Lunar Landings News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

They need to fucking land it on the moon.

Next they can send the space out post for the one after that so 3-4 people can stay on the moon at once for maybe 6 months at a time.

[wjfox]

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NASA Releases Images of Artemis II's Flight Behind the Moon







Credit: NASA

[weatheriscool]

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To the Moon
By Katherine Alejandra Cross

April 13, 2026

Introduction:

(Liberal Currents) Artemis II Commander Reid Weisman: “You know I’m not one for hyperbole but it’s the only thing I can come up with. Just seeing Tycho there’s mountains to the north. You can see Copernicus, Reiner, Gamma, it’s just everything from the training but in three dimensions and absolutely unbelievable. This is incredible.”

NASA Mission Control Officer Jacki Mahaffey: [chuckle] “Copy, moon joy.”

On Friday, April 3, as I watched the nearly full moon rise over Seattle’s Broadway, it hit me. Sitting at a restaurant table with my girlfriend, I told her that I was very suddenly overcome with the sense that I was doing something I never thought I’d live to do: look at the Moon and think humans are going there right now. It was, I told her, something no one on Earth had been able to say since well before either of us were born.

Artemis II was on its way to the Moon, and an international crew that represented the best of us, in the strength of our diversity, were about to lead the world in a whole lot of moon joy.

Rare, unifying events are a strange suspension in time; like the Olympics, the world moves on around them, and yet there’s an ineffable sense of something wonderful happening out there somewhere. Some unique celestial alignment of moments, personalities, exquisite uniqueness, never seen before and perhaps never to be seen again. And you’re breathing the same air as those people making it happen.

Read more here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/to-the-moon/

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What Were the Flashes that Artemis II Astronauts Saw?
By David L. Chandler
April 16, 2026

Introduction:

(Sky & Telescope) Artemis 2 astronauts reported six flashes of light as they circled behind the Moon. But those flashes — marking meteorite impacts — were not unexpected.

Apollo 17 crew saw three lunar impact flashes in 1972, and amateur astronomers on Earth first recorded similar flashes in 1999, during the Leonid meteor shower. Since then, well over 400 such impact flashes have been confirmed. What surprised ground control was that the crew of Artemis 2 saw twice as many during their brief flyby as during the entire Apollo 17 mission — perhaps in part because this crew had been trained to be on the lookout for them.

The observations help provide a baseline to estimate the rate of such impacts on the Moon. On Earth, the atmosphere causes most small meteoroids to burn up harmlessly, never reaching the ground. But on the airless Moon, even the tiniest bits of space debris can make it all the way to the lunar surface, posing potential risks for equipment and even future human bases.

The flashes that the Artemis 2 astronauts saw were mostly near the Moon’s equator or in its southern hemisphere.

“I think that is a unique dataset,” says planetary scientist Benjamin Weiss (MIT). He says it will help determine the size distribution of small objects in our neighborhood of the solar system. Counts of the Moon’s visible impact craters provide a sampling of the size distribution of bodies larger than 100 meters (330 feet), he says. Scientists have estimated the size distribution of smaller objects from the pits left behind on lunar rock samples that Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth. Those show impact divots of 100 microns or so.

Read more here: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy- ... uts-saw/

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America’s Next Moon Mission Depends on Elon Musk, for Better or Worse
By Anna Rogers
April 18, 2026

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Elon Musk has long been in an on-again, off-again relationship with the moon. Though just last year he called it “a distraction”—saying his focus was shifting exclusively to Mars—he now seems to be rekindling things with our natural satellite. And regardless of his own feelings about the moon, NASA is paying him to get us there again.

The Artemis II mission, which returned just a week ago, set a new record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. But looping around the moon—as the four astronauts did during their nine days in space—is not the project’s paramount goal. By 2028, NASA plans for astronauts to touch down on the lunar surface, and while they’ve now demonstrated we can still shoot for the moon, landing there is another story.

No human has set foot on the moon since 1972, and the landing gear that facilitated the Apollo missions isn’t compatible with modern rockets or NASA’s goal of longer-term exploration—humans have spent a total of just over three days ambling around the lunar surface. Since the inception of the Artemis project, NASA has contracted with SpaceX, currently Musk’s most profitable company, to design more expansive landing equipment.

NASA has always relied on partnerships with private companies, but the number of unique contractors has dropped by 38 percent between 2021 and 2024 as contracts with SpaceX ballooned. According to a Washington Post investigation, Musk’s company has received nearly $15 billion from the agency all told, with contract values doubling at the inception of Artemis.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... ontracts/

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

SLS just proved itself by going around the moon with 4 people. I'd feel less safe riding on starship or blue orgin causing blue orgin just lost the satellite and starship can hardly by the tip of its ass pull off orbital. Yes SLS cost more money but it is a proven system in the image of the saturn 5 that did it many times in the past. We can't afford a lost or the moon program is dead. Just saying. Maybe use star ship to get things to the moon that are not humans until starship proves its ability.

[firestar464]

SLS is the launch vehicle, not the lander.

[wjfox]

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[firestar464]

[firestar464]

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