Watched it (still have the stream in the background), the sheer grandeur of some of the language... And the overly verbose "go / no-go". Just... wow. Just compare it to the loops of the Apollo missions. This day is a good reason to give "Thirteen Minutes to the Moon" a listen (a BBC podcast, both seasons are interesting, the first one is about the first moon landing, the second about the events of Apollo 13).

OK, still a good achievement, good luck to all involved. Cool stuff, I'm excited!

I had the evening cable news on while busy on the computer, noted the switch in coverage, watched the coverage (about 5 min I think). Very nice launch. I think NASA has redeemed themselves from the delays etc.. Much better than a spectacular loss of system integrity.

Looks like SLS will do the job. cheers!

Sorta reminds me of watching all of those Apollo (and some of the Gemini) launches back in the 60's and early 70's.

It was even better for the fact that it really wasn't expected to launch today, several issues right down to the line.

And when the 10-minute hold changed to go, suddenly it was all real. Shame they didn't wait till day break, but that would have left it very late in the launch window.

Would have been good to have more camera footage of the separation of the solid rocket boosters from the point of view of Artemis, (mostly graphics), but there have been several shots from the interim cryogenic propulsion stage itself, showing the solar panels deploy, but again momentarily.

Given the footage from the high resolution cameras on board so far, the footage of the moon will be something to behold.

Better late than never. Well done chaps.

== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==

Eh? Is the capsule going to rendezvous with him in lunar orbit? That would be really be something to happen on a weekend... :-)

After almost 20 years this Boondoggle has finally turned into reality. Merely a rehashed version of the Space Shuttle it is nonetheless one of the most powerful rockets in the world, capable of bringing humans to the Moon.

However, Starship too can fulfill this role and it will be very difficult for SLS proponents to keep this rocket alive after it has successfully demonstrated its capabilities.

Starship might be able to fulfil this role but, given how erratic the man at the top of SpaceX is, who can blame NASA for wanting another option? You know, just in case Musk shorts out or blows a fuse or something.

Personally, I wouldn’t buy a firework off the man, or a dinky toy, let alone a rocket or a car.

One thing NASA is leant time and time again - always have a Plan B.

You seem to forget that SpaceX as delivered and is has a huge track record of getting astronauts safely and cheaply to the ISS.

This is the reason NASA selected SpaceX as the sole contractor to deliver humans to the Moon. Yes, they're also, after pressure from Congress, adding a second source for a HLS (human landing system) but if SpaceX delivers I don't see this coming to much.

During prop load, NASA announced theyd awarded Artemis 4 landing contract to SpaceX, so they've got 2 missions now, I'd say that's every sign they have confidence in what's happening at SpaceX

Except that Musk isn't running SpaceX as such. Gwynne Shotwell is. Society should give her more credit for what she has achieved, she has the ability to work with Musk and keep a steady ship, she really gets sold short in all of this (maybe that's the way she likes it). It's about time though, she got a lot more respect and recognition.

She loves Scotland too, which probably does make me a little biased :).

Starship too can fulfill this role

Can? It doesn't exist yet, and every prototype they have so far tried has exploded.

They've launched and landed safely several times.

A successful launch next month will silence criticasters like yourself. Permanently.

Looking forward to this week's instalment of "Who, Me?" where Joe, who works for an aerospace company that cannot be named, decides to do a last minute upgrade of newly released switch firmware.

And I raise my beer to "The Red Team" engineers.

Am I going to be the first one to point out the bleedin' obvious, or is one of you lot? :-)

#wherewasthefailover?

PS: Otherwise, all due credit etc for 'doing hard science' and successfully hurling tons of metal out into the void successfully. Nice work.

Yes, other papers said that this was for the kill switch, which is not something you want to fail at a critical moment during launch. Some redundancy would seem essential to avoid the risk of dropping a faulty rocket on Florida.

You would expect a fail-over but to be fair I've never had an ethernet switch fail on its own they are solid beasts (unless there was a big thunder storm that blew out a port -- highly unlikely) -- the who me option sounds most likely explaination.

I am amazed that it worked, pleased - but amazed.

I don't see how this can be a long term system though, it's mainly a collection of ex shuttle parts, apart from the capsule very little new stuff being made to replace the bits that just get thrown away on every launch.

No surprise El Reg takes its usual negative nelly the SLS is bad take, and clearly don't understand the concept of launch windows, or the t minus 10 hold position.

This was a near flawless countdown, launch and Orion is now on its way to the moon, there are always issues in any launch attempt and these were worked through and solved.

Celebrate that after nearly 50years(49 years 11 months) a human rated spaceflight vehicle, launched on the most powerful rocket humankind has ever developed & successfully launched is returning space exploration to our nearest celestial neighbour.

SLS does work

Yes, it worked - this time. Hopefully it will continue to work, BUT after fifty years is this really where we want to be, or the best we can do?

Having yet another H2 leak is not "flawless". Having the ethernet problems is not "flawless"

But yeah, the countdown halt points were documented well in advance. Yeah, SLS works so far, yeah, it is amazing. It is also over budget, delayed a lot, uses ancient hardware, and each launch is pretty expensive. The costs sort of come into a different perspective when you compare them to the prices of military weapon systems, and the military spending in total.

I'm still happy when ElReg mocks damn near everything, that's what we come here for.

That is an absolutely incredible thing to witness, thousands of tonnes of chemicals being reacted to high velocity hot gas to lift itself in Newtonian fashion. A goosebump moment. I wish I was in Cocoa Beach for this.

There is a book titled 'Ignition!' by ex US navy rocket engineer John D Clark which is really worth a read. It is amazing that these things stay together given the temperatures, pressures and chemicals they are using.

I'm sad that the shuttle main engines are not going to be recovered. I do get the feeling that when they run out of engines the SLS will get shelved.

Meanwhile aboard Capstone: "Better put the kettle on luv"