Back to the Moon

Artemis II launched on April 1st.  No joke!  As of now, it is halfway to the moon.  It will flyby the moon and come back to earth.  This is a watered-down repeat of Apollo 8, which saw Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders circle the moon in Christmas 1968.  While the Artemis will just slingshot around the moon and come straight back, Apollo 8 went into orbit around the moon.  However, Artemis will go farther from earth than any craft has ever gone.

This mission is long overdue.  Had NASA pulled it off on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, all of the named astronauts were still around.  All have since died in their 90s.  Perhaps Jared Isaacman, the new NASA Administrator, will turn the moribund agency around.  He has been to space twice, both times with SpaceX.  Let's hope he brings some of that energy and innovation into NASA.

Vintage Space

Recently I discovered Vintage Space hosted by Amy Shira Teitel and I'm surprised how long it took for me to encounter it.  Some years ago, a friend told me that he believed the moon landings were a hoax.  I immediately set to the task of demonstrating that we had landed on the moon.  Many times!  In the process, I became a fan of the US Space Program from the 1960s and early 70s.  I spent a lot of time on the NASA website and created spreadsheets of Space Race that broke down the satellite launches and manned spacecraft from both the US and Russia.  Amazingly, Vintage Space covers exactly that window.  It is all about the Apollo Program, covering the developments that fed into Apollo and all the current advances that are Apollo's progeny.  Amy is an extreme Apollo-phile, which is both good and bad.

 

To the good, between her blog and her YouTube channel, she has a vast encyclopedia of information about the space program and related science topics.  Fascinated with space history, she somehow turned that into a paying gig.  Way to go!

 

To the bad, she is something of a downer when proposed missions don't meet her Apollo achievement bar.  Thus, she is less than excited by the proposed SpaceX repeat of Apollo 8, the 1968 trip around the moon.  Been there, done that.  True, but we haven't been there and done that in 45 years.  A refresher with a new capsule might not be a bad idea.  Yes, she grants that is so but this isn't part of a larger program.  It's just a one off funded by a couple super rich tourists.  This is not advancing space exploration or space science.  She makes an excellent point but humans haven't left Earth orbit in decades and this will get the ball rolling.  She's also less than keen on landing people on Mars as that will suck all the funding from cheaper missions that will better expand human knowledge of space.  Yeah, kind of a downer but that is on her soapbox channel.

 

After watching just a couple of her videos, it became clear that I had only scratched the surface when I did my deep dive into the US Space Program.  Thumbs way up for Vintage Space.

To the Moon!

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris, the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight.  It took him 33 and a half hours to fly the 3,600 miles.  Fifty years later, the Concorde was making the flight same flight in 3.5 hours.

In 1968, Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to leave low earth orbit and orbit the moon.  Interestingly, Lindbergh was present at the launch to wish them well.  The mission was an epic achievement that was eclipsed only a few months later when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in July 1969.  The last time a manned spacecraft circled the moon was in 1972.

SpaceX proposes to send two civilians around the moon next year, repeating the historic Apollo 8 mission nearly 50 years after it was first accomplished.  Will the Dragon space capsule be as far advanced from the Apollo 8 command module as the Concorde was to the Spirit of St. Louis?  Will Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, or Bill Anders - all still living and well into their 80s - be present for a repeat of their mission?  I hope so.