Thread: Back to the Moon

Great way to track the first manned mission to the moon since I was 4 years and 1 month old

NASA: Artemis II

3D views from Moon, Earth, Orion Capsule. Realtime tracking stats of velocity distance etc.

If things go to plan we will be walking on the moon again in 2 years

This is like a spiritual enterprise to spectate for me since Apollo XI was when I was in nappies

I hope they build real Space 1999 eagles like the diecast metal one I had which was my favourite toy

I hope we get to Mars before I kick it

There is already a Lego version of Artemis

Ta v highquality picture I suppose ease of passage why it reesmbles a dildo or buutplug?

Perhaps our engineering boffins like Milfomike Troy or Takeovers may explain?

The real-time website app shows it looking quite different.

I think it lost a stage somewhere before spreading its solar panel wings

Or shrinkage in the cold of space?

Originally Posted by david44

Perhaps our engineering boffins like Milfomike Troy or Takeovers may explain?

All to do with maximum efficiency in penetrating the Earth's atmosphere during the launch. There's a lot of friction to overcome, as well as gravity, and a cylindrical shape with a tough outer surface, to resist the heat, especially on reentry, is essential as has been shown throughout the history of mankind.

I am not buying these fake photos, although they are beautiful.

'Hello, World' (with a comma)



The earth is fully lit so the sun would have to be behind the Orion vehicle. So the only light source for the halo glow around earth in the bottom left is Venus further out lower left. But Venus is not that bright to cause such a halo.

NASA is trolling us to call this mission a fake like the one in 1969

Also they have issued this alternative version called

'Hello, World Night' (with another comma)



The continents are in exactly the same place and so is Venus but somehow it is night (i.e. the sun is now on the other side of the Earth now. But that is cobblers. Orion would have to be orbiting around the earth to get a view from the other side which it is not doing.

FAKE NEWS!

I do like this one showing The Terminator



But how come we have to wait for a manned mission to get these photos? Why don't they send up an unmanned probe years ago and get some awesome piccies?

Originally Posted by Looper

I am not buying these fake photos, although they are beautiful.

There are some *ahem* glaring inconsistencies. I had to google them to make sure they are official Nasa photos and yes they are. Hmmmm.

Originally Posted by Troy

All to do with maximum efficiency in penetrating the Earth's atmosphere during the launch. There's a lot of friction to overcome, as well as gravity, and a cylindrical shape with a tough outer surface, to resist the heat, especially on reentry, is essential as has been shown throughout the history of mankind.

This is extremely sexual for you, Troy.

I'm just hoping we finally find out exactly what type of cheese the moon is made of (I've my fingers crossed for Edam).

Originally Posted by Looper

The continents are in exactly the same place and so is Venus but somehow it is night

Perhaps the night photo is the correct exposure, with the earth being lit by the moon, and the 'Hello, World' photo has had the exposure increased.

Rather than being fake...

^Yes, I did suspect that. I was just having a bit of a laugh.

The sun being behind the earth would explain the bright halo. It would also explain why we can see lights on in Madrid in the day version which would not be visible normally.

It would also align with the fact that it is a full moon at the moment so if the capsule is travelling to rendezvous with the moon in a day or 2 the sun must be somewhere on the other side of the earth from the capsule's perspective.

The illumination of the earth is from light reflected by the moon (unless Commander Buzz Lightyear was using his flash)

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Though I have yesterday read, it does also do some actual acceleration into the return trajectory. I am not sure, this is true.

Sounds plausible though, doesn't it?

Burn deceleration to drop into the slingshot loop, so they can get a good view of the moon and practice getting in and out of lunar orbit, then burn acceleration to get back out of lunar gravity and heading straight for Earth . Theoretically they should be able to design a trajectory that requires no burn although it would only come close to the moon at only one point on the farside. The landing mission in 2 years will require burn to slow down and drop into lunar orbit so I guess they want to practice that a bit this time, hence the mooted burn.

It says they are further from earth then ever before so they must be orbiting the far-side of the moon at a higher altitude than Apollo.

Originally Posted by Looper

It says they are further from earth then ever before so they must be orbiting the far-side of the moon at a higher altitude than Apollo.

Actually that is probably bollocks.

It is probably because the moon just happens to be at more distant point on its elliptical orbit just now than it was for any of the Apollo missions, rather than Artemis being higher from the lunar surface than Apollo was.

Artemis will be about 7,500 km from the moon on the far side, the Apollo orbited at around 100km. Apollo 13 was a little further out at around 250km, but nowhere near as far away from the moon as Artemis.

Interesting.

So to get a slingshot orbit without coming any closer than 7500km surely they will have to slow down with a burn?

Even with the greater altitude I think a possible higher point in the cycle of the elliptical lunar orbit of Earth must be what is accounting for the greater distance from earth of the mission since the lunar orbit varies by many tens of thousands of km?

I guess we will not be getting any holiday snaps of the Apollo XI flag at that altitude either.

Originally Posted by Looper

I think a possible higher point in the cycle of the elliptical lunar orbit of Earth must be what is accounting for the greater distance from earth of the mission since the lunar orbit varies by many tens of thousands of km?

It would be funny if it was not actually true and the 'furthest distance' claim was based on the 7500km far-side lunar altitude but they had forgotten to account for the lunar ecliptic variation.

Lunar Ticks

Turns out it is not bollocks.

ChatGPT tells me these are these are the lunar distances for each Apollo mission

Apollo 8 1968 ~378,000 km
Apollo 10 1969 ~357,000 km (near perigee)
Apollo 11 1969 ~384,000 km
Apollo 12 1969 ~389,000 km
Apollo 13 1970 ~400,000 km (near apogee)
Apollo 14 1971 ~391,000 km
Apollo 15 1971 ~384,000 km
Apollo 16 1972 ~370,000 km
Apollo 17 1972 ~382,000 km

The moon will be at apogee when Artemis passes by at a distance of 405,000 km from Earth’s centre

So adding on 7500km gets about 412,000km

The space-age sanitation that means Artemis astronauts won’t face a code brown

Orion’s hi-tech toilet system has come a long way since the early Apollo missions

Madeleine Ross

04 April 2026 8:00pm BST

After early space missions crashed back to Earth, scientists were desperate to learn what they had uncovered.

What they couldn’t have counted on was the foul stench that erupted through the capsule door as it opened for the first time in several days.

Apollo missions’ astronauts faced floating faeces, bags of urine strapped to their bodies and no changes of clothes.

Today, however, it’s a much more state-of-the-art affair.

A hi-tech toilet system, air filters and a specialised hygiene pack all keep the air smelling fresh.

The first men on the Moon didn’t have toilets; instead wearing adhesive-sealed plastic bags attached to their bodies to collect urine.

They did, however, take razors up with them, with Old Spice shaving foam the only real counter to the rising odour.

On the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts wore the same clothes for the whole eight-day journey.

Jennifer Levasseur, a curator in the Smithsonian Museum’s space history department, said: “The astronauts had been in their suits so long without changing their clothes that the scent lingered the entire time.

“It was a slap in the face to those who greeted them upon their return because the scent was so strong.”

Today’s astronauts aboard Nasa’s Artemis II mission to the Moon, which is more than halfway through its 357,000-mile journey, have a much easier time.


The Orion capsule has a carbon dioxide and humidity removal system, which helps to keep the air clean by removing gases such as ammonia and acetone that humans emit through breathing.

The shuttle is equipped with a hygiene bay around the size of a plane toilet – with doors for privacy, a toilet and space for the crew to bring in their personal hygiene kits.

These packs contain a hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste, liquid soap and rinseless shampoo – though astronauts have admitted the shampoo leaves an unpleasant residue.

To wash their hair, astronauts use foil-and-plastic bags with straw-like nozzles, which they place directly against their scalp before combing the water through their hair with their fingers.

But Karen Nyberg, who spent 166 days in orbit on the International Space Station (ISS), told The New York Times in 2022 that her hair “never really felt clean”. After a few months, her hair would hold the shape of a ponytail even without a hairband.


The Artemis II astronauts wear high-tech sweat-wicking clothes underneath custom-made orange spacesuits, which will help rescuers find them after they travel down at the end of the mission.

And they change out of these clothes to go to sleep, putting on pyjamas.

Though Commander Reid Wiseman was heard asking about the location of their “comfort garments” as he struggled to find them on Wednesday.

Crew members brush their teeth with normal toothpaste, but then typically swallow to avoid floating spit balls.

Orion’s toilet, known as the Universal Waste Management System, is a far cry from the non-existent toilet of the Apollo missions.

The earlier space flights were riddled with problems, including floating faeces in 1969.

According to flight logs from the Apollo 10 mission to the Moon, Commander Thomas Stafford said: “Give me a napkin quick. There’s a turd floating through the air.”

Now, the Artemis crew has been afforded the luxury of strapping themselves to a specialised seat, which sucks stools away into a smell-free container.


For urine, each astronaut has their own personal funnel with a fan that draws the liquid into a tank, removing any nasty smells.

But the Orion crew still had an uncomfortable few hours without a toilet after takeoff last week, with Christina Koch forced to act as an emergency space plumber before it could be used safely.


The Telegraph

More recently, Victor Glover, Artemis II’s pilot, was broadcast with his shirt off as he wiped himself down with a towel after 30 minutes of exercise on Friday. The shuttle has an exercise machine called the “Flywheel”, which can be used as a rowing machine and also for strength training.

When astronauts sweat, it forms pools on the body, rather than dripping off, so it has to be wiped away.

“NASA astronaut Victor Glover, having completed his exercise, is cleaning up in space,” a spokesman said. “Obviously, we do not have showers aboard the Orion spacecraft.”

Although a shower was developed for space travel in 1973, for use on the US’s first space station, Skylab, the process was too cumbersome for the Artemis team’s 10-day mission.


Astronauts would spend hours showering with their feet strapped to the bottom of the tube-shaped pod to keep them steady, and they had only three litres of water to use.

Excess water also had to be painstakingly mopped up after washing, to avoid damaging crucial technical equipment.

It was such a difficult process that astronauts on the ISS reverted to sponge baths, with shampoo that doesn’t need to be rinsed out and an extraction system for excess water.

Astronauts compared the “showers” to washing while camping, but no matter how much soap and deodorant they use, it isn’t a match for the real thing.

In 2016, Tim Peake, a British astronaut, wrote: “I already miss my shower at home, but this gets the job done.”


Instead of laundry, astronauts send dirty socks and wet towels away in a cargo spacecraft to burn in Earth’s atmosphere.

But not until almost all the water has been wrung out of them, so that it can be recycled.

The water recovery system on the ISS can turn urine and sweat into drinking water, and recycles as much as 98 per cent of wastewater.

Thankfully for Artemis’s crew, their urine is being jettisoned into space instead. So they won’t have to drink it.

On Thursday, Ms Koch filmed the wastewater being vented from Orion, with sparkling beads of water seen shooting into space.

But with the Orion crew not due back until Friday, it remains to be seen whether rescuers picking the astronauts out of the Pacific Ocean will best remember their bright orange space suits – or their stench.


THE TELEGRAPH

Looks like Orion just a few hours away from its loop round the far-side.

The moon looks like it is still a day away from the rendezvous point in the NASA live illustration.

The mathematics required to calculate where all these objects will be in space considering the earth is racing around the sun, the moon is moving around the earth and keeping up with the move around the sun as well.

Essentially they’ve shot the capsule out to where the moon will be in the three days time, and given that the moon is the object that will allow them to sling shot back to earth it’s kinda critical that get that right.

Originally Posted by Looper

Sounds plausible though, doesn't it?

Burn deceleration to drop into the slingshot loop, so they can get a good view of the moon and practice getting in and out of lunar orbit, then burn acceleration to get back out of lunar gravity and heading straight for Earth . Theoretically they should be able to design a trajectory that requires no burn although it would only come close to the moon at only one point on the farside. The landing mission in 2 years will require burn to slow down and drop into lunar orbit so I guess they want to practice that a bit this time, hence the mooted burn.

It says they are further from earth then ever before so they must be orbiting the far-side of the moon at a higher altitude than Apollo.

I am beginning to understand this mission profile a little better. It is very different to later moonlanding profiles.

The upper stage of SLS sends Orion into a highly elliptic Earth orbit. This allows Orion to quickly return to Earth without any major burn in case of any technical problems. It does have the disadvantage of passing the Van Allen Belt with its radiation several times but they must have decided the fail safe for quick Earth return is worth it. In later missions it will send Orion directly to the Moon, with Orion doing lunar orbit insertion burn and Earth return burn.

Then the Orion service module does the burn to extend the elliptic orbit so it reaches the Moon. This means, Orion spends propellant to reach the Moon and can not do lunar orbit and Earth return burns. So they go for a free return mission, without orbiting the Moon.

In later missions the SLS upper stage will do the full burn to reach the Moon. That leaves all the Orion propellant to do the maneuvers in lunar orbit. The SLS upper stage does not have the ability to reignite after a full elliptic orbit. It uses hydrogen as a propelland and the hydrogen evaporates, making that impossible.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

The upper stage of SLS sends Orion into a highly elliptic Earth orbit.

That is interesting.

I see now. So the initial terrestrial loops and stage burns were spinning the capsule up for a highly eccentric elliptical earth orbit which is what carried it all the way out and might even be able to return it even without the Moon's gravitational assistance.

They are so far away from the moon at 7500km closest approach (2 lunar diameters) that maybe the moon's gravity is not the main thing causing the return.

Although I guess the moons gravity accounts for the twist in the loop in the pic in post 20, since an elliptical orbit would normally be planar.

The velocity maybe tapers off to quite a slow minimum on the far-side before it falls back to earth.

According to the site the capsule is just now crossing the lunar orbital path travelling at 1,800kmh.



The moon will sweep through behind the capsule's loop trajectory at a non AI calculated speed of (400,000km x 2 x pi)/(29 days x (24 hours/day)) = 3,600kmh while the capsule is slowing its earth-bound elliptical loop before falling back to earth.

The 2nd white dot shows the point where they will execute burns to get the return path correct.

Themselves and the control team really do have some balls, to make sure they're correct.


I haven't looked about this mission, but for Apollo the mission rules were that if the calculations were wrong or there was was an issue where they bounced off the atmosphere, it was to be confirmed, then all radio communications were to be disconnected. There was nothing to gain from listening to 3 humans slowly die without hope as they drifted off into the cold darkness of eternity.

I am glad that daft bint has started putting a hairband on instead of the crazy-lady look with hair splayed out gravity-free.

The previous bint-in-space did the same thing with no hair-band, the Indian one who was stranded till Elon busted her out.

The one on this trip is not much to look at.

If they are going to put a bird on board the lunar lander in 2 years I hope they at least make her a little bit hot.