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Artemis II Astronauts Pass 100,000 Miles From Earth On Voyage To the Moon 80

Posted by BeauHD from the out-of-this-world-updates dept.
The Artemis II crew has passed 100,000 miles from Earth and is now on a "free-return" path around the moon after a successful "translunar" injection burn. "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 told a news conference. The Guardian reports: 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."

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 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 shows the view of Earth from inside the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis II Astronauts Pass 100,000 Miles From Earth On Voyage To the Moon More | Reply

Artemis II Astronauts Pass 100,000 Miles From Earth On Voyage To the Moon

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  • I hear private enterprise is hoping to catch up with what publicly funded science achieved decades ago.

    • The government wimped out and pulled funding repeatedly on re-usable launch systems even ones that were showing success.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

        The government wimped out and pulled funding repeatedly on re-usable launch systems even ones that were showing success.

        Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste. You are a really smart guy seems like you could teach us all about this stuff.

        • Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste.

          Interesting. I've never seen this claim made before; do you have a reference?

          • Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste.

            Interesting. I've never seen this claim made before; do you have a reference?

            https://www.teslarati.com/spac... [teslarati.com] Forgive the link, it is a real rah-rah piece.

            CEO Elon Musk says SpaceX has successfully expanded the envelope of orbital-class rocket recovery with its 50th booster landing, meaning that all Falcon boosters will have a better chance of safely returning to Earth from now on.

            https://space-offshore.com/boo... [space-offshore.com] "Falcon 9 missions may need to land on a droneship instead of RTLS due to the weight of the payload or the overall mission profile." I think you have academic acces

            • Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste.

              Interesting. I've never seen this claim made before; do you have a reference?

              https://www.teslarati.com/spac... [teslarati.com] Forgive the link, it is a real rah-rah piece.

              CEO Elon Musk says SpaceX has successfully expanded the envelope of orbital-class rocket recovery with its 50th booster landing, meaning that all Falcon boosters will have a better chance of safely returning to Earth from now on.

              https://space-offshore.com/boo... [space-offshore.com]
              "Falcon 9 missions may need to land on a droneship instead of RTLS due to the weight of the payload or the overall mission profile."

              I think you have academic access. Here is a good technical report on a lot of rockets that land after use. https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]. You'll need academic credentials to download it. But it has a lot more info - and as part of the launch envelopes, there is constraint based on payload as well as direction. If you are going to land, there is a significant reduction in payload.

              Looks interesting, I'll take a look when I get back in to work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      Yeah, it was cool watching those four $146,000,000/each RS-25 engines return to the landing pad. Stupid capitalists.

      • Yeah, it was cool watching those four $146,000,000/each RS-25 engines return to the landing pad. Stupid capitalists.

        A lot of people have a lot of trouble understanding that returning a first stage to the launch site puts a huge constraint on where in orbit you can place that rocket's payload.

        You can add a bit of flexibility if you return a rocket to a barge in the ocean - but not much. And when you use a barge, you are eating hard into whatever savings there are in capture and refurb.

        The first stage has to have enough fuel to make it back to the landing pad or barge. If the launch envelope takes it out of that range

        • Add extra tank volume and an extra engine. But, it cant be done on these "modern" huge-center-core-going-almost-to-orbit rockets. You need to go back to low velocity staging and larger second stage to do a first landing.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tailhook ( 98486 )

          A lot of people have a lot of trouble understanding

          There is nothing about such a mission that mandates obsolete, 2x order of magnitude money torching. Please stop it with your commie shilling.

          It doesn't really matter in the long run. Sooner or later the US with elect another (D) president and the teacher's union and/or some other pressure group will once again cut NASA's space program and take the money. After than, NASA or whomever will be forced to adopt cost effective solutions.

          • A lot of people have a lot of trouble understanding

            There is nothing about such a mission that mandates obsolete, 2x order of magnitude money torching. Please stop it with your commie shilling.

            It doesn't really matter in the long run. Sooner or later the US with elect another (D) president and the teacher's union and/or some other pressure group will once again cut NASA's space program and take the money. After than, NASA or whomever will be forced to adopt cost effective solutions.

            All you do is show your level of ignorance. I've posted nought but facts, and you act like the special child screaming "Neener neener, neener I can't hear youuuuuu!" While holding his hands over his ears. If you cannot understand a launch envelope, and why Spacex even has expendable missions, well there ya go!

      • I love space, but this single fact makes it impossible for any self-respecting engineer to support the enormous barrel of pork that is Artemis.

  • What illuminates the far side of the moon? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by taleman ( 147513 ) on Saturday April 04, 2026 @04:00AM (#66076576) Homepage

    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.

  • Anyone have any good commentary from flat earthers and moon landing deniers on this? I'm in need of some laughs.

  • Fun fact, the first picture in here has a wrong timestamp, dated April 2nd 2016...

    https://www.nasa.gov/image-det... [nasa.gov]

    Are they manually typing those fields? ...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      time dilation because the capsule is going so fast.
    • The only guy who understand this stuff was old and white and male, so obviously had to leave NASA.
      • Would to just shut the fuck up already? No one wants to hear your whining anymore.

    • Fun fact, the first picture in here has a wrong timestamp, dated April 2nd 2016... https://www.nasa.gov/image-det... [nasa.gov]

      Probably the metadata is in UTC, and they forgot to convert it for Americans.

    • Kubrick did better than that

  • 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?

  • 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
    • It's neither half full nor half empty: the bottle is refillable.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

      But, There is absolutely nothing exceptional here: This has been already achieved almost 60 years ago, with much, much less technology available.

      This gets brought up fairly often. And yes, we did it before. Why do it all again?

      The learning curve is why. I can't imagine there is anyone from the Apollo project left at NASA. So a whole new group of people have to learn how to make things work. All those people sitting at their consoles are learning, re-learning after a fashion, what the Engineers learned in the 1960's.

      It's all good!

  • 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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Because we see a fully illuminated globe the sun needs to be behind the spacecraft and yes, then you get a reflection.
      The other photo is showing it too.

      • The sun is behind Earth. The "dark" side of Earth is lit by moonglow and photographed with a large f-stop. I'm assuming that the light in the center is a reflection from inside the capsule. It may not have been apparent to the photographer, but a camera with wide-open aperture can pick up stuff that the eye can't see.

        • Doh! That explains the lights from the cities along whatever coastline that was--it was night for them. A facepalm moment.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by shm ( 235766 )

    > "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?

  • "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:
    https://en.w [wikipedia.org]

    • They are not in an orbit around the Earth; they exceeded the 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        they exceeded the escape velocity [wikipedia.org].

        They will be using the Moon's gravity to change direction,

        This is plausible, but the first I've heard of it. Citation? Normal TLI is not far short of escape velocity. A bit like Starship being not quite LEO.
        My sources said if not for the gravity assist they would go past, and take a few more days to return to earth.

        Though I'd still quibble than in a 3-body sense, they are not leaving orbit. We'll need to wait for a Mars Mission for that.

        • "NASA's Artemis II mission stopped circling Earth"

          "After the spacecraft leaves Earth's gravity, there's no way back but to swing around the moon as planned."

          https://www.livescience.com/sp... [livescience.com]

          Couple days ago I came across an article with some specific numbers; I'll post it if I re-find it.

    • The S-IVB stages from Apollo 8, 10, 11, and 12 (sorta [wikipedia.org]) are in heliocentric orbits, along with the Tesla Roadster launched by SpaceX [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        The S-IVB stages from Apollo 8, 10, 11, and 12 (sorta [wikipedia.org]) are in heliocentric orbits, along with the Tesla Roadster launched by SpaceX [wikipedia.org].

        Well, by "spaceship" I meant designed for human occupancy, so excluding all the science probes, including those that have left solar orbit.
        I guess I should have counted the Tesla :-) So long and thanks for all the fish.

    • "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.

      Because Orbital mechanics is pretty difficult for most to grok. She does have bona fides, Doctorate in Environmental Science and Masters in Physics.

      So I'm pretty certain that she well knows that Orion is still in orbit around the earth.

      But just think about it. We have people in here who think that not re-using a rocket is some sort of crime, not thinking how that first stage can only return if it is close enough to the launch site. That if you want to go to the moon or a planet, you just point your Roc

      • Orion is still in orbit around the earth.
        Citation needed.

        OTOH:
        "NASA's Artemis II mission stopped circling Earth"
        "After the spacecraft leaves Earth's gravity, there's no way back but to swing around the moon as planned."
        https://www.livescience.com/sp... [livescience.com]
        https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        We have people in here who think that not re-using a rocket is some sort of crime,

        I have to stop you there. The RS-25 rockets on the SLS were indeed being re-used, after they flew on the Shuttle. They were designed for re-use, and incredibly expensive. So it is something of a "crime" to dump them in the ocean. But yes, NASA's attempts to save money by re-using the Shuttle orbiter and boosters were ultimately a failure.

        The billions spent on the SLS program since the end of the shuttle program have an opportunity cost. And it was apparent a while back that the SLS was a dead end, and

        • Pardon? Have you not seen the barge landings?

          There are many aspects of a flight profile. Some are based on where you put the payload when it is in orbit. Others are the weight of the payload. As an example, 9's Payload for a GTO orbit is 5.5t when recovered on barge, and 8.3t for an expended mission. LEO orbit, 17.5 t if recovered, 22.8t expendable.

          Just because some flight profiles can land at a pad or on a barge, does not mean that this happens in all cases.

          References from paper :

          A Survey of Launch Vehicle Recovery Techniques

          Shraddha C.

          P

  • 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...

  • Does the spaceship know which way to go?

  • The biggest winner (Score:3)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Saturday April 04, 2026 @10:49AM (#66076982)

    SpaceX

    If I worked at SpaceX I would be cheering every minute of this. Science and technical issues aside the Artemis mission proved that there is political and social interest in such an endeavor to the extent that it gets funded to the ludicrous scale this one did.

    They proved there is a market.

    So if you come up with a usable vehicle system at 1/10th the operational cost of what people are actually paying for that is as close to a guaranteed win in a business plan it is possible to get. I wish I had stock in that company.

  • Miles Davis, OK, but when it comes to science, kilometers please.

  • According to the Guinness Book Of Records, the Artemis II flight is the most expensive game of Hide and Seek in Solar System history! :D

  • diversity (Score:5, Funny)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Saturday April 04, 2026 @01:51PM (#66077280)

    Based on the diversity identity of the crew reflecting that of the US, we can infer that:

    1. 25% of the US is female.
    2. 25% of the US is black.
    3. 67% of the US is white
    and
    4. 25% of the US is Canadian.

    • Re: diversity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by clovis ( 4684 ) on Saturday April 04, 2026 @02:09PM (#66077320)

      The zone where integer math crosses with the tyranny of small numbers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Honestly, that's a pretty good spread for a small crew. And is much higher than any other population sample you could take. It only happened because these things are planned out so far in advance, that Trump's anti-DEI couldn't have taken effect without delaying it for at least a couple more years.

      And the moon is not an easy feat - if you want a rough idea of scale, put a half inch sized circle on one of your wrists, Then put a dot on the other wrist. Then stretch your arms wide and you have a near scale re

  • According to NASA's Artemis II live tracking facility, the ship is moving at 2,185 MPH. I am surprised: for this kind of thing that seems to be a rather puny velocity.

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