2026 Artemis 11 Contunued.

[Allan Black]

Hi I’ve started this new thread because when I was a mod. on the now defunct Panasonic 3CCDuser site, 2004-08, we learned a lot including the fact people don’t like scrolling down passing a long line of posts just to read to the latest one. Also we don’t post any links, people click on them and don’t come back. And don’t post a big slab of continous text without paragraphs or good grammar, people just bypass them and mostly don’t return. All true and it’s happening on Quora today.

Right now if you’re reading this and it’s the year 2036 don’t ask me any questions because I’m not here. But today I am, it’s Monday 6th April 2026, 1550hr Local and I’m interested in the Artemis II mission, one reason is I’ve got 5 grandkids, the youngest two think grandpa knows everything, and I can’t just keep telling them I don’t know.

I’ve said, when this current mission first started, watching the YouTube NASA channel was boring, I think one reason is while they covered everything else, they thought occasional live news conferences with regular converstions with the crew would do it, with graphic visualisations in between. But public opinion didn’t like it, so now we have fill in programs to cover the mission.

And most of it is fascinating, they’re including stories of earlier NASA missions and I thought one they’d maybe stay away from, Apollo 13 when they came very close to losing everything.

Currently watching ageing Astronauts tell their stories with fun along the way is entertaining, and anything the Artemis II crew find amusing is also fun, eg: their problem toilet, which my cute grandkids think is funny but embarassing. But YouTube is repeating them within 60 miutes which indicates they don’t have many video programs to show us and Apollo 13 is now showing again.

One interesting current aspect, the crew conduct regular conferences with their familes, and also regular psychological conferences with their NASA specialists, both of which we don’t see or hear. But I’d like to hear and watch the brainy one.

So now they’ll be starting to get ready to fly past the far side of the Moon later on Monday, April 6, that’s early Tuesday morning Sydney time.

Funny I’ve heard no mention that Orion might or will, fly directly over the Chinese settlement there. But I’ll bet both NASA and the Chinese have thought of this and they’ll both be ready for it. The Chinese will cover their sensitive stuff and probably give the 4 Orion crew the finger, while they’ll photograph the heck out of it.

So if you are reading this in 2-0-3-6 that’s what’s happening today.
Cheers.

[Andrew Smith]

I just love how their space toilet is stealing the bulk of their 'media oxygen'.

Hilarious.

Andrew

[Allan Black]

It is Andrew, some fun on their voyage.

It’s Tuesday 7th April 2030hr local. Recently on the YouTube NASA channel, the crew on the International Space Station said they exercise 2 hours a day, because muscle and bone density slowly diminish in space. That will frighten a lot of viewers because they, and me are not doing anything like that here on Earth.

So Orion has flown past the Moon, did you watch it on the YouTube NASA channel? It was a bit of a flash in the pan so to speak. Once again despite some occasional narration, the 40 minutes of silence didn’t help it one bit. But at that exact time YouTube had more viewers on their one channel than they’d ever had before, countless thousands - and it didn’t crash. Score another success for YouTube.

But they should have had music for the Moon fly past, Frank Sinatras ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ would have been good, and I’ll bet someone in Houston actually suggested playing it …

YouTube (Short URL)

That exact version by F.S. became synonymous with NASA's Apollo program and was played on a cassette player during the Apollo 11 mission just before the first moon landing. But I guess they didn’t play it this time, in case there’s trouble on the Orion return flight before they landed, and it comes back to bite Houston on the butt.
Cheers.

[Andrew Smith]

I only watched the actual launch video of the rocket going up, and already I was thinking that Space X does such a better job of it all.

Like your music selection, so many golden opportunities are missed. I don't care about one pope or another, but having the latest one start with wearing sun glasses and saying "we're on a mission from God" would have been epic since he was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.

If you're turning up and getting the work done, you might as well have some fun!

Andrew

[Tony Neal]

Some relevant thoughts …

Artemis is a triumph of 80s engineering.

Laser communications but only a badly configured GoPro streaming 720p from the moon.

In 1968, Apollo 8 made lunar orbit (unlike Artemis) with 60s technology.

Also in 1968, Stanley Kubrick and his technology advisers reasonably predicted international moon bases serviced by spaceliners and shuttles by 2001.

Progress since 1972 has been underwhelming and its all Stanley Kubrick's fault.

SpaceX is the future.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Tony Neal

Progress since 1972 has been underwhelming and its all Stanley Kubrick's fault.

Aren't you confused here? I mean, of course it's all Kubrick's fault, but only because we never actually went to the moon and he was hired to make the fake videos and film. Haven't you seen "Room 237?"

;-)

[Tony Neal]

Ah of course - I didn't connect the dots.

But I can't believe Kubrick would have approved of the 320 line 10 fps B&W camera for Apollo 11, and he certainly would have replaced the Apollo 12 camera after Al Bean pointed it at the sun and burnt the tube.

But I suppose shooting it all in 65mm would have been a bit of a giveaway.

Must go to Space X Starbase sometime to see how they are faking the Starship launches.

[Doug Jensen]

Starship rockets are really only about 2 meters tall. They use some tricky camera angles and forced perspective to make them look much bigger. You can buy the core "booster" at any roadside hut that sells fireworks, I believe they call them Roman candles. But they aren't actually made it Rome anymore because Fiat sold their aerospace unit to a Chinese company that specializes in firecrackers. And If you look closely, you can even see the fishing line they use to make it "lift off'. Fake, but at least not CGI, so there is that.

[Andrew Smith]

A few haircuts ago I was discussing 'interesting' stuff with my my hairdresser and he (possibly sarcastically) says to me "So do you believe the world is flat?"

Without skipping a beat I said "Course not. There's mountains."

True story.

Andrew

PS. He didn't even laugh. This may or may not be a good sign.

[Allan Black]

It’s a good sign Andrew lol.

Late Monday night local I took the trash out to the bin and looked up at the clear sky and the bright 3/4 Moon. After watching their progress on the NASA YouTube channel, it’s easy to visualise Orion on its way back to Earth, and I’m reminded how much the Moon and the Sun influence the ebb and flow of the oceans tides.

On Tuesday 7th local the NASA YouTube channel was still showing details from the NASA Crew Training Resource Reel 8. A year ago a large contingent of NASA trainees including the Artemis II crew, went to Iceland to spend time living on the side on one of Iceland’s volcanoes. They had all the gear to pitch tents and live there for a while.

All the trainees walked around and chipped at the dried lava for a simulated moon experience. Hey now here’s something that’s closer to home, many years ago on a cruise we stopped at the capital Reykjavik for 18 hours and my wife and I swam in the famous Blue Lagoon for an hour. The water is high in salinity (about 2.5%, roughly one-third the salt content of the ocean), which enhances buoyancy and allows for an effortless floating experience.

And we took a group drive out to a large dormant volcano. I picked up small pieces of lava for my grandkids to present at Show and Tell at school, but I don’t know where that lava is now, and that’s about the closest I’ll ever get to the Moon.

It’s now April 9th Thursday 11:00h local and there’s now 10 channels on the NASA YouTube site and there’s continuous programs on all of them. One is an explanation of what the Chinese are doing on the back side of the Moon and it’s amazing, making it easy to see why NASA wants to build a settlement asap. It’s worth watching.

On the live NASA YouTube channel right now the Orion crew is checking their cabin equipment, while there’s semi continuous commentary from Houston, however it’s still silent in between. On another channel there’s discussion about the new type of heat shield for the landing on Friday, it’s not as easy as it would seem. The Orion spacecraft's heat shield consists of a complex multi-layered structure designed to withstand temperatures reaching approximately 2,760° Celsius (5,000F degrees) during lunar re-entry. It measures 16.5 feet in diameter and is the largest of its kind ever developed for crewed missions.

The outermost layer is made of Avcoat, a reformulated version of the material used during the Apollo program. It is a composite of silica fibers embedded in an epoxy novolac resin. Unlike the Apollo shield, which was applied as a single monolithic honeycomb. Orion's shield is composed of roughly 180–186 unique pre-machined blocks. These blocks are bonded to the spacecraft's skin, and the gaps between them are filled with a specialised adhesive mixture. The blocks are mounted onto a titanium truss base structure covered with a composite substrate. This substrate is a skin made of multiple layers of carbon fibre.

Stronger connection points on the spacecraft use a material called 3DMAT (3-Dimensional Multifunctional Ablative Thermal Protection System), which consists of woven quartz threads in resin. The exterior is finished with a coat of white epoxy paint and covered with aluminised tape to manage solar heat and infrared emissions while in orbit. (I found all that on the NASA site)

The re-entry for the Orion spacecraft on Friday, April 10, 2026, is a high-speed, 13-minute journey through Earth's atmosphere. The re-entry process officially begins at the entry interface around 4:53 p.m. PDT and ends with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at approximately 5:07 p.m. PDT. (It starts Saturday 10:53am Sydney time, just before lunch.)

The world will be following them on Friday/Saturday. Good luck Orion. Thanks for reading, click the photo to enlarge it. Cheers.