Artemis II passes 'point of no return' on its journey to the Moon

The four astronauts are now well on their way to making history as the spacecraft continues on its mission. The eyes of the world were on Cape Canaveral on Wednesday evening when NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) soared into the heavens - carrying with it the Orion capsule 'Integrity' and its brave crew of astronauts who began their journey into the history books. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch have quickly become household names, with people tuning in around the world to watch them embark on their mission. Their destination is lunar orbit - a place no human has been since 1972. Shortly after launch, the Artemis II crew performed a series of burns designed to place them into the correct position in Earth's orbit for their trip to the Moon. A few hours ago, the final burn - known as the trans-lunar injection - placed the spacecraft on a direct course for lunar orbit - essentially acting as a 'point of no return' for the mission. From here on out, everything will need to go to plan as the astronauts are now committed to the approximately 10-day trip around the Moon and back. Things hadn't gone entirely to plan when the ship's toilet malfunctioned early on, but thankfully this was fixed fairly quickly, and all systems were deemed ready for the journey proper. You can check out an interview with the crew, recorded a few hours ago, below: Bigfoots as interdimensional beings is an idea older that papageorge. Ape Canyon incident is sometimes explained as an attack by interdimensional beings. Due to the lack of any tangible physical evidence. Well, it may be true that the idea that Bigfoot is a interdimensional being is older than Papageorge. I've been to Ape canyon unfortunately I didn't get to see it before the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980. To be very honest, I don't believe that Bigfoot or any other mythical beast is interdimensional. I mean to each his own and it's fine if somebody wants to believe that, but I believe in the science and scientifically as we know things today it's impossible. Thanks very much for your post Radiation is a serious concern. The Moon has no atmosphere to absorb cosmic rays, nor magnetic field to deflect them (towards the poles). Humans, because we've evolved in a low-radiation environment, would be at increased risk. The cumulative exposure would need to be monitored, just like anyone dealing with ionising radiations at work, restricting the duration of any tour of duty. Building underground where rock protects you is a sensible way to reduce your dose, but wouldn't eliminate the risk entirely. Another problem is the Moon's lower gravity - just one sixth of Earth's. Low gr... [More] Agreed. Humans are clearly not adapted for space or the Moon. Everything about our biology assumes Earth conditions - gravity, atmosphere, magnetic shielding. Remove those and you immediately run into radiation exposure, bone loss, muscle atrophy, fluid shifts, all the stuff you mentioned. But "not made for space" does not mean "cannot function there"... We have already proven with the NASA missions and long stays on the International Space Station that humans can live in space for many months at a time with the right systems in place. So the more accurate way to put it is... humans are not ... [More] At 4 billion dollars, Artemis 2 mission has a budget more than double that of the Indian Space Research Organisation's budget of 1.6 billion dollars for 2025. Artemis 2, like the Artemis 1 unmanned mission seems to be having issues as well both before and after the launch showing lack of due diligence. Hope the mission achieves its objectives and the crew returns safely. The Artemis II mission has encountered several technical issues both before and after launch, though all have been resolved or are being managed without jeopardizing the mission. Pre-launch issues included a communication failure with the Flight Termination System, which was fixed using spare hardware from the Space Shuttle program, and a temperature spike in one of the Launch Abort System (LAS) batteries, determined to be a faulty sensor rather than a physical failure. Post-launch problems involved: A temporary loss of communication with the Orion capsule approximately 50 min... [More] More than half way to the moon, the Artemis II astronauts grappled with a toilet problem https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/04/science/artemis-2-toilet-malfunction India has had a number of very specific technical breakdowns over the years where something concrete went wrong in flight or during a critical phase. The Chandrayaan 2 lander failure is the obvious one. Another clean example is Chandrayaan 3, which actually succeeded - but only after fixing very specific issues. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle failures around 2010. Then you have Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which failed for a very mechanical reason... the payload fairing (heat shield) did not separate. Another interesting case is Mars Orbiter Mission. It is often cited as a su... [More]