Discussion
Artemis II live updates: Nasa’s crewed rocket lifts off to begin 10-day lunar journey
0xffff2: I do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
Arodex: "I do hope the doomers who think that the entire Soviet government has been completely gutted by the recent purges will take note of this. The Muscovite workforce is in a bad spot for sure, Vostok is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we communists-leninists are doing some real work still. All glorY to our leader, Stalin!"
Natfan: not to be a pedant, but would cutting costs not make healthcare cheaper?do you mean cutting funding to healthcare?
yokoprime: While the current administration has multiple areas of improvement and isnt really taking feedback in an adult manner, the federal workforce has some of the most competent people working for it inside certain parts of the organization. im thinking especially of NASA and NASA JPL.
mrcwinn: I’m so glad they lifted off safely. I hope they re-enter safely too.
alex1138: Heat shield is the concerning part, yeah. I'm thrilled the launch went well but that's the thing to watch for, AFAIK
JumpCrisscross: April 6: flybyApril 10: splashdownAfter that, the exciting work will be in Starship making LEO and testing propellant transfer (a humanity first) and Blue Origin testing its rocket and lander [1], currently scheduled, optimistically in my opinion, for next year.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1
IshKebab: We can send a rocket to the moon but can't manage to aim a camera at it reliably apparently!
fsloth: Longest trip since 1972.54 years.I hope we as humanity never stop again.Good luck!
reimertz: watched this with teary eyes. it truly shows what we can do when we come together and challenge ourselves for the greater good of humanity.
anonymars: A real bright spot compared to lately. The messages of positivity and comradery in the live stream were a nice contrast(That being said, I can't believe they cut to people on the ground during SRB separation!)
bartread: I completely agree on all points.On your parenthetical point, I also agree: some really weird camera selections, and frustrating dropouts, during the crucial moments of the launch.Nevertheless, a real triumph, and I particularly enjoyed the "full send" remark from (I think) the commander. I also really enjoy the fact that the livestream is relatively light on commentary and that most of what you hear is from mission control and the crew.
intrasight: Same. I watched Apollo 11 launch in 1969 when I was four. Watched on our neighbor's TV. We didn't have one.Imagine what we could accomplish if we didn't suck.
bluGill: sending people to the moon was never useful. We can get more done with robots, both cheaper and safer. There are plenty of more useful things we can do instead.okay what is more useful is a matter of opinion. you can disagree, but I stand by it
Aeolun: Getting people to the moon is plentry useful for getting an objective you can hang all kinds of useful advancements off.
sd9: Minutes after launch they reached "ten thousand miles per hour". That's 2.78 miles per second. Nuts. No doubt the speeds go even higher later too.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.
jamiek88: It’s Orion that’s dodgy as fuck not the booster. I.e the new thing. Not the decades old, proven, launch engines.Let’s wait for the back patting when they splash down.I genuinely hope not but i am worried about this craft.
birdsongs: I don't know why you're getting downvoted. The camera work was atrocious.It's not just frilly video, it's how the world sees it, emotionally connects to it, and grows up loving it, and wanting to support more.We had black screens as it left the pad, they didn't know what camera to switch to and kept changing feeds every 2-3 seconds, they switched to a grainy feed of the crowd just looking up while booster separation happened, so we missed that, and hastily switched back after they separated.All the prep and they couldn't come up with a media plan? Maybe it was technical problems and their camera indexing was off or something.
Blackthorn: Let's not jinx them; let them get home safe before we take a victory lap.
drivers99: They had the longest reaction shot of some people filming it with their phones (maybe they got a good shot) and when they switched back to after the booster separation I said at the time, “that would have been cool to see.”
birdsongs: Yeah it was horrible. Why are we here, to watch a video feed of other people watching it live through their phones?We have 30 seconds maybe while this thing is in the local atmosphere, Jesus Christ just keep the camera on it and let us watch it launch.I know this sounds like whining, and part of me is annoyed that I'm so annoyed at this. But it was just such an emotional moment, and it felt like the media team had no plan or any idea what to do.
none2585: We are basically going this to funnel more tax payer dollars to musk or bezos. What a moment for humanity
kiernanmcgowan: "We have a beautiful moon rise, we're heading right at it" got me a little choked up. Here's to the ever unfolding adventure of mankind.
curiousgal: I wish I had your optimism. Watching a nation of holocaust survivors killing people kinda killed my faith in humanity to be honest.
general_reveal: Well. You are getting down voted but here I am in later stages in life watching this Moon launch, and unlike other times in past, I didn’t feel any inspiration.Honestly, it’s a waste of money. That’s my final answer, there’s kids that need food. I am no longer inspired by this stuff.I’ve seen enough advanced technology for many lifetimes, we need something else as a species (more of that humanity thing).
JumpCrisscross: > Orion that’s dodgy as fuck not the booster. I.e the new thingI mean, newly shaped and partly reformulated.Avcoat was “originally created…for the Apollo program” [1]. (“A reformulated version was used for the initial Orion heat shield and later for a redesigned Orion heat shield.”) The new things are Orion’s size and weight and the size of the tiles. All of which has precedented flight in Artemis I.At the end of the day, I’m going to trust the astronauts. This issue was openly discussed, despite NASA’s original—and fair to criticize—instinct to cover it up. While any manned reëntry is a nail biter, I don’t think this one is especially so.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCOAT
justinator: Aren't astronauts by definition bat shit crazy? We have people lining up for one-way missions to Mars. Not to say this is a bad thing, but their ROI calculations are not normal.
JumpCrisscross: > Aren't astronauts by definition bat shit crazy?By poetic definition, e.g. “Here’s to the Crazy Ones,” yes. Clinically and technically, no. They’re paragons of human explorers, and exploration is a fundamentally human trait.> We have people lining up for one-way missions to MarsHow many astronauts?
taurath: There’s not a lot of sweet left in the world of bitter. But there are far more people that want peace than war, and the powerful are not as protected and immune from concequences as they think.
justinator: We'd look better if there was still a USAID.
alex43578: Good news, you’re free to give your money to a charity to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities” or produce a “transgender opera in Colombia”.You just shouldn’t be allowed to take my money to do it.
xeromal: Sometimes we need to disconnect from the internet and realize we can't solve all the world's problems. The best thing you can do is solve things in the communities you are in.The entire world's problems is too much for one human.
rcv: Does anyone know of a good status tracker for the mission? I'm watching the official feed on Youtube and it's great for commentary but I'd love a live Kerbal-style UI I could poke around.
spullara: Here is the official one from NASA:https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/but I admit that it isn't what I would really want.
spike021: It's hard enough to train a camera on race cars speeding by at 250+ kilometers an hour.
justinator: I can get a gimble for my phone that can follow me running. What could NASA do?
fortran77: We're sending astronauts to the moon and all you 10x hackers can do is bash our Nation and proclaim your support for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Khameneis and terroirst regimes around the world?
bradhe: I have a really hard time telling if this is despite the current administration’s best efforts, because the current administration’s policies, or just an artifact of government inertia.Top level: Super excited to witness this in my lifetime.Edit: Also, my 40 years of life leads me towards the latter category.
dyauspitr: Definitely despite.
__loam: Go look at the amount of grants getting funded this year and tell me we aren't completely gutting the national research apparatus.
justinator: I just need to look locally and see we're in trouble. NIST, NCAR. Super Drought conditions forming in the West.This isn't good.But hurray Moon missions, I guess. Pity we're causing the entire World Economy to collapse with a unneeded war.
Apocryphon: Rather unfortunate timing that the original Apollo moon landing also happened in the middle of the Vietnam War.
justinator: Honestly, that coincidence was NOT lost on me.Part of me finds it inappropriate to do the two things at once. Advancement in scientific knowledge being somewhat at odds with blowing up one of the oldest civilizations in the World.
justinator: I think sometimes, clinically: yes.https://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-city-life/2018/11/astr...> How many astronauts?More than we can send. Wasn't there a country-wide competition?
hagbard_c: It was probably deemed a relatively high-risk moment which they did not want to broadcast in case of failure like it was when the Challenger mission exploded.
Electricniko: NASA had another feed that was just the view of the launch from Kennedy Space Center, no commentary. It was a few seconds ahead of the main broadcast, so it seems they already had a delay built in for the masses.
ls612: NASA has been well treated by both parties in general, with their budget rising faster than inflation most years. This administration also appointed Isaacman to be the NASA administrator which I think is a 10/10 choice for that job.
turtletontine: It’s not that simple. Trump admin requested a massive cut to NASA’s budget, which after much delay Congress finally rejected. Isaacman’s path to NASA administrator was also, erm, circuitous. Having a competent and knowledgeable NASA head was not really Trump admin’s priority.
tw04: Take note of a project that’s about 15 years behind schedule and many multiples over budget finally progressed because we lowered safety standards to just launch?I’m not sure how that’s proof the government isn’t gutted. Let me know what our schedule is for the next one and how that timeline has changed. Ignoring the projects that have been outright canceled…You’re currently the guy saying “ya, all you haters that said I’d lose my house if I stopped paying my mortgage, who’s laughing now?” - one month into not paying your mortgage.We’ll still be dealing with the after effects of doge 20 years from now.
JumpCrisscross: > we lowered safety standards to just launchAren’t they still well above anything in the history of human space flight?We keep treating these systems in popular discourse as airliners. They’re not. They’re experimental craft. With mass production maybe SpaceX can bring launch closer to general aviation. But the notion that any loss of life is intolerable is (a) unsustainably expensive and (b) not a view shared by the lives actually at risk.
sollewitt: I love that we can do this. I wanted to be a mission specialist as a kid. NASA is still somewhere I would work and proudly wear the t-shirt.But head over heart: in 2026 climate change is an existential threat, in a way it wasn’t in the 60s. That is the thing we need the US government to build an agency to focus on.Having the country most responsible for the climate crisis refuse to acknowledge it and spend so many resources on a vanity project reads as misguided at best or a deliberate distraction at worst.
akerl_: If your read is that this is a vanity project, I guess that's a take.
hagbard_c: Well, yes, we certainly can as is shown by the coverage of SpaceX launches. I guess NASA is just not as focused on publicity as commercial launch operators are. They should have read The Right Stuff and learned the mantra No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Next time, better I hope.
partiallypro: The politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.
Noaidi: We, who is this we? You didn’t do anything. Just like most people don’t do anything. Of course we can come together and solve homelessness too, but that doesn’t happen. Love, a homeless person watching $4.2 billion be blown away while sitting in my minivan in a Walmart parking lot.
GlacierFox: Why are you homeless?
0xffff2: For sure this is 90% inertia, although like Bridenstein in the first administration, who turned out to actually be a pretty good administrator in the grand scheme of things, I'm cautiously optimistic that Isaacman is working in good faith to make NASA the best it can be. (Which isn't to say that I agree with him 100% mind you.)
y1n0: [delayed]
mullingitover: JPL has been strangled by both parties. They had huge staff cuts in 2024, and then more in 2025. They've gone from ~6,500 to ~4,500. Trump closed their research library[1].[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-libr...
NetMageSCW: Your life must pass by really slowly with a lot of waiting if you don’t do more than one thing at a time.
yreg: Everyday Astronaut's tracking was perfect.
NetMageSCW: Wrong in every way.
stephenhuey: Just listened on the radio driving the kids to swim class! I'm curious, does anyone think the show For All Mankind provided any peer pressure or influence to help propel NASA to this moment?
mrexroad: As a huge fan of Ron D. Moore’s shows, and especially For All Mankind, I don’t see how it could possibly have (or have had) any meaningful impact on NASA or NASA-adjacent efforts. Especially Artemis.
raptor99: You are right. China should be ashamed of itself.
NetMageSCW: Just like to point out the a SRBs aren’t really the same.
mikestorrent: I understand your side to some extent. It helped watching my 11yo watch the launch - for him it's more meaningful, more imminent than it can be for a jaded person like myself.I don't think it's mutually exclusive with food aid, though. If anything, it's taking money that probably would have gone into bombs and aeroplanes instead if we didn't have a space program. Honestly, it feels like we could redirect the entire military-industrial complex into space travel... retain the same pork spending but use it for rockets that aren't designed to land on our neighbours. Nice compromise.
general_reveal: Yeah totally. Ideally, I’d like it if we feed the kids that need the food, educate them, and have them build the rocket and have them take the glory of that achievement (the glory being we as a society uplifted ourselves, literally). To the moon.Right now it feels like the privileged are being sent to the moon. Many babies and young adults are on battlefields right now.But thank you for reminding me how important it is for the child to see something magical.The truth is definitely quite deep.
lnx01: I doubt it, SLS and Artemis predate 'For all mankind' by many years.
y1n0: True but they have been drag-assing for years.
layer8: Escape velocity is 25,020 mph (6.95 mps), so not completely surprising.Note that escape velocity applies to a situation without continued propulsion and also without air resistance, but still you can imagine that the order of magnitude is similar.
y1n0: I think spacex and now blue origin lit a fire under their butts.
GreenSalem: Waiting to see what happens to the heat shield on reentry...https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....https://theconversation.com/heat-shield-safety-concerns-rais...
simplyluke: I pray to never reach a point of cynicism where my response to watching humans leave the planet on a rocket is immediately "meh, whatever, here's my political complaint of the week"Global hunger's a great example. When we last left the moon (1972) 35% of the global population was undernourished. Today it's ~8%. Optimism is a choice, and generally a more rational one. That doesn't mean we don't have real issues.
GaryBluto: It is very disconcerting to see so many completely disregarding incredible technological innovation because other problems exist, especially on HN.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."
transcriptase: Indeed. The GSA with 10k employees is going to fall apart without the 40k unused winzip licences DOGE so cruelly took away from them in their senseless spree of madness.
dryarzeg: I certainly missed that one. Is it available somewhere recorded? If it is, can you please send a link to it? I'm sorry if I'm asking something stupid, it's just that I can't find anything like that and I also want to see this badly.
sd9: Not surprising if you know that. Pretty surprising to me who didn’t.
tsunamifury: "something never done before not done on my personal schedule"This is the height of ignorance.
richwater: Come on man be honest. There were multiple, massive delays with the program related to literally every aspect. You're not engaging seriously.
tsunamifury: "Delays on something that I don't understand are unacceptable, I refused to label a human step forward as a success because of my personal preconceptions"You are so out of your depth you should stop.This was the cost of getting there -- going forward yes we must figure out efficiency. But this was the novel path to this moment that was needed.
JumpCrisscross: > sometimes, clinically: yesSure. Compared to population, no.> More than we can sendWhich astronauts said they’d be fine with a one-way mission?> Wasn't there a country-wide competition?Was there? You’re the one making the claim.
justinator: Glad you agree with the crazy.Google is your friend re; Mars one-way astronauts.
bluescrn: The coming nuclear winter will solve climate change.
multiplegeorges: > novel pathReusing Apollo-style stack, reusing Shuttle engines, reusing Shuttle-style SRBs. Novel?
Metacelsus: Yeah, missing the booster sep was a real bummer
LenaRyouna: Ah, yes, because someone out there is suffering means someone else's money must be redistributed because of communism?Please take your communist takes back to Reddit, this is a tech-centric forum, not a place where under every single bloody post people have to cry, waaaah but that money should be redistributed to the ever-growing population because they are entitled to it!
partiallypro: Don't confuse bureaucracy with "gutted." The federal government is bigger than at most any point in US history. Arguably that fact is -why- it's 15 years behind schedule.
mullingitover: Nope, the federal workforce is now the smallest it's been in a half century[1].February 2026: 2.693 million, the lowest number since July 1965.[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001
partiallypro: That's per 100k (which just says it's mostly flat per 100k), net spending of the federal government is more than ever, and actual workforce is bigger than ever.https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W068RCQ027SBEAhttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT
apaprocki: You should always seek out the best. From watching lots of Everyday Astronaut streams over the years, I knew the stream would be the best live experience because they care about and focus on the production. NASA cares and focuses on the rocket, astronauts, mission. I'm fine with that.
kowbell: If it's 15 years behind budget and many multiples over budget, it wouldn't be DOGE's fault then?
dmix: The main critique of the handling of heat shields also happened at NASA in 2022-2024 and the project continued on. Artemis is largely a product of congress.
permalac: That logic is very short term and while comical isn't close to reality.I hope you live a long and prosper life so you can see the consequences of this presidential term fully unfold.
mulmen: [delayed]
lexluthor38: I think you meant Artemis III in your comment. Good info though, didn't realize they were relying on those two other projects for the next one.
ToucanLoucan: I knew The Discourse on this would be toxic and awful and so much of this thread has proved it.My position is I would rather pay for 50 years of Artemis missions that never leave the ground than spend one more fucking dollar attempting to slow the descent of the American empire, or that of its colonies.This was inspiring and amazing to watch. Actual history being made. Competence displayed proudly. No culture war bullshit. No insipid speeches by dullards about REAL AMERICA. Just us doing something because we can, and with plans to do even more.
dingaling: There is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack.Three of the main engines are refurbished Shuttle engines. The fourth is a clone that cost more than the entire SpaceX Starship stack.The boosters are derived from the Shuttle SRBs.It's a late-60s technology rocket stack with a 2000s-era flight computer.It's such a travesty.
mrexroad: Well, when you zoom out a bit, it’s not a stretch to say that both Apollo and Vietnam shared the same goal of countering the USSR.
beeflet: It's more of a DEI/Jobs program
mulmen: [delayed]
matthewmcg: That’s fair but the amount of interest in this crewed mission vs. prior uncrewed and robotic moon missions shows that many people find manned missions more compelling.
JumpCrisscross: > Glad you agree with the crazyI don’t. Having mental illness in a population below baseline rates isn’t crazy. Nowak’s story is notable for a reason.> Google is your friend re; Mars one-way astronautsSo you don’t have a source. Because I’m not finding any astronauts going on the record on this.
SecretDreams: It's being marketed like it's a vanity project, but it's not. This has been in the works for some time and so many people have given everything they have to make it happen.Completely agree with you re: climate change being an existential threat, but disagree with your hyperbole about the US being the worst offender. The US should lead because they are supposed to be a world leader - but they alone are not singularly or in majority responsible for climate change.Mixing fact and hyperbole together weakens your overall message.
sollewitt: I didn’t mean to be hyperbolic, for carbon footprint I’m looking at cumulative footprint since 1750 and not only recent annual footprint. I’m glad we agree, I take your notes.
MattGrommes: It's silly to say there's no innovation here. These aren't legos that you just snap together. I'm sure there are innovations up and down the whole thing, using the old technology they have easily available to them.No, it's not the most modern Rocket Lab or SpaceX project but they have immense drag on their process that those companies don't have and they still got the dang thing up and headed toward the moon.
JumpCrisscross: > Is Artemis III the one with a lander?Not anymore. Artemis III is now a LEO systems check [1]. Comparable to Apollo 9.(Side note: when did we switch from Arabic to Roman numerals?)[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III
darepublic: God speed
shiroiuma: We didn't have robots in 1969, and the Apollo missions resulted in many of the technologies that make modern robotics (and robotic space missions) possible.
dmix: It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internet. Virtue signalling etc.
JumpCrisscross: > It's much more popular to be doomer and a critic on the internetIs it more popular? Or is it just easy? Dismissive “reads” are done by the picosecond; there is just much more to choose from than constructive thinking, which takes work.
GaryBluto: It's not about the Orion unit specifically but the fact that this is happening in the first place. This is simply a precursor to future missions and the construction of the Artemis Base Camp.
Singletail: As someone who watched the Apollo 11 launch live on TV, this is no less awe-inspiring. This transcends nations, languages, and politics. This is of and by all humanity.(If anyone managed to get the perfect shot of the spark-filled separation feed, please share. That was... incredible.)
JumpCrisscross: > is no technological innovation in the Artemis stackScaling is still engineering.And the environmental control system, laser-optical communication systems and block-construction heat shields are new. For Artemis III, in-obit propellant transfer will be new and transformational.
kokanee: > the agency said it was confident that a change to the re-entry trajectory would be more than adequate to offset any spalling issues. Somewhat confusingly, they also announced their intention to switch to a new heat shield design, starting with Artemis III.It's fine to be concerned, but this kind of take is why public agencies are damned no matter what they do. In the private sector, operating with the suboptimal resources you have while working on a better iteration is standard practice, even in industrial settings. But when you're a public organization, if anyone can find anything that is less than 100% optimal, the same people who complain about how slow the public sector is will complain that you're cutting corners, or that you're inept.
tomhow: Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47603657.
