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Agneeta

Agneeta

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Aug 18, 2025
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I know this is the domain of @floppet, but this Artemis II launch has captured my attention. Hopefully launching today, the first manned flight to the moon in 50 years. Although not landing on the moon, astronauts are going further than ever before.

The space programme seems to have got interesting again.
 
Agneeta said:
I know this is the domain of @floppet, but this Artemis II launch has captured my attention. Hopefully launching today, the first manned flight to the moon in 50 years. Although not landing on the moon, astronauts are going further than ever before.

The space programme seems to have got interesting again.
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My name's being carried on a USB inside one of the gravity indicators!

I'm gutted that the launch isn't until tonight so I'll miss it, I love watching live launches. This mission is mainly to see how the journey affects the astronauts' health and it'll only come within about 4000 miles of the moon.
 
Agneeta said:
Testing their health, is quite high risk.
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They've been using the ISS (International Space Station) to find out how microgravity affects the human body for years but they also want to test the radiation effects (Van Allen belt) of "outer" space. This will be helpful if the Mission to Mars ever happens. My favourite "experiment" was when astronaut (now US Senator) Mark Kelly went up to the ISS for six months while his identical twin brother Scott, also an astronaut, remained on Earth. When Mark returned to Earth they were able to compare his results with his brother's to give a better idea about the deterioration experienced.

My name is also trundling around Mars aboard the Perseverance rover and has been on most of the NASA flights for many years. I once asked NASA whether they would honour my space miles, they said no.

Later, when I'm home I'll post a link to the live feed where anybody that's interested can watch it. The targeted launch time is 6.24pm EDT (11.24pm UK).
 
I have no doubt I'll be awake. How long do we expect them to arrive on the other side of the moon?
 
It's a 10 day mission, not sure what day they'll loop around the moon though. They have a 2-hour window for the launch (11.24pm being start of window) so if it hasn't gone by 01.24am tomorrow it'll be pushed back. They've got every day to 6th April with available launch windows and then a final one on 30th April.
 
The astronauts have entered the Big Brother rocket and tensions are running wild.
 
The song I listened to as Artemis II launched :disco:🌌🚀
♡
 
Some of these videos online of people seeing the launch from the air are amazing

 
What surprisingly level headed comments (I got rid of Twitter while it was still Twitter, but had a peek on xcancel). Maybe there is still some sanity on that site, despite the Nazi ownership, TERFs and CSAM bot / mecha-Hitler. At least until you get to the “what’s that brown bit?” comments that I can’t tell whether are tongue-in-cheek or just American.

Facebook meanwhile being all “why is there only one star? Faaaake” 😅
 
Some girl asked “is that brown spot where all the humans live?”
 
Could someone much more clever than me explain why you can't see any of the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth? Are they too small to see?
 
Iguana said:
Could someone much more clever than me explain why you can't see any of the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth? Are they too small to see?
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Well I don’t have any science speak to explain it, but if you think about it intuitively, satellites just appear as specks in the sky to us on earth, and they’re much closer to us than they were to Artemis II when they took that photo.

So in short yes they’re pretty tiny relatively speaking.

Also nothing in the picture is being illuminated by the sun (it’s taken by moonshine with a long shutter speed to make it appear like daylight).
 
Iguana said:
Could someone much more clever than me explain why you can't see any of the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth? Are they too small to see?
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Yeah they’re extremely small and in a lower orbit than when the pic was taken. It’d be like trying to see the ants on Google satellite view, kind of thing
 
THANK YOU. I'm glad, I didn't like the idea of the view of Earth being littered by satellites, especially as I read that there are plans to hugely increase the number of satellites orbiting us.
 
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