Artemis (NASA moon mission)

One of the claims is that one of the engines being used is the same one that powered the Voyager spacecraft back in the 1970s.

The rocket booster is maybe the same one that they used for the space shuttles.

If it ain't broke, why fix it?
 
The first launch window for Artemis I comes at the end of this month, the morning of August 29. The mission profile takes it to the Moon for half a lap in the deep retrograde lunar orbit before returning to Earth.

I would be lying if I've said I'm not a little excited about this. But it's also both the first fully-integrated launch test and the first full-flight test for Artemis, so anything could happen.
 
The final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, was in December of 1972, almost 50 years ago. I was barely 2 years old, and too young to remember. Whoever would have thought that it would take over 50 years before anyone would return to the moon? Of course this is very cool, but the actual manned mission is what I'm really excited for. There's a whole generation of people who are too young to remember the Apollo missions.
 
From the briefing yesterday, it sounds like Artemis 2 will be the first manned mission and it sounds like unfortunately you'll have to wait until 2024 for it (tentatively), with the actual moon landing itself coming a year later and annual missions expected thereafter.
 
Yeah, I knew the first manned mission would be in 2024 at the earliest. I guess I'm not surprised that it isn't going to be a moon landing either. It was the same with Apollo, wasn't it? After all, it was Apollo 11 that first landed on the moon. I think there were several missions before that that didn't land on the moon.
 
Puppycow said:
Yeah, I knew the first manned mission would be in 2024 at the earliest. I guess I'm not surprised that it isn't going to be a moon landing either. It was the same with Apollo, wasn't it? After all, it was Apollo 11 that first landed on the moon. I think there were several missions before that that didn't land on the moon.
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Apollo 8 orbited the moon without a lander (it was not ready). Apollo 10 was a dress rehearsal for the landing. Apollo 9 did not leave low earth orbit.

The priority for the Apollo missions was to do it fast. OK to spend heaps of money.
 
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rjh01 said:
Apollo 8 orbited the moon without a lander (it was not ready). Apollo 10 was a dress rehearsal for the landing. Apollo 9 did not leave low earth orbit.

The priority for the Apollo missions was to do it fast. OK to spend heaps of money.
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Indeed. I see that less than a year passed between Apollo 8 and Apollo 11, and only about 3-plus years between Apollo 11 and Apollo 17. It was all done very rapidly. Took longer to make the James Webb Space Telescope than the entire time between Kennedy saying we would land on the moon by the end of the decade, and the last Apollo mission.
 
Puppycow said:
The final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, was in December of 1972, almost 50 years ago.
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That was the last moon mission. Apollo continued for a few more years with Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program.

I was twelve when Apollo 17 travelled to the moon and I was not interested. Manned spaceflight was just something that was part of the background noise of my life. But, shortly before ASTP, I began building and launching model rockets and that spawned my interest in space and space exploration. I was glued to the TV during ASTP and even have some blurry 8mm film taken by pointing the camera at the TV.

I watched the first shuttle launch live after spending the previous night sleeping on the hood of a friend's car parked along the Banana river. I watched the last shuttle launch from the roadside where I had pulled off after hitting a traffic jam on the way towards the coast.

For the past twenty-something years I have lived in Central Florida where I can see most KSC and Cape Canaveral launches from my front yard. But, I will try to get closer to the launch site for the SLS launch. I never saw one of the Saturn V launches in person. The SLS has a higher thrust to weight ratio than the Saturn V, so the lift-off won't be quite as slow and majestic. But, it'll be pretty darn impressive!
 
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The guy on the NASA live stream said that there was some kind of sensor warning about hydrogen levels being too high in a "can" and so they are "slow filling". Hope it isn't too serious of a problem.
 
Looks like they got that problem resolved and are back to filling hydrogen again. But the sensor that showed a problem is still showing some hydrogen, although apparently at acceptable levels.
 
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