It is a bit chilling to watch these astronaut profiles having just read yesterday about the heat shield issues observed on the prior mission, and that this will be the first time we can test the heat shield in the actual pressures and temperatures that it will have to endure.

Godspeed crew of Artemis II.

I will be watching the launch from Europe, so it will be not earlier than half past midnight for us. My kids (9 and 10) are sleeping on the couch in front of the projection screen, so that they do not even have to get up when I wake them up at midnight, which I promised.

Just wanted to add my grain of positivity here. Godspeed Artemis 2!

Even though you could question the whole Artemis concept, it's still extremely exciting watching the countdown with my son. I just missed the original Apollo flights and had assumed I would never see a moon landing in my lifetime. We may well not have a landing for quite some time yet, but it's still cool to see a Moon bound rocket standing on the launchpad...

Fingers crossed that this https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... doesn't have any effect.

You're supposed to have peanuts, not popcorn, tonight:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/what-are-jpls-lucky-peanut...

It's been 54 years since humans last visited the Moon. Hopefully, in a few years we will get boots back on the surface.

Direct livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf_UjBMIzNo

There are tons of comments here that say, "this could have been a robot." And no, it really couldn't have.

The best of humanity is remarkably capable as compared to the best physical machines / robots. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf

    > “the expert evidence we have heard strongly suggests that the use of autonomous robots alone will very significantly limit what can be learned about our nearest potentially habitable planet” (Close et al. (2005; paragraph 70).
    > 
    > Putting it more bluntly, Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, has written:
    > 
    > “[t]he unfortunate truth is that most things our rovers can do in a perfect sol [i.e. a martian day] a human explorer could do in less than a minute” (Squyres, 2005, pp. 234-5). 

Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times.

But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ – and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity – for exploration is much harder. Healthy, smart humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.

So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.

From here on the space coast of Florida: GODSPEED THE CREW OF ARTEMIS II

There is also a stream on ESA Web TV https://watch.esa.int/

Wish them all the best and safe travels. I’ll be tuning in as you never know when the next crewed mission will be, probably not another 50 years if advancements in space travel happen.

Is there any website that gives me updates mirroring the livestream but in plain text? I won't be able to tune in for the launch but this is exciting and I'd like to follow the developments! I'm sure the answer is "Twitter" but I don't understand how that platform works.

Found a stream on YouTube earlier (which presumably wasn't an official one because it disappeared 15 minutes later after a claim by "FUBO TV") and it had a poll attached: "Will the Artemis astronauts land on the moon?"

40% of people had voted yes. Which is somewhat worrying given the mission plan and hardware.

Gonna watch with my son if it doesn’t get postponed.

I'm watching it rapt, but also wondering which KIND of leaky will result in a scrub..

Why do this? Why look to space and understand Earth's smallness? So we can understand reality as Carl Sagan explains in his pale blue dot speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

I'm just SO HAPPY we can talk about something that doesn't involve the Iran war, ICE etc. This is a really historic moment, I hope that the current and future administrations continue investing in space exploration. I've waited my whole life for this as the entire "action" happened before I was born. Hubble/James Webb/ISS are cool but Artemis is something else!

Oh hell... Thanks for this reminder, I have almost forgot about it with all the problems I'm trying to solve now.

Safe trip to the crew. I do hope that they have ironed out all the issues.

4.5hrs to go

too windy outside for this to happen imo

Really hoping those of us who think NASA has jumped the shark won't have to keep ourselves from saying "I told you so" next week out of respect for the dead.

This is four people putting their lives at risk for poor engineering and bad project management.

The "right stuff" applies to the engineers too, but they've all unfortunately left Boeing and NASA.

[dead]

This opinion may be unpopular here but it's hard to get excited about a colossal waste of taxpayer money after all the damage DOGE did. I don't understand how these NASA missions with questionable scientific value and obscene budgets get off the ground.

I mean I do understand, NASA funding is important to oligarchs. But still.

predicting malfunctioning systems (just a guess)

I find it interesting the MSM is too busy sperging out about Trump to not treat this as page-three news and place it below the cut.

It's also the first woman and black guy to go to the moon, for those keeping score at home.