NASA Artemis II launches in humanity’s first moon mission in more than half a century

Godspeed mathletes.

Except a NASA chicken would be 3 trillion dollars

> I'm sure the new record wasn't a mission goal, only a consequence of other factors. You nailed it. Basically it takes fuel to get into a proper lunar orbit and it takes fuel to get back out of it, which is just unnecessary for this mission.

That really doesn't matter though. Milestones exist and breaking some of them (like "farthest point a human has been from Earth") are notable regardless of the reason. Farthest is farthest.

Not only the distance varies due to the orbit but they are also getting farther apart.

Yeah, I never bought that one, and no number of "official world maps" can convince me otherwise.

This is the pre-cursor to our long-term goal of setting up a permanent base on the moon, which in-return would benefit humanity greater than ever. But there's many big things that it could help with like - A) Way less gravity on the moon, so if we figure out a way to mine fuel on the moon and re-fuel rockets we could launch rockets from the moon and travel further in space and easier than ever before. B) Mining on the moon. There's an abundance of Helium which is finite on Earth. We could also bring asteroids to the moon and mine them there, then send the materials to Earth. This would basically give us more resources than ever before. If you were to take an asteroid made of Aluminum the size of a barn and mine it and send it to Earth, that's more than has ever been produced in history. And there's plenty of massive rocks of nearly every material. C) Training ground for our future of colonizing other planets like Mars and an ability to conduct scientific research we can't do on Earth (No atmosphere for astronomy, radio silence for deep space signals, low gravity to better understand physics) D) Ancillary benefits that other space programs have created like better communications & GPS tech, medicine and robotics, climate monitoring and recycling systems. Things like memory foam, iPhone cameras, cordless tools, infrared tech, and other things have been invented because of space travel R&D.

Because everyone who did it in the 60s with slide rules are now dead or soon will be. A functioning manned space program requires living astronauts with experience on long space flights. So you start with something you have data on, going to the moon. Same goes for the engineers who built the ships in the 60s, they don't work for nasa anymore. So the new engineers need to get experience. Imagine you ran a marathon when you were 20 but then just ran 5ks for the next 30 years. Then you decided you wanted to do a triathlon. It would make sense to do a marathon again to get back in shape before jumping into something you'd never done before.

Technically nothing, it’s just cool that we’re finally going back

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies Here’s a list of things that only exist because of breakthroughs we’ve gotten through NASA The act of flying around the moon might not benefit me, but the technologies they create to get there might. Or the results of experiments they can conduct in those conditions.

We plant trees so our children can stand in the shade

It's benefiting me right now. I'm enjoying it and proud of the achievement. And I'm looking forward to what comes next as well. I hope they continue to use my tax dollars on scientific endeavors, especially at NASA.

Many positive innovations and breakthroughs happening right now will never benefit me. That's okay. If more people had that outlook, maybe things will be better for the next generation than ours. I don't have such a pessimistic outlook. Who in the early 20th century would've thought that mass, everyday air travel accessible to the common man would ever be possible? Yet, here we are. Maybe you're right, but we won't ever know unless we push the boundaries that make it possible at all. Our great, great grandchildren could board a rocket to another world for the price of an Amtrak ticket today, for all we know.

I really wish Spinoff magazine was still published. It helped cynics like you.

Lmao this is the pinnacle of “Touch grass, kiddo”

Absurdly ignorant, cynical, and small minded mindset. To think that advancing science doesn't benefit you, because it doesn't directly impact you right this moment...that's tragic.

Womp womp

Some of us still have hope that one day science will get us to a point where orbiting the moon is routine. This is part of that journey. There is hope in the stars for a lot of us.

If you have a problem with billionaires, then vote to tax them until they're no longer billionaires and loudly advocate for candidates who will. Don't take your political frustration out on the science. The science is the only good thing that's happening right now.

You need to unplug man. This is beneficial for all of humanity.

So NASA scientists and astronauts are the bad guys now. Well that’s a new one.

Pffft, look at you thinking the launch was real. Didn't you know the moon doesn't exist?

Yawn try again