At 6:24 pm Eastern, NASA is scheduled to launch four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon. The launch is part of the Artemis program, which hopes to return humans to the moon by the end of the decade and establish a bona fide base on the lunar surface.
This launch is part of a bigger, global push to return to the moon. So, this morning, we’re looking at what’s driving the new space race — and where it’ll blast off in the future.
Since 2023, government space agencies, nonprofits, and private companies from Russia, India, China, and Japan have all attempted lunar landings to mixed (but generally successful) results. South Korea launched its first lunar orbiter, Danuri, in 2022. Israel also attempted an unmanned moon landing in 2019, though its craft suffered an engine failure.
America’s last lunar venture went down in February 2024, when the US landed [an unmanned lunar spacecraft called Odysseus](https://www.vox.com/24081504/moon-landing-nasa-odysseus-intuitive-machines-artemis-mars) near the moon’s south pole; its first in 50 years. Odysseus carried six NASA experiments and six commercial items, including a Jeff Koons sculpture.
If all goes to plan, Artemis II will mark [the first time](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00964-4) humans have travelled into deep space since the Apollo program. (The astronauts are orbiting — but won’t land on — the moon.) They could also set a new record for distance travelled from earth.
What gets me is the 4 astronauts were interviewed by the news they were in Times Square. And ask the two how does it feel to be a women astronaut and how does it feel to be a black astronaut. Why does the news have to segregate everything. Why couldn’t he just ask how does it feel to be an astronaut ????????
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At 6:24 pm Eastern, NASA is scheduled to launch four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon. The launch is part of the Artemis program, which hopes to return humans to the moon by the end of the decade and establish a bona fide base on the lunar surface.
This launch is part of a bigger, global push to return to the moon. So, this morning, we’re looking at what’s driving the new space race — and where it’ll blast off in the future.
**The space race is back on**
It’s been many moons since a human last set foot on the lunar surface. But over the past five years, unmanned missions and lunar flybys like Artemis II [have become markedly more frequent](https://www.vox.com/science/2023/8/24/23844280/india-moon-landing-russia-crash-lunar-south-pole-science-consequences-junk).
Since 2023, government space agencies, nonprofits, and private companies from Russia, India, China, and Japan have all attempted lunar landings to mixed (but generally successful) results. South Korea launched its first lunar orbiter, Danuri, in 2022. Israel also attempted an unmanned moon landing in 2019, though its craft suffered an engine failure.
America’s last lunar venture went down in February 2024, when the US landed [an unmanned lunar spacecraft called Odysseus](https://www.vox.com/24081504/moon-landing-nasa-odysseus-intuitive-machines-artemis-mars) near the moon’s south pole; its first in 50 years. Odysseus carried six NASA experiments and six commercial items, including a Jeff Koons sculpture.
If all goes to plan, Artemis II will mark [the first time](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00964-4) humans have travelled into deep space since the Apollo program. (The astronauts are orbiting — but won’t land on — the moon.) They could also set a new record for distance travelled from earth.
“It is a fact: We’re in a space race,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson [told Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/01/we-better-watch-out-nasa-boss-sounds-alarm-on-chinese-moon-ambitions-00075803).
This is a race between:
– A Drunk American Techbro, that keeps throwing up before the race starts
– An European sleeping in a hammocks
– Whatever India and China are doing
Eh… maybe. Feels like a waste of time and resources to me considering how much the current administration is wasting on starting unnecessary wars.
Edit: Downvoting me isn’t going to change how I feel or what I think about this.
The collective TDS of reddit won’t allow any of these posts to reach the front page.
Race to nowhere lmao who cares
[removed]
Seeing as how Trump is running things, I’m expecting it to go kaboom.
I hope I’m wrong.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/1s9lqad/stub/odr3rb1 “Last usage”)|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[F1](/r/Space/comments/1s9lqad/stub/odrqrgp “Last usage”)|Rocketdyne-developed rocket engine used for Saturn V|
| |SpaceX Falcon 1 (obsolete small-lift vehicle)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1s9lqad/stub/odu0krz “Last usage”)|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1s9lqad/stub/odrqrgp “Last usage”)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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^(4 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1s9qfc7)^( has 43 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12300 for this sub, first seen 1st Apr 2026, 21:33])
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We’re flying by the moon more like it
What gets me is the 4 astronauts were interviewed by the news they were in Times Square. And ask the two how does it feel to be a women astronaut and how does it feel to be a black astronaut. Why does the news have to segregate everything. Why couldn’t he just ask how does it feel to be an astronaut ????????