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Artemis II launch

Hergé

As a kid I was fascinated with all things space related. I distinctly remember getting home from school and watching the Challenger launch in 1986, you can imagine just how devastated I felt when it exploded.

I was watching breakfast news this morning and the Artemis II launch was shown. I was quite surprised by just how emotional I felt. Thankfully they made it into orbit and will hopefully complete their mission and return home safely.

I would love to see a launch in person, the noise would be incredible.

Hopefully the return to space will endure. I'm sure it will rekindle my interest anew.

Parents

  • Having been to Space Center Houston and seeing the moon landing mock-up I really think they filmed the moon landing.

    If after 60 years of space flight with the advance of computing, engineering and tech - why haven't they been back ? maybe they never got there 

    So the grainy tv picture of the day are no longer - now with 4K TV can we expect a CGI creation in a few years time ? 

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  • Having been to Space Center Houston and seeing the moon landing mock-up I really think they filmed the moon landing.

    If after 60 years of space flight with the advance of computing, engineering and tech - why haven't they been back ? maybe they never got there 

    So the grainy tv picture of the day are no longer - now with 4K TV can we expect a CGI creation in a few years time ? 

Children
  • in reply to Jalapeno
    Jalapeno said:
    If after 60 years of space flight with the advance of computing, engineering and tech - why haven't they been back ?

    Money and politics.

    The original race was just to be first to demonstrate technical superiority over the USSR.

    Having got there, the tv viewing figures for the second and subsequent landings reduced dramatically. The last ones were barely reported. There was the war in Vietnam. There was no overriding technical reason to keep going back, it was clear there was no life and they'd proved they could do it  Taxpayers questioned the value for money. There were oil shortages and more pressing issues with the economy.

    T️he last 2 Apollo rockets were scrapped if I remember correctly.

    The focus shifted to space stations, although that also struggled to find a true purpose, and unmanned probes.

    So why go now? They believe they are in a technical race with China. The south pole may have frozen  water, good for drinking, making air and rocket fuel, and they would like to claim the best spot(s).

    Also technology has moved on.

    The space race, like war, drove a lot of progress, primarily because there is huge funding for scientific research and new stuff gets found with many spin off uses. Perhaps trips to the moon and a base might drive new insights, materials and technology. It is not always easy to predict what will come, but exploration throughout history has always delivered surprises.