Artemis II launched today. Its mission is to head out further than any human has gone before in space flight as they orbit the moon and help finalize where we may land for future Artemis missions. It’s six days till they reach the moon and ten days total till they come home.
More info:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
Any fellow nerds watch the launch? 
Who’s ready for some 21st century moon missions with actual human crew, not robots?
HELL YEAH. SPACE!
I absolutely watched it and just like every other GenXr who watched a disaster unfold on a small TV in social studies class back in the 80s, I held my breath.
Trauma is real.
Glad I have a new memory and my kids have only a good one.
My heart was in my throat till they passed the second mark when Challenger was gone. I wasn’t even alive yet for Challenger, but being a space nerd, the impact its had on all future missions is very real. Same with Columbia and Apollo I.
Once they separated from Orion, I started breathing and the tears came. It was so neat to see live.
Look what we can do when we believe and move towards something greater than self and work together.
Historical!
Who cares. If they dont land on the moon its meh.
I was in science class watching it with the rest of my class. It was surreal, but at the same time, I was also the same kid who used to watch the 1978 ‘Faces of Death’ series while eating dinner. It was one of the few times I could get away with eating dinner in the Living Room while my father watched his movies. It was both utterly terrifying, but at the same time, I couldn’t turn away from watching it. I believed the entire series was real. I couldn’t imagine parents today allowing their kids to watch something like that and never telling them it was a “mockumentary”.
I remember that being passed around on VHS tapes. Oh man, the 80s were something.
So turns out this entire mission is being livestreamed, and I just watched the Artemis rocket be piloted manually for the first time. This is the most powerful rocket NASA has created so far (even more powerful than the Saturn V that got us to the moon), and Artemis will be our rocket through these moon missions, so it was pretty awesome to see live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs
Here’s the link to the stream if anyone wants to enjoy a really cool 24/7 show for the next ten days.
I had graduated the year before. I was off work that day and watched it. I watched all the space stuff. I still remember getting a little plastic model of the lunar rover with a bottle of Tang. I remember watching shuttle launches with my grandmother. She was born in 1904, and the changes that she saw in her lifetime were amazing. She went a time when horse and buggies were not uncommon, to people walking on the freakin’ moon!
I still hold my breath for every manned launched. Space isn’t easy. And launches have proved deadly several times.
I’m excited that we appear to be going back to the moon.
Oh wow! I didn’t know that. That’s so cool. I know what i watched this evening, someone commented on how small the capsule was and asked what it would be like for the astronauts living in it for 10 days. I can’t even imagine. I would have to be so medicated. lol. more than 3 hours on a plane and I’m getting real twitchy.
Moon’s haunted.
I watched with my young kid, and then felt compelled to tell her: things could go wrong, and that would be very bad.
I debated, at the last minute, whether she should watch at all.
Glad things went went and she and I both got to watch the first astronauts launch for the Moon in our lifetimes.
That they’re using orbital mechanics to make it possible is insanely cool. I know that’s nothing new, but usually I’m reading about it in some space novel. It’s like damn magic does exist!
It was so cool to watch them do math checks on notepads that they’d then let go and the pad would just… float around. I’ll never get over it.
According to the livestream as of this moment, Artemis II is:
Oh, also, we have a 5m 50s planned engine burn today to help propel us a bit faster to the moon and also make sure Artemis is entering the Moon’s gravity at the proper angle so we can orbit it a bit then use the free trajectory to shoot our crew back to Earth. This burn till be about 6 PM EST, for anyone who wants to plan to tune in. 
Edit: Originally had their speed at meters per second, which I’m pretty sure they’d shoot past the Moon and somewhere randomly into space. XD
It’s amazing and it’s long overdue.
It seems like a lot of people are not nearly as excited as I would hope. We haven’t been to the moon since 1972, the year before I was born.
I have lived a whole lifetime, had children, two careers, now watching my children potentially having families of their own, etc etc since the last time we were up there. If the entirety of this planet’s existence were a single day, (4.5 billion+ years!), humans have really only existed for barely 3 seconds.
I will remain REALLY FRIGGIN EXCITED that for a wisp of those 3 seconds, I was here and got to witness human beings going to the moon.
One you start to put stuff into perspective it is even more amazing! I don’t understand how people can not be excited about it.
It’s a good burn!
It was. Also, another fun fact about the many firsts of this mission: among the crew is Jeremy Hansen, who is about to be the first Canadian astronaut to venture to the moon. 
The US has been a terrible neighbor these last few years but I’m glad as scientists and space explorers, we took one of our besties back to the moon with us in our first go.
GET IN LOSERS, WE’RE COMING BACK
I don’t know man. Considering how horrible this week was, if I was up there I might stay and take my chances and aim for another planet.
Crew could really pull a fast one and do a Rich Purnell Maneuver to book it to Mars. No Matt Damon to save, though.
Jokes aside, crew is coming home, Earth is getting rapidly larger in the window and on stream, splashdown is 5:07 PM PST. This mission was awesome to watch and a bright spot in the fount of horrid news this last week.
NASA Livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs
still watching, waiting to see the crew.
This week we have seen the best and worst of what humans are capable. It is wonderful to end the work week with an event that shows the best of nature - what we can do when we work together for sake of knowledge.