Artemis II

From Endgame Viable

April 5, 2026

About this episode

The episode discusses NASA's Artemis II mission, marking a significant return to manned spaceflight around the moon.

I don’t remember when I first heard that NASA was launching a manned spaceflight around the moon for the first time since 1972, but it wasn’t that long ago. A couple of weeks, tops. It didn’t really sink in at first. I just thought it was another billionaire playing with toy rockets, something I have no interest in. NASA’s Back? But then I realized it was a NASA mission, the folks who have been mostly out of the space picture since the Columbia disaster. At least it seemed that way. Artemis II is apparently only the second crewed launch from U.S. soil since the shuttle program. The first was some Dragon capsule mission to the ISS, where the crew wore the most unflattering spacesuits in human history. So I turned on the NASA YouTube live stream on the morning of Wednesday, April 1, 2026, and listened to all the preparations before flight, and then the launch in the evening. It was pretty cool. It was like watching a documentary on the Apollo missions, except it played out a whole lot slower. Media Notes I have some notes on NASA’s media presentation though. For one thing, it seems that most of the cameras they sent up into space aren’t working…

Topics covered

  • NASA
  • Artemis II
  • manned spaceflight
  • moon mission

Keywords

  • space
  • launch
  • Columbia disaster
  • Apollo missions

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Artemis II, Columbia, Dragon, Apollo, Artemis, Orion

Books & works: Saturday Night Live

Places: U.S., Earth, Houston

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