Four astronauts are on the verge of becoming the first humans to venture near the moon in more than half a century since NASA's iconic Apollo era came to an end.
As early as February, the crew of a mission known as Artemis 2 will board the U.S. space agency's Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket for a 10-day trip circumnavigating the moon.
The mission doesn't include plans for a moon landing – yet. Instead, the four astronauts will venture on a cosmic journey that will lay the groundwork for future astronauts to step foot on the lunar surface in the years ahead.
I hope Isaacman holds his word and doesn’t become an entire starship shill, whatever gets the astronauts there and back safely with that invaluable science and experience is the goal
IMO might not matter what Issacman has to say. SpaceX is furthest ahead and NASA has no alternatives. Duffy pointed this out a bit but there’s really nothing you can do unless the budget for human exploration goes 5x
They have designed, produced, and operate the single most successful launch vehicle (and vehicle family) in the history of mankind, are responsible for the vast majority of the current scientific and humanitarian space launches, singlehandedly kicked off an entire private leap forward in the space industry, and have pumped more money into R&D than most countries on the planet.
Musk's personal antics, blatant racism, sexism, and total disregard for human life make him a terrible person to lead a company. Any company.
And why does that matter if this board of directors is so independent and clashes with him? It matters because its just theater otherwise they would have fired him by now.
Hell, they have ousted CEOs for being seen on camera with a subordinate at a concert. Much less gutting entire government organizations, forcing every outstanding lawsuit against your cash cow to be canceled, removing all competing EV infrastructure from federal grounds, and organizing the sale of lots of "upgraded" cybertrucks to the state department. That are never going to be delivered: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administration-order-400-million-worth-of-armored-teslas
Its all behavior of a deeply troubled person and any company he "leads" should be under deep, deep suspicion for everything they do.
Yes and no. They have very narrow time-slots when they can lift-off. So a main time will be announced way before, but based on the weather, off-nominal sensor readings of the vehicle, unautorized vehicles in the flight-path of the rocket or any other event that can endanger the crew and the mission, delays or scrubs can occur.
Im slightly worried this will lead to a bunch of 51st state propaganda from Donnie and put Jeremy in a bit of an odd place but also very excited to include Canada since they have a long history of great astronauts and engineers that executed the canadarms for nasa!
It’s a very shocking parallel to 1968 and I hope a new earth rise photo reignites the overview effect for us terrestrials down here!
Generally we (the mods) feel that people are entitled to their opinions, subject to the rules of Reddit and r/nasa. If someone wants to make a fool of themselves by trolling a major NASA accomplishment on a subreddit dedicated to NASA, we feel that the resulting downvotes will make it obvious that they aren't welcome. We do remove comments that violate the rules, including Rule 11, which says that the mods have final say regardless of any other rules.
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Yeah I’m pretty sure the rocket is going to explode and the current admin will stand on that as a reason to discontinue space travel for good. Flat Earth as a government-sponsored education goal, here we come.
Edit: Dunno why I'm getting the downvotes. There's been huge upheaval at NASA over the past year. Longtime personnel with decades of experience were kicked to the curb. An incalculable amount knowledge and judgement was removed and is not a part of NASA anymore.
Many people are willing to take the massive risk of going into space whatever the potential danger, but how can it not make sense that there is more risk now than there was 2 years ago.
What do you mean "flew without a hitch?!" There were issues with the heat shield!
There are many problems that need to be addressed, which is to be expected, but the environment around the program has changed. Politics are in the mix like never before, and some Trump allies have a vested interest in NASA failing.
the issue has been replicated on the ground and solutions implemented. the skip entry will not take place and the time frames for launch have been adjusted to not require skip entry.
no space flight ever has a 100% guarantee, thats why it is called the frontier
Elon will get Trump to shut it down, give SpaceTwitter a few billion to deliver a big beautiful moon mission that won't happen even though Elon still pockets all the money. Nothing good happens anymore.
We’ve been saying we’re working on it for a decade now (or more) but no one has ever claimed to be a month away until now. The vehicle is built and stacked on the rocket, we have a crew selected and trained, and they’re rolling out to the pad in the next couple weeks. For the first time in a very long time, it’s really happening.
Yeah, this thing may orbit the moon for this trip, but we ain’t ever gonna land on it again, not in our lifetime.
I’m 53 and was born the day after Apollo 17 splashdown in the pacific from the final moon landing. I’ve been hearing my whole life that were just about to go to the moon again.
What you’ve actually been hearing is: “We want to start a new program to eventually put humans on the Moon.” But none of those programs have ever been allowed to make any meaningful progress, until recently. This is by far the closest you’ve ever been to a Moon landing since Apollo 17, because this is the first time actual hardware for doing so exists.
we ain’t ever gonna land on it again, not in our lifetime.
Who is ‘we’? If you mean humanity as a whole, China has a very real chance of beating the US back to the Moon.
I’m not the most optimistic about SpaceX’s HLS as a design choice, but no one can say with any certainty that it “won’t exist.” It’s in active development right now. Whether or not it actually carries astronauts to the lunar surface is up for debate, but the vehicle itself is being built.
What programs did you hear about that said we were going back to the moon soon? After Apollo, the space shuttle was in development, and was never planned to go to the moon. Constellation had plans for a lunar landing, but it never got far enough in development to where anyone would say that we were about to go back to the moon.
I’ve been hearing it over and over since the early 1970s, and there are plenty of concrete examples. In the late 1980s and early 1990s we had the Space Exploration Initiative under George H. W. Bush, which explicitly promised a return to the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. That was not fringe chatter, it was a presidential speech with NASA plans behind it, and it went nowhere.
In the early 2000s we got it again with George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration. That plan very clearly said humans would return to the Moon by around 2020, build a sustained presence there, and then go on to Mars. That is what Constellation was supposed to deliver, with Ares rockets and the Altair lander. Billions were spent, hardware was partially built, and it was then cancelled.
In the 2010s we heard it again, this time rebranded. First it was the Obama era pivot where the Moon quietly faded but was never fully ruled out, then the Trump administration brought it back explicitly with Artemis. Once again, the language was that we were going back to the Moon soon, landing humans, and staying this time. That was said repeatedly, in speeches, NASA press releases, and congressional testimony.
Even Artemis itself has slipped year after year. Artemis 2, Artemis 3, commercial landers, sustained presence, lunar gateway. Every few years the dates move, the architecture changes, and the same promise gets recycled. I am not saying no hardware ever flies. I am saying that for more than fifty years the public message has regularly been “we are about to go back to the Moon,” and for more than fifty years it has not actually happened.
So when I say I have heard my whole life that we were just about to go back, I am not talking about one specific program. I am talking about a recurring pattern of announcements, plans, timelines, and resets that stretches from the early post Apollo era all the way to today. From my perspective, the skepticism is earned.
The difference between those examples and this one is that this is literally launching within the next few months. The programs that you mentioned were long term plans that never actually came anywhere close to final fruition. At no point in those programs did anyone say “We are about a month from launch”, with it never actually launching.
A3 may end up differently, but this post is about A2.
I think it’s a team effort on humanities part and whoever leads the way is fine by me. With the current state of the USA I’m skeptical we will be that leader in the future. But I tend to be a bit romantic about space exploration. I think it would be awesome to see ANY other country go to the moon.
This isn't really a moon mission. Just a trip around the moon. Granted the first one in 50 years. But not actually landing on the moon. And I would put a little money on the Artimis II mission getting scrubbed and re-established so it can be done with the SpaceX Starship rocket. And that of course will take a few more years.
Four astronauts are on the verge of becoming the first humans to venture near the moon in more than half a century since NASA's iconic Apollo era came to an end.
As early as February, the crew of a mission known as Artemis 2 will board the U.S. space agency's Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket for a 10-day trip circumnavigating the moon.
The mission doesn't include plans for a moon landing – yet. Instead, the four astronauts will venture on a cosmic journey that will lay the groundwork for future astronauts to step foot on the lunar surface in the years ahead.
How many years ahead is the plan for landing?
NASA still has Artemis III slotted for mid 2027 but a month or two ago leaked SpaceX memos say they won’t have their vehicle ready until 2028+
I hope Isaacman holds his word and doesn’t become an entire starship shill, whatever gets the astronauts there and back safely with that invaluable science and experience is the goal
IMO might not matter what Issacman has to say. SpaceX is furthest ahead and NASA has no alternatives. Duffy pointed this out a bit but there’s really nothing you can do unless the budget for human exploration goes 5x
you mean half of where it should be? :D
A vehicle for landing still has to be completed and tested. This will take at least another couple years.
i believe spacex must first demonstrate an unmanned landing and return before nasa puts astronauts on it
At this stage, you trust them to do anything?
They have designed, produced, and operate the single most successful launch vehicle (and vehicle family) in the history of mankind, are responsible for the vast majority of the current scientific and humanitarian space launches, singlehandedly kicked off an entire private leap forward in the space industry, and have pumped more money into R&D than most countries on the planet.
What don't you trust about their efforts?
The fruit from a poisned tree is deadly... even if it is pretty.
Their owner
Okay, elaborate. What about Musk makes you lose faith in a company that has an independent board of directors that regularly clashes with him?
Musk's personal antics, blatant racism, sexism, and total disregard for human life make him a terrible person to lead a company. Any company.
And why does that matter if this board of directors is so independent and clashes with him? It matters because its just theater otherwise they would have fired him by now.
Hell, they have ousted CEOs for being seen on camera with a subordinate at a concert. Much less gutting entire government organizations, forcing every outstanding lawsuit against your cash cow to be canceled, removing all competing EV infrastructure from federal grounds, and organizing the sale of lots of "upgraded" cybertrucks to the state department. That are never going to be delivered: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administration-order-400-million-worth-of-armored-teslas
Its all behavior of a deeply troubled person and any company he "leads" should be under deep, deep suspicion for everything they do.
I trust their vehicle self destructs to work flawlessly.
Just give them an old Toyota 4Runner.
officially? It's planned for 2 years out, but there's no lander even close to ready, really its 2030 best case scenario
Agreed, and that's around when the Chinese will land.
An executive order was just signed to make it 2028. Not that that means it’s fact but that’s the new directive.
Oh it was an EO? Yeah it’s definitely going to take longer than 2028 - if it ever gets finished in the first place.
Humans haven’t been more than 870mi (1,400km) away from Earth in my lifetime nor anytime since Apollo. That’s less than 4x as high as the International Space Station.
It will be amazing to experience knowing four people are beyond the Moon during this mission. They’ll be more than 1.25 light-seconds away from Earth.
Dam, so we will only be able to play turn-based games with our Moon buddies. That or other games that don't require "real-time".
!RemindMe in one month. I've been waiting my whole life to see this.
The first launch window is actually less than a month out (2/6). You might want to check in early.
I will be messaging you in 1 month on 2026-02-07 18:00:30 UTC to remind you of this link
4 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
I wonder ... What time this is likely to kick off. Basically .. depends on weather on the day I'm guessing.
Yes and no. They have very narrow time-slots when they can lift-off. So a main time will be announced way before, but based on the weather, off-nominal sensor readings of the vehicle, unautorized vehicles in the flight-path of the rocket or any other event that can endanger the crew and the mission, delays or scrubs can occur.
What exactly are they doing on board? Do they have any tasks? Experiments? Especially the 2 who not commanding Orion?
Everything you wanted to know: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
Thank you!
Im slightly worried this will lead to a bunch of 51st state propaganda from Donnie and put Jeremy in a bit of an odd place but also very excited to include Canada since they have a long history of great astronauts and engineers that executed the canadarms for nasa!
It’s a very shocking parallel to 1968 and I hope a new earth rise photo reignites the overview effect for us terrestrials down here!
Ah, Jeremy Hansen.
NOT *Jared Isaacman
Edit: My bad on the correction, was confused on the previous post referring to the Canadian Astronaut assigned to Artemis II, Jeremy Hansen.
Thanks for the clarification in following comments!
Jeremy is the Canadian Space Agency astronaut assigned to the mission.
correct good sir
... wait until you learn how Isaacman spells his last name.
Another good correction, apologies for the spelling typo (now fixed) above! 🤣
Mods need to start banning the various troll comments on here
Generally we (the mods) feel that people are entitled to their opinions, subject to the rules of Reddit and r/nasa. If someone wants to make a fool of themselves by trolling a major NASA accomplishment on a subreddit dedicated to NASA, we feel that the resulting downvotes will make it obvious that they aren't welcome. We do remove comments that violate the rules, including Rule 11, which says that the mods have final say regardless of any other rules.
You can help by reporting comments the violate the rules (not just the ones that you disagree with) and by not engaging with trolls.
Oh, I understand
So far the community is doing good work as any nonsense is below threshold for me.
That's exactly why we have downvotes (and upvotes).
If someone is reading the below-the-threshold comments, then yes, you're going to find the trolls. Glad that's working well for you.
Great to see that this moving forward!
I am just excited to watch a bunch of tin foil hats witness a moon landing and then refute that we even did it
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #2163 for this sub, first seen 8th Jan 2026, 06:41] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Now explain "PPE".
Zarya, but in lunar orbit.
I'll believe it when i see it. I am doubtful this will happen.
The rocket is fully assembled and is scheduled to rollout in a few weeks.
‘What we know’ is that it’s an attempt to copy Apollo - half a century later.
Nothing radical “21-century” technology - just a larger capsule.
Should we be proud?
Given how things have been going with the US government I'm genuinely worried for the Astronauts' safety.
Being in the Aerospace business, I am genuinely concerned for the astronauts' safety.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the rocket is going to explode and the current admin will stand on that as a reason to discontinue space travel for good. Flat Earth as a government-sponsored education goal, here we come.
I get a really bad feeling that things have been rushed to make this happen on the 250th anniversary…
It's been delayed countless times already because it wasn't ready. They aren't rushing anything.
Can you point to any evidence to support your claim?
I’m not claiming anything, it’s just a strange coincidence that the events lined up the way they did.
I mean it’s been what 70 years I don’t really think there’s been any rushing
Literally claiming it’s a coincidence with no evidence to support your claim.
I truly fear for those astronauts.
Edit: Dunno why I'm getting the downvotes. There's been huge upheaval at NASA over the past year. Longtime personnel with decades of experience were kicked to the curb. An incalculable amount knowledge and judgement was removed and is not a part of NASA anymore.
Many people are willing to take the massive risk of going into space whatever the potential danger, but how can it not make sense that there is more risk now than there was 2 years ago.
Why? They are 1000x more qualified than you and I combined to be on this mission and they clearly are fine with it. Artemis I flew without a hitch.
Edit: SLS flew without a hitch and Orion heatshield issues were the main reason A2 was delayed, with collected data from A1 implemented.
What do you mean "flew without a hitch?!" There were issues with the heat shield!
There are many problems that need to be addressed, which is to be expected, but the environment around the program has changed. Politics are in the mix like never before, and some Trump allies have a vested interest in NASA failing.
the issue has been replicated on the ground and solutions implemented. the skip entry will not take place and the time frames for launch have been adjusted to not require skip entry.
no space flight ever has a 100% guarantee, thats why it is called the frontier
Artemis I had a big reentry problem, which is a big part of why Artemis II was delayed.
Elon will get Trump to shut it down, give SpaceTwitter a few billion to deliver a big beautiful moon mission that won't happen even though Elon still pockets all the money. Nothing good happens anymore.
Space X already has a funded piece of Artemis in the later stages with star ship and dragon. Pretty sure they got their share already
[deleted]
This is a different vehicle made by a different company. It has very little in common with Starliner.
Big whoop. Go to Mars, then I'll be impressed.
F__k america
Okay? F__k Australia, then. 😂
Been saying this for nearly a decade now.
We’ve been saying we’re working on it for a decade now (or more) but no one has ever claimed to be a month away until now. The vehicle is built and stacked on the rocket, we have a crew selected and trained, and they’re rolling out to the pad in the next couple weeks. For the first time in a very long time, it’s really happening.
I was at Kennedy Space Center more than 7 years ago. The guide told us the launch would be within the next month.
Maybe he be was just trying to get people excited about the program
Either you are lying or the tour guide was lying. Artemis 2 has never had a planned launch date in 2019 or earlier.
Your tour guide was referring to a different launch or making an obvious joke.
SLS wasn’t anywhere close to being completed 7 years ago. The core stage wasn’t even finished until December 2019.
Yeah, this thing may orbit the moon for this trip, but we ain’t ever gonna land on it again, not in our lifetime.
I’m 53 and was born the day after Apollo 17 splashdown in the pacific from the final moon landing. I’ve been hearing my whole life that were just about to go to the moon again.
It ain’t happening.
What you’ve actually been hearing is: “We want to start a new program to eventually put humans on the Moon.” But none of those programs have ever been allowed to make any meaningful progress, until recently. This is by far the closest you’ve ever been to a Moon landing since Apollo 17, because this is the first time actual hardware for doing so exists.
Who is ‘we’? If you mean humanity as a whole, China has a very real chance of beating the US back to the Moon.
Except for the lander part, that doesn’t exist and won’t exist because they were paid off to choose starship to be their lander.
Yes, I didn’t mean all required hardware.
I’m not the most optimistic about SpaceX’s HLS as a design choice, but no one can say with any certainty that it “won’t exist.” It’s in active development right now. Whether or not it actually carries astronauts to the lunar surface is up for debate, but the vehicle itself is being built.
What programs did you hear about that said we were going back to the moon soon? After Apollo, the space shuttle was in development, and was never planned to go to the moon. Constellation had plans for a lunar landing, but it never got far enough in development to where anyone would say that we were about to go back to the moon.
I’ve been hearing it over and over since the early 1970s, and there are plenty of concrete examples. In the late 1980s and early 1990s we had the Space Exploration Initiative under George H. W. Bush, which explicitly promised a return to the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars. That was not fringe chatter, it was a presidential speech with NASA plans behind it, and it went nowhere.
In the early 2000s we got it again with George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration. That plan very clearly said humans would return to the Moon by around 2020, build a sustained presence there, and then go on to Mars. That is what Constellation was supposed to deliver, with Ares rockets and the Altair lander. Billions were spent, hardware was partially built, and it was then cancelled.
In the 2010s we heard it again, this time rebranded. First it was the Obama era pivot where the Moon quietly faded but was never fully ruled out, then the Trump administration brought it back explicitly with Artemis. Once again, the language was that we were going back to the Moon soon, landing humans, and staying this time. That was said repeatedly, in speeches, NASA press releases, and congressional testimony.
Even Artemis itself has slipped year after year. Artemis 2, Artemis 3, commercial landers, sustained presence, lunar gateway. Every few years the dates move, the architecture changes, and the same promise gets recycled. I am not saying no hardware ever flies. I am saying that for more than fifty years the public message has regularly been “we are about to go back to the Moon,” and for more than fifty years it has not actually happened.
So when I say I have heard my whole life that we were just about to go back, I am not talking about one specific program. I am talking about a recurring pattern of announcements, plans, timelines, and resets that stretches from the early post Apollo era all the way to today. From my perspective, the skepticism is earned.
The difference between those examples and this one is that this is literally launching within the next few months. The programs that you mentioned were long term plans that never actually came anywhere close to final fruition. At no point in those programs did anyone say “We are about a month from launch”, with it never actually launching.
A3 may end up differently, but this post is about A2.
Yeah but now China wants to so we can’t let them do it alone.
the only way to secure federal funding for a project of this scale is to scare congress into thinking the commies get there first.
sputnik 2.0 thats all
if the globe were to work together on missions such as these we would have night clubs on pluto by now
I have more faith in China starting a new age of space exploration than the US.
I’d rather it wasn’t dictatorships like the US and China reaching out into space for all mankind but I’ll take NASA over China or Russia regardless
I think it’s a team effort on humanities part and whoever leads the way is fine by me. With the current state of the USA I’m skeptical we will be that leader in the future. But I tend to be a bit romantic about space exploration. I think it would be awesome to see ANY other country go to the moon.
Well, when you put it that way I guess I am as well. I’m just saddened by the state of affairs globally.
I hope to see A II and A III complete their objectives and see humanity away from LEO again.
Artemis 2 isn’t even going to lunar orbit. It’s a flyby. It’s even done once, Apollo 13.
Five hours, 5 downvotes. Why?
Yeah, people are going to love seeing this happen with the country in the state it's in...
This isn't really a moon mission. Just a trip around the moon. Granted the first one in 50 years. But not actually landing on the moon. And I would put a little money on the Artimis II mission getting scrubbed and re-established so it can be done with the SpaceX Starship rocket. And that of course will take a few more years.
https://preview.redd.it/8ukwz654jbcg1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ce38d3b3c0a9a9bc574d49f58f7c28ea71a4274
Yaaaaaawn
Than you for your input. Typical cynical, negative and adds nothing.
Ill be here the rest of the week!
Yaaaaawn