Artemis II launch: crowds gather for glimpse of historic Nasa moon mission | Fully crewed rocket will head to moon from Florida – first time since 1972 that humans will have left lower Earth orbit
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/01/nasa-rocket-moon-launch-artemis-ii
16 Comments
>A little more than an hour before sunset on Florida’s space coast, up to 400,000 people packed on beaches and causeways will look to the heavens on Wednesday to witness a fiery spectacle not seen in almost 54 years: a fully crewed Nasa rocket heading back to the moon.
>The launch of Artemis II, scheduled for 6.24pm ET if weather and any late technical gremlins grant their consent, marks the first time since the Apollo 17 mission of December 1972 that humans will have left lower Earth orbit.
>“The nation, and the world, has been waiting a long time to do this again,” Reid Wiseman, a veteran Nasa astronaut and the Artemis II commander, told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday as the crew of three Americans and one Canadian arrived to enter quarantine ahead of launch.
>Their 10-day test flight, which will not land on the moon, is a mission packed with milestones. Two of the crew, Nasa’s Christina Koch and Victor Glover, will become respectively the first woman and first person of color to fly into cislunar space, the area between Earth’s orbit and the moon.
Here’s the link to Nasa’s countdown on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/live/oQ6t_wWGZmY?si=dJ1f3PrLsheCg7yk
We’reeeeeeeee backkkkkkkkkkkkk! Super exciting! Onwards and upwards!
Going to be one for the history books, I’m so pumped. Any weather concerns?
I’d be surprised if they launch and don’t scrub this time again…there’s always something with this rocket…
Edit: downvote me all you’d like but we all know reality is this rocket hasn’t had a good track record for launch.
nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early
astronaut: moon’s haunted
nasa employee: what?
astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s haunted
Be nice if someone could highlight just what this mission might accomplish beyond what Apollo 10 already managed in 1969. (Or even Apollo 13, which managed a similar flight path with a crippled craft.)
LETS GOOOOO. Hopefully all goes well ans they dont have to scrub the launch. Also, how is this not a big thing on the media? 😭
Let’s see how NASA messes up today’s launch again.
Going to school on the Space Coast was one of the best parts of my life. Nothing like walking to class and seeing a rocket go up, or sitting there trying to study while your whole stomach shakes from the blast. Ironically enough the first launch with humans I witnessed was Crew-1 launch with Glover, and now he is about to fly around the Moon. The world just feels like a better place when we’re chasing goals like this, and honestly, I think we need it right now more than ever.
Is this a April fools? Everything is suspicious this time of the year.
I find it weird that our rocket technology hasn’t changed much in the 50 years that its been to the moon. Google says the mission will take 5 days to get to the moon and it took the same amount of time in 1972. I am sure theres more improvements, like cost ratios and fuel consumption. But even then, why not make a faster trip?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[cislunar](/r/Space/comments/1s9i9wv/stub/odoesl6 “Last usage”)|Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon’s orbit|
|[scrub](/r/Space/comments/1s9i9wv/stub/odoytsw “Last usage”)|Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues)|
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|GSE|Ground Support Equipment|
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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^(2 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1s8uzgx)^( has 23 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12298 for this sub, first seen 1st Apr 2026, 13:57])
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Meh. I will not get excited until they actually land on the moon again and drive around.
My 60 year old engineer coworker just tried to convince me this is an April fools joke. Its pretty elaborate if thats the case.
Praying all goes well and that we can take yet another step towards understanding this vast, beautiful, and mysterious universe of ours.
God, if I had the power, NASA and space exploration would get as much money as they needed to explore every corner and every interesting idea and theory of theirs.