The 3D simulation in the video below from The Overview Effect compares Artemis II’s flight path with its predecessor Artemis I as well Apollo 8. It also goes into a little depth about how the moon’s orbit affects the earth with the path it takes fluctuating through an 18.6 year long cycle floating around the earth.
NASA’s New Moon Photos
NASA has a Flickr album full of new images from the Artemis II mission.
Just look at these beautiful photos:
(via Kottke)
Artemis II Mission Blasts Off
On Wednesday, the Artemis II took off for the moon. I watched the launch with Ian.
Here’s a replay from NASA’s livestream:
Later we called my dad to talk about his memory of watching previous moon landings. He explained that during the first moon walk, he went outside and took a picture of the moon. Ian immediately wanted to know if he would send us that photo. We’ll try to track it in my dad’s old album the next time we have a chance.
The next day NASA released this image of the earth even as the spaceship continues on its historic journey to the moon.
Twinkle Twinkle
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
— Douglas Adams, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
If you held up a grain of sand to the sky in the right position, it would block out the entirety of this image.
Chinese Rocket Hits the Moon
That mystery rocket debris floating around in space, which was once thought to be from Space-ex, it turns out was from China. It collided with the moon yesterday and left a crater up to 20m wide.
From The Verge story:
Originally, space trackers thought it was a leftover piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a weather satellite back in 2015. But after careful analysis, various groups of space trackers confirmed that the rocket was likely leftover from the launch of China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission — a flight that launched in 2014 to test out technology needed to bring samples back from the Moon. That mission, launched on a Chinese Long March 3C rocket, sent a spacecraft looping around the Moon in an attempt to see if China could send a vehicle to the Moon and then bring it back to Earth. Given the flight profile of the Chang’e 5-T1 mission and the tracking of the mystery object, astronomers are fairly certain that a chunk of the Long March 3C rocket has remained in an extremely elongated orbit around Earth ever since, only to find its way to the far side of the Moon.
The moon does a pretty good job of sweeping up space debris that’s way out there.
Meteor near Saskatoon – Feb 22, 2021
My brother-in-law has a security camera mounted on his house in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that caught a few seconds of this meteor flying over Canada yesterday.
People all over Alberta and Saskatchewan are reporting their experiences catching glimpses of the celestial boulder.
The New USA Space Force Logo
In December, the United States announced a new branch of the military, The Space Force. Today they released the logo for the new service and a lot of people are talking about how it looks like the logo from StarFleet.
I did a quick search and as much as it tickles my biases to make fun of the logo, it’s fair to say Star Trek copied real life space organizations rather than the other way around.
This collection of Star Trek logos shows that Trek did a bit of borrowing from NASA and the United Nations.
Man Will Spacewalk
With today being the 50th Anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon, I bring you this little classic reverse speech from the first words spoken on the surface of the moon which, when reversed, sound like “man will spacewalk”.
Neil Armstrong’s Moon Landing Speech Backwards
Play Forward
Forward:’a small step for a man’
Play in Reverse
Reverse: ‘Man will spacewalk.’
Also of interest, on this anniversary of scientific achievement, NASA has released a collection of 45 panoramic photos from the surface of the moon based on images stitched together from the various Apollo missions.
(Previously, on Jeffmilner.com.)
Anousheh Ansari Space Tourist Blogger
A fascinating first hand experience of what it’s like to be an astronaut. Anousheh Ansari posts to her website from space.
Update: She called Google.
CAPSoff
WHO ACTUALLY USES THE CAPS LOCK KEY ANYWAY? Oops, I mean who actually uses the caps lock key anyway? People who like to shout, that’s who. But having spent upwards of 3 minutes contemplating the usefulness of the caps lock key, I for one agree, it’s time to do away with caps lock.
I should also mention that it’s high time we get rid of comic sans and while we’re at it let’s give the planet Pluto a demotion. Can you hear me? DEMOTE PLUTO NOW!
Upon further consideration caps lock is kind of handy for easy yelling. KNOW WHAT I MEAN?