Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video] | Hacker News Reader

Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]

bbc.com

524 pointsmooreds433 comments

It's pretty depressing that on a corner of the internet that's supposed to be a gathering of tech/geeks/nerds/stem people, discussing topics that "good hackers would find interesting", it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering.

It’s unfortunate, but if you’re blaming the people in the thread for this, I think you’re directing your energy in the wrong direction. Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction instead. If you want people to appreciate the bigger picture, you can’t keep forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook. The HN that you’re presumably nostalgic for existed in a time when there was a lot more fat on the bone, and every efficiency hadn’t been extracted for nebulous benefit to the average person.

Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

"forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the people here to behave. Maybe it's not their fault they spend their day doom scrolling and have the attention span of a cat but they do have agency to change that. [EDIT: This is an attempt at humor]

Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics? The way we get at "those people" (and let's not even argue about who they are) is to regulate ourselves (or for the moderators to do that) and have a more substantive and positive discussion regardless of our perceptions.

> Is there really less "fat on the bone" though? What metric are you tracking for that and what are the historical norms?

It’s just my experience over the last 15 years. If it doesn’t align with yours, that’s nice to know.

> "forcing them to live on a shorter and shorter term outlook" -> social media?

Sure, but it could be lots of other things like 24hr news or the emergence of the gig economy.

> Isn't "Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division" asking for politics?

No it’s not, it’s asking for agency, personal accountability and self-awareness, as you yourself allude to. If that means politics for you, that’s up to you. I don’t imply to “get at” anyone, but to do best by ourselves instead of doing best by those who benefit from dividing or distracting us.

>> Rather than assigning blame I think it's fair to ask the people here to behave

First, are you not doing just that - blaming the people here for making you unhappy?

Second, you're welcome to demand this, but they/we are just as welcome to tell you to piss off.

> if you’re blaming the people in the thread for this, I think you’re directing your energy in the wrong direction

Much of the current environment is driven by the SF Bay Tech Elite/Culture.

Peter Thiel funded and enabled Curtis Yarvin, whose work was the backbone of the modern alt right, project 2025, etc. Plenty of tech VCs/elite are investing huge amounts in fighting effective government, pushing models of city states immune from regulation, policing the discourse, and more. Musk gets more press coverage than most but tons of folks who are either on HN, are connected to startups talked about here, etc. are primary forces driving what America has become.

or just don't bring politics to HN. it's not hard

>Focus on the people who foment and benefit from this division and distraction

your comment is entirely politcal, i.e. contributing more to the problem.

qui bono? we for sure don't bono.

Choosing one (deliberately ambiguous) line to label the comment “entirely political” is the kind of thinking that explains why tribalism has been so effective.

I would be more depressed if, looking at the current political landscape this corner decided to be entirely alienated or oblivious to the environment in which this massive achievement is made.

do you think the current environment is more or less just than it was during the 1969 moon landing?

Nixon wasn't in office yet, but he did have his campaign manager got to Vietnam and promise the VietCong a better deal if they walked away from negotiations, which lead to FIVE more years of war and countless lives lost for nothing other than a point to talk about on his soap box

I think the tech world is fundamentally difference, though I'm not old enough to experience it in '69. I don't believe we had tech moguls who built enormous wealth and realized they could by the influence they couldn't muster with social influence, and that has made the world net-worse.

I don't think is a fair question because the expectations are wildly different. The 80s and 90s transition gave us expectations of policy, peace and progress that were very different than the 60s.

69 had two things going on for it, the war was not news and on its first signs of being scalled back, Nixon had announced a retraction of force for September (but ended up extending the whole thing to 75) and this would be the first moon landing, there was nothing like it.

From 1969 to today, we're waaaaay better. But from 6 months ago there is clearly an elephant in the room taking a lot of attention.

The top comments complaining about other comments complaining about stuff really shows how negative internet discourse is hard to avoid. I don't think these comments are bad (meta-discussion is a good thing in general) but they also seems to embody that same negativity.

This comment also isn't positive and the cycle continues. I agree that people are often too negative and this is a good example of how that negativity is contagious.

Hacker culture has deep political and philosophical roots, it's intrinsic to the community.

I have family who worked for NASA until the 70s. They’re one of the biggest sources of criticism of this project.

There are negative things to observe about this project. They should not be ignored

I don’t think the criticisms on HN are related to Artemis’ imperfect concept and technical design.

They’re almost exclusively related to political reasons. “There are problems in the world, therefore I can’t enjoy this” is flawed reasoning and isn’t even something that they apply to any other interest. It’s just special pleading.

I'd love to read your family member(s) criticisms; anywhere to do so? The perspective of a former NASA employee could be fascinating.

If you don't mind me asking, what did they do for NASA?

> I'd love to read your family member(s) criticisms; anywhere to do so? The perspective of a former NASA employee could be fascinating.

Personal emails? These aren't the kind of people to blog.

If you want a brief summary they, like many, feel this whole thing is a farce due to how the project has be designed and spec'd. I think smarter every day did a wonderful youtube video comparing what kind of documentation and planning they had for the past launches, and how it sure as shit doesn't look like they're anywhere near that right now (he's much nicer about it). NASA is doing their best, but the simple truth is the actual "landing" plan feels like it vomited out by a bunch a suits who don't understand reality and wanted headlines.

A decent anecdote from the discussion that summarizes feelings:

One of them got to spend a week in Cape Kennedy due to winning an Essay contest and met Frank Borman. To quote him

> The topic of the essay was, What is man's future in space?

> I believe that, had I written, 55 years from now we will beat the Chinese to the Moon, I would not have won.

There's just so little science here though, to expect the audience on HN to get excited about redoing something 65 years later for the purpose of political grand-standing and nationalism while the world literally burns and so many are hurting... I'd be more upset if a bunch of insulated tech nerds obliviously continued to along their easy trajectories without a though of everyone else. We may not be the 1% but we're definitely the 5%

There are less wars than ever, and we are all richer than ever. Stop watching the news, it makes you dumb.

If our ancestors had listened to arguments like this, we might all be still in a small zone in Africa.

Opportunistically venturing out of Africa is one thing. Sending a couple people around a distant and desolate rock, while the homeworld burns due to unforced errors, is another.

It is possible but you have to cultivate it. There is no mechanism here that automates it, so it’s up to each author’s sentiment to shape the outcome as they see fit.

Submit threads that are apolitical and guide conversations to be positive.

> it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering

I quickly browsed the top 10 comments, didn't see much negativity.

And maybe this is because this is a forum of "tech/geeks/nerds/stem people" that you'd expect some educated and critical comments.

Clearly not looking hard enough

Go through all the positive comments and upvote them. It feels good.

I think it would have been much better, if the nation that launched that mission did not in the same time start a war... I personally simply cannot separate these two things.

Have you always felt the same way about Apollo and the Vietnam War?

Or are you considering this for the first time?

I was not around at that time, so I have not considered it. But it is a fair point.

I’m finding this a lot. I always found the scrutiny of Trump to be quite over the top and never really found him to be any more corrupt or awful than any other politician, just that he was openly anti establishment. Which is what I guessed was the reason for the hyper scrutiny. I ask some people about Iraq and Afghanistan and they never really seem to know as much or have as much detail as they do with how illegal this Iran war is. I find that odd and have maybe chalked it up to this over-scrutiny again. To be clear I actually think this is good. I feel like we might finally be looking at politicians with the amount of scrutiny we need to, but am not optimistic it will continue when the next pro-establishment character is installed. People also seem to be on board with the Ukraine war, which I also understand but find strange that fighting wars on foreign soil are sometimes “good” and sometimes “bad”? For me I have a simple rule; if they’re not at the birder of my own country I’m not interested. You can argue details and complexities but the way I see it is that wars are a fucking mess and there are lots of complexities that can be used to sell you either way. If you’re not there, you don’t know. I always wonder if France and the UK hadn’t declared war on Germany, would WWII ever happened? It’s an interesting one and more of a thought experiment but the implications are interesting and raises some very touchy moral questions. It’s basically a massive trolley problem question with lots of unknowns.

How do you evaluate your own comment by the criteria you have set forth within it?

These people existed in the Apollo era just not on a website. We weren't exactly living in a utopia then either and you'd have difficulty convincing some folks to be excited about space exploration then too.

Some people feel their outlook on the world takes precedence. And they'll shit in other people's celebrations to get their point across. Best to downvote or ignore them and embrace what nuance you can find.

In case you're curious about US history and not just trying to make a point, "those people in the Apollo era" were the majority of Americans for most of the time the Apollo program was ongoing. Republicans argued that the large NASA budget was fiscally unwise and Democrats argued that the money would have been better used for social programs. The press referred to the program as the "Moondoggle". In 1962, the New York Times noted that the projected Apollo program budget could have instead been used to create over 100 universities of a similar size to Harvard, build millions of homes, replace hundreds of worn-out schools, build hundreds of hospitals, and fund disease research. The Apollo program's popularity hovered around 40% for most of the 1960s when it was underway. It peaked at 53% just after the moon landing, and by April 1970 it was back down to 40%. It wasn't until the mid-80s that the majority of Americans thought that the Apollo program was worth it.

My problem isn't that these people exist in the world. My problem is they're increasingly drowning out other voices in a community I'm part of. I would prefer significantly more active moderation against politics and general non-technical negativity on this site.

I was 10 in 1969. Landing on the moon was a communal and shared event for a large percentage of the population, via one of the three television networks. As was the war in Vietnam.

Many decades later, our institutions are in need of rebuild, for the common good. Maybe this event is a "small step" in that direction.

The Apollo program only barely reached 50% approval during the Apollo 11 landing. They canceled landings because people stopped caring within a couple moon landings.

The popularity of Apollo is fictional. Artemis has dramatically better popularity than Apollo.

This is never the problem with people talking this stuff. People don't naturally obsess about these things. It indicates that there are political problems.

Not all hackers!

Whiteys on the moon

There simply isn’t denying the political nature of this mission. Majority of statements from NASA about it specify America’s need for space dominance, thank the Trump administration, and assert American exceptionalism in some other way.

The discussion on HN simply reflects the rhetoric which comes from NASA.

Yes, but it's depressing because of the environmental factors causing the problem, not the people experiencing the problem.

If one can't find their true purpose in life, they resort to seek purity in morals and virtue (in themselves and people around them).

> it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering

After the resurrection of Twitter, the conservative-leaning contingent left for X. This place was left to the miserable left, and as you would expect, is now mostly intolerable.

There was a man on the moon in 1969. 65 years of so-called technological progress and the US is worse than it was before, so we can rule out an interest in technological progress as a reason for any of this. Getting all teary eyed about a second rate mission from a has-been space agency is kind of cringe-inducing, HN.

Maybe we should revive Pamela Anderson's career, or bring Mike Tyson out of retirement to fight a youtube influencer in an effort to re-live past glory. Oh, yeah, that's right. America already did that. America did that and it was sad.

I like how most people's reactions at this point are "yeah, whatever", as if it's every day that humans observe the far side of the moon with a naked eye through a window :). We do know what it looks like and we have photos from the surface, yes, but seeing the reaction from real people who're actually there does hit different, at least for me

Speaking for myself (who has been fascinated with the space program since I was a small child), any joy I might feel around Artemis II feels tainted, by the immense amount of pork involved (SLS is called "Senate Launch System" for good reason) to the point where Artemis is more corporate welfare that happens to involve the Moon than a real space program, and by my belief that it is intended to be little more than a quick, dirty, and vainglorious Apollo repeat by a failing government.

I ran across this video[0] yesterday with Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about how it’s always been political. The first moon landing was more about global politics than science. As a child you likely weren’t concerned about that side of it, or were shielded from it.

It isn’t always the purist motivations that push the human race forward, but forward it moves us.

[0] https://youtu.be/j_AlXChA9F4

I don't think OP's problem with it is that it's "political" but that it's a product of pork and corporate welfare. The political thrust of the Apollo program was more "beat the Russians" and less "funnel money into dozens of already-rich corporations in favored districts." Even thought there was a lot of that, too. Modern space (and defense) projects seem to be almost 100% "pork funnel" and zero anything else.

It’s a weak take and here’s why. Huge tasks like going to the moon are made up of many different individuals that have different goals. Some are rocket scientists that want to innovate on the science of rocketry. Others are government admins with political goals.

So to call the entire thing “political” ignores the purpose of those involved and critical to the outcome at the expense of just labeling it all “political”.

Even if the Apollo program was similarly politically motivated, it at least was seriously cutting edge science and engineering. I mean, there were many people born before the Wright brothers’ first flight watching the moon landing on TV. Basically repeating Apollo 8’s much less iconic flyby decades later is obviously going to be less impressive.

> more about global politics than science

I had a great Prof during my bachelor from Russia - this is what he always told -> and it makes sense: Back then was cold war

this is why I mark the divide between the manned and unmanned space program. Historically the unmanned accomplishments have been less political (at least IMO) and made far larger advances. I don't need a human to take a photo of the dark side of the moon and then email it to me if a satellite can do it (with 1980's tech)

The manned space program launches from Florida but is controlled from Houston. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to have both in the same place?

Florida is because there's no other safe place in the US to launch a big rocket on an easterly trajectory* than Florida. Or the extreme southern tip of Texas, which SpaceX uses.

Houston is because NASA needed LBJ's support. They even named the place after him.

* Why easterly? Because that's the direction Earth rotates. If you orbit in that direction you get some free momentum from the planet itself.

> my belief that it is intended to be little more than a quick, dirty, and vainglorious Apollo repeat by a failing government.

If the USA successfully sends people to the Moon, achieves all of NASA's technical goals, and the astronauts make it back in one piece, isn't that literally the opposite of failure?

It might be expensive and you can argue that it's wasteful. But even to that point, the $11B cost of SLS is nothing for the US Gov. For example the F35 is a >$1T government program. That doesn't seem a lot to explore a new frontier and expand the scope of humanity.

Its not Pork and its not science. Its a strategically costly land grab rather than a political vain-glorious stunt.

Same as Mercury/Gemini/Apollo except this time China instead of Russia.

> That doesn't seem a lot to explore a new frontier and expand the scope of humanity.

There is no gain in knowledge from this mission. It's more like cheering for your favorite soccer team.

I know the RS-25 engines[0] (aka SSME, Space Shuttle Main Engine) were "reusable" in an academic sense (needing a ton of refurbishment after each use) but it hurts my heart that we're dropping them in the ocean and it makes it hard for me to feel good about the Artemis program. It's irrational but it makes the kid who loved the Space Shuttle (which, itself, was a political pork barrel and a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of program) sad.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25

> it hurts my heart that we're dropping them in the ocean

They are functionally obsolete. Chances that we’re still using SLS in ten years is slim. Any resources going towards refurbishment are better spent on Starship and Blue Moon.

You and me both. They don’t even put a parachute on the boosters to get them back. Some pieces on these boosters have been in use since the 80s.

> the immense amount of pork involved (SLS is called "Senate Launch System" for good reason

Most of science has always had this dual use purpose.

No senator ever would have voted for any kind of space program just to send a few tourists to the moon. It's a way to have a substantial workforce, spread across a wide area (so they can't all be hit by the same bomb), that knows how to make and launch rockets and to do weird stuff in space and to work with very energetic materials.

But I agree that it feels hollow right now because of the war abroad and also the needless disrespect we've shown to our Canadian friends at home.

It reminds me a little bit of The Man in the High Castle, it's like these videos are sent from some happier timeline that we don't live in. Hopefully they inspire some people to bring the spirit of curiosity and friendship they present back to our earth.

People complaining about "pork" - reminds me of the 90's.

In general, pork is an overstated problem. We've had far less so-called pork in legislation the past 20 years or so, but that reality has actually contributed to grid-lock and dis-empowerment of the legislature. Pork often functioned as a kind of grease on the wheels and, while gross, gave legislators incentives to bargain and levers with which to do it. The war on pork is one part of the story of how the US congress has calcified.

Dude, we went to the moon again. Who the fuck cares how. If we waited for the no-pork solution, we'd still be planning the first test. I'm over the moon right now!

You know the whole point of the space race was to prove that we could send ICBMs to the USSR right?

> the whole point of the space race was to prove that we could send ICBMs to the USSR right?

No, it wasn’t. The real world seldom has single causation. Some people supported Apollo as a messaging exercise. Most had other reasons.

And in any case, there are easy ways to demonstrate ICBM competence. Pyongyang isn’t going to the Moon to prove it can bomb Alaska.

I'm not being a hater, but we landed on the moon 55+ years ago and now we're doing a flyby with 35+ year-old engine tech. It's good that we're doing something but we should be doing better.

You’re not seeing better engines because there aren’t any. We are reaching the limits of physics.

That’s why we are working on alternatives like refueling in space or reusable ships.

The Artemis missions are testing things that we still have a lot of area to improve upon — materials (a huge one), international standards for things like docking ports, computing, radiation safety, and a lot more.

Yeah, RS25/SSME still have a higher specific impulse than any boost stage engine in operation, past or present.

Artemis II doesn’t have any docking hardware since it won’t have anything to dock with. And Artemis in general is just using the IDSS used on the ISS and by Dragon and Starliner, nothing new being discovered or tested there.

<snark>Did we really need to spend $90 billion and send people past the Moon to troubleshoot Bluetooth?</snark>[1]

Sharing because this seems to capture the je ne sais quoi that seems off about Artemis for me.

1. https://github.com/RICLAMER/Artemis_II_2026

NASA's Artemis II Live Views from Orion, 04 - Day 1-2 - 03-04-2026 - 1645-Transcript-EN.txt: "03/04/2026 - 18:57:27 (-3 TMZ) | 01:23:22:27 (Artemis Clock) "No joy seeing the device in the list of available devices when I attempt to re-pair it after doing the Bluetooth forget."

In 2-3 years we should expect a Starship mission to Moon, at a much more sensible scale, as in the amount of scientific gear and actual researchers delivered to the surface (and then back).

2 to 3 years is wildly optimistic. Of the 5 launches last year 3 were failures and it's not even close to be ready for humans yet.

There is literally not many things in life I hope so much for than starship success. Sounds strange perhaps but I just love space and I hope it succeeds.

Funnily I absolutely despise Musk at the same time for being absolute buffoon

Also the heatshield is designed in a way that is cheaper to manufacture but less safe.

> but less safe

Depending on the outcome, that’s also a way to say less overengineered.

Actually, at this moment, the top 3 parent posts are all about how people aren't responding positively enough to this event. I think it's really cool, and more people would be more exited, if there wasn't so much else going on. To be fair, I already had the conversation this weekend that the late 60s-70s were also quite fraught.

Maybe we really have just been jaded by hours of youtube and tiktok shorts? I watched it on a 9" B/W crt and I was amazed! Of course I hadn't seen 2001, StarWars, Contact, or The Expanse.

It's great for them, but I'm not really into reaction videos. Pictures taken by space probes are just as good as far as I'm concerned.

It's not for the reason that the parent commenter said, and it's not the moon (yet), but you can't take photos like this with probes alone: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/apr/05...

I see what you mean, but I kind of understand the reaction: what does this change in 99.99% of people lives? Nothing at all. It's not necessarily ignorance.

To me, the importance of crewed spaceflight like this cannot be overstated. I think my way of thinking was best phrased by Eddie Izzard: "When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said hello. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you fucking turn up and say 'well done'".

Now, it's not the reason I'm an atheist, but "getting from the blue one to the grey one" (and hearing nothing) is so big that to me it disproves at the very least the existence of a personal god.

You may think it ridiculous, but I'm trying to convey why some people would think that it does change their life.

Most world events don't change 99.99% of people's lives, and yet they matter too. The only big world event, maybe in my entire life, that affected my life was covid. Because I lived in a lockdown country.

I think in this case more than 0.1% feel a bit of inspiration in a time of darkness.

It's also not the first time humans are seeing the far side of the moon, Ronald Evans orbitted the Moon 75 times in the orbital module during Apollo 17 (and other ppl did before him), so he also saw it right? The only unique thing is that its the first mission where they dont really do anything more interesting than looking at the far side

Apollo 8 did pretty much the same thing so not a first there either, but a first for today’s Orion architecture.

I'm very excited about the later steps of the Artemis project!

Landing on the Moon South Pole and start setting up the lunar station there will be a huge step, especially after 50 years of nothing!!

But this flight has already been done without a crew. Doing it with a human crew is important, but it achieves nothing new and exciting.

> it achieves nothing new and exciting

I thought this but have since changed my mind. On board, real humans tax life-support systems in a way that’s difficult to simulate. And real human astronauts garble processes and communications with ground control in ways that a nation that hasn’t done deep spaceflight in a generation could probably do with practice on.

I half agree. It is new and important.

But it's hard, at least for me personally, to get really excited about it...

I thought the various space stations were there to develop & test life-support systems long term?

But we, as humans, were literally "been there, done that". Nothing new is happening. We are just picking up the ball where we dropped it 50 years ago. The ship is somehow newer and even has a toilet. The said toilet receives most news coverage.

Agreed, every astronaut says no photo prepares you for actually being there.

Knowing what the far side looks like and floating there looking at it are completely different things

People are struggling to afford every day life and we are surrounding by crazy things every day like cellphones talking to satellites in space. On any objective measure it is definitely amazing to send humans to the moon, but there are more pressing issues for most people right now.

If we as a species had more of our ducks in a row we may be able to better celebrate this as the achievement for humankind that it is.

For some numbers:

The Artemis program has an estimated cost of 93B since 2012 [0].

As a comparison:

"Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion). In comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion."[1]

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#cite_note-NASA...

1. https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/economic/us-federa...

people have been struggling to afford every day life for decades. So that’s nothing new. Unless only people in the 1st world count as people lol.

You’re either emotionally consumed by the human struggle or not, it’s a personality thing - in my opinion. You’re allowed to be poor and a nerd, unless I missed the memo. I’ve met poor and wealthy people that are excited by space.

Struggling to meet our basic needs is not a recent phenomenon. It has been a part of the human condition for millenia, not just decades.

Some people think that if we can just eliminate our 'struggles' by building AI tools to do the hard thinking or robots to perform all our labor; that civilization would become some kind of utopia. I don't believe that. Progress happens when we do hard things.

I don’t think people are spending their time on more pressing issues. I think they are just are hooked on an endless stream of content that is built for addiction and is always within arms reach.

1969 wasn’t exactly all flowers and sunshine either.

I see that "whitey on the moon" is back.

If it makes you feel better, the amount of money the United States spends on space is a very small percentage compared overall entitlement spending. There is always going to be some level of inequality, so your maxim that we should only spend money on space exploration when those problems are solved just isn't workable. The enormous amount of money the United States spends on "solving" inequality and poverty begs the question of if that's even an effective or efficient allocation of resources in the first place.

1. Do you think that it is the mission that is misguided, or the methods, in "solving" inequality and poverty?

2. What would you rather the money be spent on?

America has spent more than the equivalent of Artemis blowing up yet another middle eastern country for no good reason. I know which I'd rather get the money.

Yeah your life must really suck if you only care about immediate hurdles and pains without making room for hope or creativity

Well yes. For too many people, life does suck for that very reason.

That's not something to mock people for; it's a problem to apply your mind to and fix.

And your life might be very privileged to so flippantly disregard anyone’s reality that is just that difficult.

you’re making their point, you just don’t know it yet

nah, it just seems like that on Twitter. We have more prosperity by far than we've ever had in history, this is a time to celebrate.

We have our 'ducks in a row' more now than in the 1960's when we went to the moon because of a cold war and nuclear annihilation / escalation.

My grandparents were born on farms with no electricity, plumbing, there was no real 'police' no social services, no healthcare, no antibiotics, 10% of children did not make it past age 1. That's in living memory.

Despite the insanity on the news, it's mostly drama, and we still have more people coming out of abject poverty than ever.

We have 'modern world problems', they are real problems for sure, but they are of a different scale entirely.

Frankly, it may never even get that much better as we may be hitting diminishing marginal returns on 'progress' - we now have to figure out how to live 'long lives and stay healthy'.

It's a fine time to go to the moon.

It is a fine time to be going to the moon, but we could be doing multiple productive things at the same time. It just doesn't surprise me that there are so many people that are not caring so much about this.

it's amazing, but I'll refer you to Gil Scott-Heron for my feelings on the matter

  A rat done bit my sister Nell
  With whitey on the moon
  Her face and arms began to swell
  And whitey's on the moon
  I can't pay no doctor bills
  But whitey's on the moon
  Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
  While whitey's on the moon
  The man just upped my rent last night
  Cause whitey's on the moon
  No hot water, no toilets, no lights
  But whitey's on the moon
  I wonder why he's upping me?
  Cause whitey's on the moon?
  Well I was already giving him fifty a week
  With whitey on the moon
  Taxes taking my whole damn check
  Junkies making me a nervous wreck
  The price of food is going up
  And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
  A rat done bit my sister Nell
  With whitey on the moon
  Her face and arm began to swell
  And whitey's on the moon
  Was all that money I made last year
  For whitey on the moon?
  How come I ain't got no money here?
  Hmm! Whitey's on the moon
  Y'know I just 'bout had my fill
  Of whitey on the moon
  I think I'll send these doctor bills
  Airmail special
  To whitey on the moon

I just came across this poem a few days ago and had the opportunity to think about it.

It’s a valuable perspective to hear. As someone prone to getting caught up in the breathless excitement about science, progress, human achievement, etc., it is a hard truth that these things are abstract and not relevant for people who are struggling with day-to-day life, particularly when those struggles are a result of the same government that is executing this mission.

However, the older I get, the less I bind to the idea of a single, correct truth. This perspective doesn’t invalidate the perspective that the mission is valuable. The complexity of the system in which this is taking place means that these things (moon missions and affordable healthcare) aren’t fungible for one another; his poverty wasn’t the result of the moon mission, it was the result of EVERYTHING that had happened over the 100 years prior.

So it’s useful to hear. It’s a sharp, valid reality check for those of us who like to think in big, abstract concepts. And, it’s one perspective among myriad valid perspectives.

Kind of a false dichotomy. How about medical care as a right for a big abstract concept? He's not anti-science here, he's against the inequality of its distribution.

I don't think it's actually a useful perspective at all. The poem is racial resentment repackaged as a means to guilt trip people into feeling bad about adventure, science, and exploration. Unless they were pretty well read at a young age, most millennials probably first experienced this poem in the film First Man, where it is read as a backdrop to Apollo 11 traveling to the moon. It's a great scene because the juxtaposition is stark. We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.

The author of this poem went to great lengths to show his racism. It reminds me of a post, probably on Reddit, of a similar racist nature. Just when it's going in the other direction it's clearer.

The post was by a man, supposedly white, who had to pull his child or children from private school because he could not pay for it. His frustration was based on the fact that his taxes were higher than the school tuition, and that another student at the school, a black student, was having his tuition paid by the government. He implied that he was paying for another person's education, and could not afford his own child's education. He saw the same dichotomy as that expressed in the poem, in the other direction.

He could be expressing the generational frustration of being black in America. When things are so segregated you feel you are looking across at a different country landing on the moon, you might write such a poem.

I get the general frustration there, but it's weird to focus on NASA's budget when it's such a teeny tiny fraction of the total.

Yes, there's a lot of government waste, but NASA ain't it.

And I would suggest that the billionaire class and unfettered capitalism are far more responsible for the modern day version of Scott-Heron's woes than the good ol' government scapegoat.

If DOGE served for anything at all it was for showing that there isn’t even that much “waste” per se. If there’s any waste it’s in the Pentagon which can’t even audit itself, but of course DOGE didn’t even get close to that. It was all performative for them.

Interesting. For all of Gil Scott-Heron's brilliance, this is by far my least favorite work of his.

Apparently Artemis 2 Victor Glover listened to this weekly on his commute to NASA.

Great share, thank you!

Yes, I remember that nihilistic piece of race rage bait and I remember it well. Now that 'non-whitey' is gliding past the moon and has shown he is past all that race-rage baiting by stating that [1] this is just — this is human history ... It’s the story of humanity — not black history, not women’s history I hope that the like of Scott-Heron and those who like to push this type of narrative are willing to finally take that hammer to ram down that nail into the coffin of the 'systemic racism narrative'.

No, I'm not holding my breath, the narrative if far too profitable for far too many people [2] to be put to rest.

[1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-black-astronaut-on-arte...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11151740-racism-is-not-dead...

Wanda Sykes is also famous for a pithier more recent take on it

Why are you so angry about a black person's perspective of what the moon landing meant to them? Rather than putting a nail in the coffin of the "systemic racism narrative", your post underlines how long we still have to go as a society to take black people's perspectives seriously, rather than simply denigrating them as "race bait."

It's fine to not be interested, but this time one of the astronauts is black

there's zero difference between a photo taken by them and one by cameras on ISS.

Stealing a link from a comment by ceejayoz, the difference is like a 5% or 10% [it got deleted now] https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon...

Too late to edit: perhaps a bit more than 10%. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47651659

A fun way to track the mission is via NASA's Eyes on the Solar System visualizer:

https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_artemis_2

Really drives home how bloody empty almost all of space really is.

very cool visualization thanks for sharing. I was impressed at how smooth the rendering ran on my 5+ y/o iPad Air.

I just need to say it's an extremely huge bummer how much cynicism and negativity there is about this mission. Is it perfect? No, of course not. Neither was Apollo.

We are all painfully aware of the things that make it imperfect.

It's still joyous and exciting.

Try to let it be.

The cynicism or even lack of interest is because it's extremely underwhelming.

If you ask 100 people in 1969 what humans would be doing in space in 57 years I can guarantee not a single person would guess that we've done nothing of substance. And that the most exciting thing we have done that involved human space travel is simply flying around the moon, people wouldn't believe it

Humans going around the moon will be amazing every single time for the next 10,000 years it happens for anyone who isn't already a miserable person. Going for a swim in the ocean is an amazing experience every single time and I can do it every day. It's still a great feeling. Going to the moon is so much more extraordinary in the literal sense of the word. The fact that any collection of creatures is able to do it is remarkable.

On the contrary the average person in 1969 also thought that the moon missions were a waste of time and money: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659...

This thread is pretty much how people felt back then too.

> The cynicism or even lack of interest is because it's extremely underwhelming.

Only to the naive yet vocal minority, fortunately!

You think flying around the moon is simple?

It really sucks that you responded to my exhaustion with the exact thing I'm exhausted by. And you aren't even saying anything new. Please don't do this again.

Also, maybe make that an "I" statement. It may be underwheling to you, but it absolutely is not underwhelming to a lot of people.

Naysayers need to realize that very soon humanity will have a permanent presence on the moon. One that will outlive us all.

That's beyond exciting.

Most of us feel that way, but that comes with a desire to avoid engaging with unhappy internet denizens finding company in their misery.

Remember that social media is a distortion of reality driven by whoever is willing to dedicate the most time and effort to dominating it.

I checked out some subreddits on the mission, and left pretty quickly for that reason. It's nice to find some positivity and wonder at it. I love what Artemis II is doing, found the launch very exciting and a little nerve wracking, and can't wait until they get even closer to the Moon.

Thanks for the reminder - genuinely. It's hard to keep in mind sometimes.

This has to be the most poorly documented event of this scale.

This link, for example, "first glimpse of far side...[video]", is a video of the crew inside the craft. yawn It seems like every article I've read is like this. Like they're trying to encourage conspiracy theories.

We're talking about the unseen, far side of the moon, and they can't scrape together at least a still image of it?

The launch was in lower resolution than many shuttle launches I've watched.

Looking at the NASA.gov site, it is pale comparison of what it used to be. They seem to have opted for a few well polished articles and images, and they've jettisoned any semblance of passing along the data itself.

No video of earth either, just a very promoted new image (taken on old cameras). And then the conversation is about the amazing emotions they feel. And all four of them are just chatting, no need for anyone to be monitoring anything.

Am I losing it? They can’t be seeing the far side of the moon right now, because they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet…

So does this suggest the BBC is wrong and it’s the side of the moon we’re used to seeing, but just it’s “dark”?

But then the astronauts are saying it’s weird seeing the moon in a whole new light (excuse the paraphrasing pun).

I don’t understand.

Have a look at the tracker at https://issinfo.net/artemis.html

They're already at a point where they see the moon from a different angle than we see it from Earth, enough to see a bit of the side that we can't see from here.

It would be good for the interviewer to ask about this! I imagine a lot of people are pretty confused by the basic geometry. Thanks for explaining.

It took me this diagram to realize they're shooting to where the moon will be, when they cross its orbit, and are not flying straight at the moon. /facepalm

No worries. I played Kerbal Space Program so that shouldn't have surprised me but it did, and it took me a few seconds before the penny dropped.

>they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet

They did, 3 days ago! Maybe this is being pedantic (?) but the trans-lunar injection burn they did on April 2 put them on the complete trajectory including return to Earth. Though there are still possible correction burns that can be done to increase precision (the first 2 of these were already canceled).

I relish in the pedantry. Thanks Pierre

Imagine you're holding a ball with drawings on it. Hold it out at arms length and fix how it looks in your memory. Now bring it close to your face and move your head a tiny bit to the side. You're not seeing the whole back-side of the ball. Far from it! However, you are seeing some bits you weren't seeing before and the whole picture you can see now looks different than it did when the ball was at arm's length.

That's my guess. They're seeing parts of the dark-side of the moon because they're now close enough that they have a different viewing angle than we do on Earth. Remember, they're not flying straight at the moon. That's not how transfer orbits work.

"far-side of the moon"

There is no dark side.

"Dark side" is used to describe the part we never see from earth's vantage point, not a part that gets no light from the sun. Definitely confusing for the uninitiated though.

I was also very confused, but after some reading I figured it out.

> In an interview with NBC News from space, NASA astronaut Christina Koch described seeing the moon out the window of the Orion capsule and realizing that it looked different from what she was accustomed to on Earth.

> “The darker parts just aren’t quite in the right place,” she said. “And something about you senses that is not the moon that I’m used to seeing.”

They are not on the other side of the moon seeing the full dark side, but from their position they're seeing the moon at a slight angle, meaning that SOME of what they now see is "the dark side", or the part we can never see from earth since the same side always faces us

> “And something about you senses that is not the moon that I’m used to seeing.”

Almost philosophical /S

Remember that they’re not flying towards the Moon but to a point in space where they and the Moon will be closest together in a day or two, hence the Moon is now ‘off to their side’ and they can see a segment of it that is hidden to Earth observers … I think.

Also, the dark side of the Moon is often illuminated but we call it dark because it’s also hidden from earth due to the Earth and Moon being tidally locked (the same side of each always faces the other body).

We call it "dark" because we are sloppy.

The same side of the moon always faces the Earth. If the same side of the Earth always faced the moon, then only one hemisphere would be able to see the moon. Since you can see the moon from everywhere on Earth (not at the same time...), we know that the same side of the Earth does not always face the moon.

Unless you're thinking of the "outside" of the Earth. /s

I think we call it "dark" because the term was coined when the English language was used in a more poetic sense - at least it seems like that to 21st century-me. "Dark" = "it has not been made visible to us".

I've just been reading Narnia stories to my son and lots of the language seems dated and initially confusing but very descriptive and more poetic. Even though that was just in the mid-20th century.

They’re far enough out that they can see some stuff you don’t see from Earth. They aren’t seeing the entire far side yet.

Illustrated: https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/1sd797j/the_moon...

It got deleted now. It would be nice to see a new versions if abailable.

So, let's make some guess, but IANAA. Orion is in the middle of the trip going to the meeting point to the Moon in a quite straight line but the Moon is still not there. It will be there in 2 or 3 days, that is like 45° of the orbit.

  O                                                          .   .    o
  Earth                            >   .    .     .     .             Moon
                                   Orion                              in 3 days
                                                                    .
                                                                  .
                                                               .
                                                            .
                                                         .
                                                       .
                                                     o
                                                     Moon
                                                     now

Using some sloppy Math and sloppy Astronomy, I estimate that the difference between our point of view and their point of view is 20° or 30°. So the visible surface has like a 10% difference, that is consistent to call it a "glimpse". My estimation is also similar to the graphic posted in Reddit, but I'm not sure what was the problem.

I actually can't tell the difference in the photo to save my life, but I have a friend that is astronomer and I'm sure that if I show the photo to him, he could use a sharpie to mark the difference on my screen without any problem.

Take a look at https://issinfo.net/artemis.html

Your illustration is about right, but the angle they're catching now is even a bit further than you've shown.

Hence the use of first glimpse.

“First glimpse of the dark side of the moon” rather than “the whole dark side of the moon”. Title is pretty accurate for my understanding.

I think they're saying they can see a sliver of the far side, and that seeing the moon from a slightly different angle is weird having seen the near side so often. But they didn't really make that clear.

Sounds like marketing speak.

> they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet

No course adjustment is necessary (at least in the sense of an engine burn). The moon's gravity will sling them around and back toward Earth.

They've actually already on course to go around the moon for a couple days! There's been the option of performing some some minor course corrections to make sure they look back around to the right Earth orbit, but I think those haven't actually been necessary

Source: NASA's YT channel + way too many hours playing KSP. Skipping the course correction burn yesterday gave them the opportunity to try and unclog the liquid waste valve

They did that change a long time ago. They are on a course to go around the Moon from the TLI burn (trans lunar injection) Thursday at 7:49pm EDT. They don’t need any more burns for that.

I think they could not communicate if they were really on the far side of the moon.

So I guess they see it differently than us, eg from the side but not from the back.

It makes me tear up seeing the absolute 'best of us' as humanity striving and exploring in the midst of so much wretched evil and awfulness.

Same. There's a lot out there to get us down, but most people are fundamentally good at the end of the day, regardless of culture or borders.

FYI: https://issinfo.net/artemis

That site absolutely murders my CPU by... drawing vector graphics. This one displays basically the same info and is made by someone competent: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

Its the opposite for me. NASA site is unusable for me in Firefox while above one works without hitch.

This is an entire Unity project that won't load due to however many content blockers I've got running on my phone. The incompetent one loads instantly, though it's admittedly laggy.

Oh man 10-day long airplane ride. No thanks.

Latest published image of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009006/

Photo and video gallery: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/

Kinda surprised the gallery doesn't allow me to use the arrow keys on my keyboard for next/previous navigation.

Will Elon set up a lot of colorful and blinking billboards to make it less grey?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60MnDJklnM

Fair enough.

But, there's a chance this might happen though!

It's interesting to me how cautious NASA is being with Artemis II. I wrote about the risk / mortality calculation behind this, but everything from the trajectory, the decision not to do an orbital insertion, the checkout in high-Earth orbit is very cautious.

I wish this mission took greater risks. Or, just at least go as far as Apollo 8, but stay for a bit longer, and try out new things. It would be fun to take a finicky low mass radio telescope experiment to the far side of the moon.

> I wish this mission took greater risks

It's already risky enough: https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....

Yes, and that's part of what spaceflight is. https://1517.substack.com/p/1-in-30-artemis-greatness-and-ri...

It has always been a touch-and-go affair

It is not possible for them to say a bit longer because Orion doesn’t have the deltaV necessary to go into LLO and orbit the Moon like Apollo 8. Orion is like HlS in that it is the worst possible craft for a mission to the Moon, but it’s the one we have. At least Starship has a potential future for further missions.

I don't think they'd or any other space mission will take that much risk anymore. Atleast without the pressure/tension of cold war space race.

Did you miss "Artemis 2 is not safe to fly" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043 ?

Just some humans doing proper awesome human stuff and being good people advancing international brotherhood and scientific advancement.

Love seeing our Ontario native Jeremy Hansen on the microphone, and those two flags properly positioned beside each other.

I'm not a Christian today, but was raised that way. This is the hopeful message I want to see on this day, and the true meaning of the symbol. Hope for all humankind. Working together.

They have live tracker you can follow https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

I've been using this one: https://issinfo.net/artemis.html

Better information density.

Far side != Dark side

One is the domain of humanoid cows, the other is the domain of absent fathers.

It’s approximately the dark side when the moon is full, which happened two days ago.

Yes and (IIRC) they don't want to flyby while at full moon on the far side as to have some shadows to help differentiate the terrain

> It’s approximately the dark side when the moon is full, which happened two days ago.

Who downvotes that? It is true.

Edit: maybe you can illuminate why you downvote?

I'm sure it's the flat-mooners downvoting.

The phrase never meant dark as in "unlit". It has always meant dark as in "occult".

It is this week. Which is interesting because the photo in the clip is the familiar near side -- I recognize the bunny.

Depends what you mean by Dark side!

In traditional definitions, Far side = Dark side

If, when you say Dark side, you mean the side not receiving sunlight, then you're using a less informed, though more literal, definition of 'dark'.

Far side from Earth can be not dark.

Far side from Sun is always.

The point is that we are all Earthlings, so the former applies.

There is no dark side of the moon really

Matter of fact, it's all dark

*heartbeats*

Why don't they have any decent external cameras absolutely goofy (or maybe they do and I am goofy?) also, framing!

I am curious. If it is on the far side, where does the light come from for the photos? Other stars?

The moon is tidally locked with the Earth, which means the same side always faces the Earth. So, for example, when the moon is between the Earth and the sun, the far side (from the perspective of Earth) would be fully illuminated by the sun.

The “far side” of the moon refers to the hemisphere that can’t be seen from Earth.

Yes, and right now is full moon, thus the far side is only illuminated by stars.

It isn't full right now. It's a waning gibbous, so the far side is a waxing crescent.

I wonder why they decided on that timing? If it were better illuminated by the sun, couldn't they get some better photography?

And a little bit by asteroids like 20 Massalia and comets like 24P/Schaumasse.

The sun. The moon always shows the same side to Earth, so the far side has phases just like the Earth-facing side does. When we see a full moon from Earth, the far side is a "new moon"; when we see a new moon, the far side is full. And so on for the other lunar phases.

The sun still. It's just that that side never points towards the earth, but it still gets sunlight. Same as how the side we see isn't fully lit except during a full moon.

The other well publicized photo they did was of the dark side of the earth (it was night), so same idea(?)

The sun

Anybody know if the O2O laser uplink / downlink is working? From what I understand its sort of a test and not guaranteed (depends also on weather near the ground stations).

After watching that video, all I can think is - Please come back safe.

so cool. This whole mission makes me feel like a kid again.

I am really glad that NASA is investing in this. Hope this dream is not about exploration of travel as a service but much bigger & beyond.

how are they broadcasting in what seems like near real-time? i don't have a whole lot of understanding on the topic, but if they're seeing the dark side of the moon then i assume they don't have line of sight to Earth. it makes me feel pretty rotten about some SQL queries i have knocking about.

> but if they're seeing the dark side of the moon then i assume they don't have line of sight to Earth

No, you can see both the dark side & have line of sight to earth, at the same time. The key insight, probably, is that they're not behind the moon (yet) from Earth's PoV, and/or "seeing some of the dark side" vs. "seeing only the dark side"; currently, they are seeing only some of the dark side, assuming I'm interpreting the tracker correctly.

See [this tracker](https://issinfo.net/artemis.html) for a diagram of their position.

Currently, the arrangement is like this:

                 ⌝ toward Earth
               ⋰
        \    ⋰ 
         \ ⋰    ⦙
     Moon *      * Orion 
           \     ⇣
            \
        (moon's orbit)

The line I've put here is the moon's orbit. Everything ⬃ of the line is the dark side, as it faces away from Earth. From this diagram, if you drew a vertical line through the moon, Orion sees the right half. Some of that is what the Earth sees, and some of it is not — the portion that isn't is the dark side.

(Also note that "the dark side of the moon" is a specific term meaning the far side of the moon, not the literal dark portion. The "dark side of the moon" is lit 50% of the time.)

edit: knee jerk reaction was wrong

Still think what he said is worth hearing.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWvRjeEgecb/?igsh=MXZoYjZobDM...

What you link to is from a different interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPTnR5jin0

thank you, as usual…knee jerk reaction was wrong, apologies and updated

I still liked what he had to say so gonna leave up the link itself

That is a shame they cut that out.

So they let them just wear hoodies in space now? Or are these fancypants space hoodies that cost a quarter mil and weigh a couple grams less? Or does that level of weight reduction not matter because the rocket is nowhere near maxed out?

I'm sure the capsule is rated for plenty more thrust and weight than some personal items. The far smaller Apollo capsule was meant to carry back a load of moon rocks along with the crew.

Just to be clear, this was a serious question.

Rather than the far side, what about the Dark Side of the Moon?

Because it's not always dark. Only during a full moon on Earth is the far side fully dark.

... matter of fact it's all dark.

(The moon has an albedo of 12%)

Wait, really? That is surprisingly dark. That's lower than bare terrestrial soil and closer to worn asphalt, according to Wikipedia.

In photography, I've always used a rule of thumb that to expose the Moon properly, aim for daylight exposure. This makes sense to me because the Moon's illuminated by the same sun as us, at the same distance. Wikipedia confirms the impression.[1]

Now, how can that be true, and the Moon still have a lower albedo than much of the stuff on Earth? Is albedo not measuring what I think it is?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value#Tabulated_expos...

It’s sort of curious that BBC always seemed to get linked to the Artemis news on HN instead of the official NASA website or US news agencies.

Beautiful.

I'm going to be VERY disappointed if there's no Pink Floyd music or commentary from the Artemis mission. Particularly now. Life's short, and one can't be serious all the time...

Wallis and Gromit would be a partial substitute, but the boomers are still around.

I wish the crew quoted "there is no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."

It's true, too. Lunar albedo is 12%.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/05/nasa-releases-a-gif-...

Absolutely. Last year we went to Italy and I played “The Count of Tuscany” in the car while driving in Chianti region. My wife does not really enjoy Dream Theater but that was in the rider for the Italy trip :-)

Something in a style of Chris Hadfield [1]. That would be great!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

Also don't forget about working in "That's no moon. It's a space station." somewhere.

Are they going to land, to get out, take a look around? No. We have moon rocks at home.

There’s too many problems here on earth for me to get excited about a trip to the moon

Given how many of these problems are self-inflicted, maybe we should focus more on trips to the moon and beyond, not less.

Yeah, if we cut back a bit on the war crimes we could easily fund both more moon missions and cool science, as well as a shit ton of great programs to help people with the basics like food and rent and health care.

The US spends more per capita, and even as a share of GDP, on healthcare out of public funds than some advanced industrialized states that have universal systems, as well as spending even more on healthcare out of private funds than out of public funds. If we didn’t have a system which expended vast quantities of additional resources in order to assure that a substantial subset of the population is denied needed healthcare and instead just provided the needed healthcare, we could fund all those other things without cutting back on the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace, either direct or those that we subsidize that are executed by other regimes.

We still should cut down (ideally to zero) on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace, but the reason is because those things are unqualified evil on their own, not because doing so is necessary to fund healthcare and other priorities, which it very much is not.

Or as my parents would say, "socialism", as if that were a bad word.

Now war. They think that's worth it, even if it's also bad.

Optimism will get you through.... Humans have bumpy rides, but in the aggregate we figure it out and move on

In the aggregate we live miserable lives and then die.

That was true the last time we went to the Moon, but this time in the aggregate we live less miserable lives.

I completely understand and agree. But there is still something magical about spaceflight that will forever put me in awe. It’s a small moment of wonder in a world of disappointment. I’ll take anything I can get these days

Agreed. I remember following the various Mars rover missions of the 1990s-2010s with avid interest. I have now lost my interest in space completely. The house is on fire and we're going on holiday again? It's beginning to feel almost indecent.

I’m sorry but things are definitely better than they were in the 2000’s. Even this war is smaller scale than Iraq/Afghanistan, and seems like it will be over much quicker. Even the economy isn’t nearly as bad.

But the Mars missions, the ISS, and all the rest was not indecent. You were not wrong to enjoy those things back then. And you wouldn’t be wrong to enjoy this now.

It’s perfectly healthy to accept that the world is not perfect AND to still enjoy things in life. If you feel otherwise I highly encourage you to change. Those who improve the world do not feel defeated.

The condescension is uncalled for, this is simply a difference of priorities. In terms of our various ecological crises, the situation is absolutely not better than 20 years ago. My view is that the opportunity cost of manned space exploration is now unjustifiable. The resources consumed would be better allocated elsewhere.

The trip to the moon just makes me depressed about all the problems here because they seem so pointless in perspective.

In fact a trip to the Moon gives me hope for our species—that not everything is shit.

Shame, you would have missed Apollo then too, if you were living in the 60’s instead. Would you have regretted it?

The bad things should make you even more thankful for the good. It’s perfectly healthy to allow yourself to enjoy the positive things in life, especially during the dark times.

Incredible achievement but I'll be honest — if you showed me this photo without context I would have no idea it was the far side. Just looks like the Moon. Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness.

> Just looks like the Moon.

It is the moon.

> Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness.

The "Dark Side of the Moon" is a misnomer. It gets as much light as the side we can see.

That's because it's the near side, not the far side.

There's a little bit of far side on the right of the picture.

On one of Apollo missions they've read from Bible, Book of Genesis [1]. I wish they did something like that here - and I'm not even a Christian, let alone religious. They did relay some beautiful message [2] though.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tDZye57D4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELslc6O4UVk

no shared values exist to draw upon.

That was intentional unfortunately.

I sure hope they don't. Even just the hint of connecting this achievement to the supposed Christian nature of the US would reinforce a lot of the bad things in the world right now. Namely, that we're actively at war in the middle east (Christianity and Judaism vs Islam), in a burgeoning cold war with China (more Christianity vs "godless" communists), and run by an increasingly fascistic administration (the ties between religion and government are a hallmark of fascism).

I am not a Christian, but it was arguably the Christian value system which forged the government and institutions that made these achievements possible. Such progress happens only in high trust societies.

> but it was arguably the Christian value system which forged the government and institutions that made these achievements possible.

Many of the founders were specifically anti-Christian. They were deists, and believed in a higher power, but specifically rejected the idea of a divine intervention of God or Jesus.

Christians do not own the idea of being nice to others and trusting others.

The Renaissance and Enlightenment were anti-religious ideals, of the power of mankind over the gods.

Actually a lot of the enlightenment ideas (which our government is based on) came from native American critiques of European societies. Read The Dawn of Everything for the details.

I suggest you look up the founding fathers' views on religion.

The "Christian value system" isn't something to revere.

I imagine you're quoting rhetoric, but anyone describing China as "communist" hasn't seen the scale of shopping malls and consumerism here.

Authoritarian, fine, but far from communist.

One of the astronauts is Sunday school teacher and took the Bible up there with him as a comfort item. It was mentioned in the news already.

https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/there-are-no-a...

Don't shoot the messenger

Surely you can see the difference between broadcasting a bible read from the module and him carrying that bible as a personal item. I certainly think there's a very stark difference between the two. I absolutely support people rights to whatever deeply held beliefs bring them comfort; I do not support him using his position literally and metaphorically atop a multi-billion dollar government project to proselytize.

I'm more worried about Chinese fascism than the American kind.

they should read the torah but NASA is antisemitic

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