60 years ago, with much, mu
Re: (Score:2)
It's neither half full nor half empty: the bottle is refillable.
Hello world, do we see the ISS? (Score:1)
I noticed something more or less in the middle of the "Hello World" picture.
It reminds me a little bit the ISS.
Could it be the ISS or just some reflection, or something completely different?
Hmm (Score:2)
> "Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a herculean effort, and we are now just realising the gravity of that."
As a kid I remember watching grainy images of Neil Armstrong et al bouncing around on the moon. How did that happen? Teleport much?
"have left Earth orbit" ?! (Score:2)
> "Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit," NASA's Dr Lori Glaze
I can expect some random science reporter to make this mistake, but bugger me, a senior NASA executive?
It shows politics are far more important than any knowledge of science at NASA today.
Not only is Orion not leaving Earth Orbit (where the fuck do they think the moon is?) , it is not even entering lunar orbit. Orion's apogee has been pushed up for one orbit, but it's perigee is right down here.
There is one spaceship that really did leave Earth orbit, the lunar module "Snoopy" from Apollo 10:
[1]https://en.w [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10#The_flight_of_Snoopy
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They are not in an orbit around the Earth; they exceeded the [1]escape velocity [wikipedia.org].
They will be using the Moon's gravity to change direction, and the Earth's atmosphere to slow down. If they were to miss either of those targets, they would not continue to go around the Earth.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity#List_of_escape_velocities
Miles? Miles per Hour? Nasa? (Score:2)
I thought that Nasa standardised on SI units...
I hope that they didn't mix miles and Kilometer calculation, otherwise it will be a one way ticket...
Thanks for the Hi-res images, NASA (Score:1)
Thanks for the Hi-res images, NASA.
But they're only available to us as Jpegs.
Does anyone at DEI NASA know what that means ?
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It means there were not enough real (old white) men available to produce RAW images.