re: NASA has announced that Artemis II is go for launch...

SLS actually going to launch an Orion and carry humans.

Been a long time coming

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Why are they orbiting so high? Apollo 8 was 70 miles above the moon.

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Apollo 8 actually inserted into a lunar orbit. Artemis II will just do a flyby on a free return trajectory. So that’s part of the reason.

That said, even for a flyby on a free return trajectory, it’s very high compared to the Apollo missions. I believe the Apollo free return trajectories put them something like 160 miles above the Moon. So there must be some other mission requirement affecting it as well.

It’s for a moon base. No other reason. Rare earths up there. It’s the new oil.

Does this mean that eastern St Tammany gets a break from the rockets test firing every week?

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More government funding.

They have fallen very far behind the US commercial sector and China.

Money won't speed progress, but it supports the grifters.

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1. In what world has NASA “fallen very far behind” China?

2. The US commercial sector exists primarily because of NASA / US government funding. This is especially true when it comes to heavy launch systems like Starship and the Super Heavy booster.

That said, there is grift involved with SLS.. but it’s Congress, not NASA. They’ve managed to keep SLS alive in spite of recommendations from multiple NASA administrators over the years to kill it, because a handful of senators really wanted to keep the jobs in their states.

That's a great picture of her. How can someone that pretty look that sweet?

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I know. But it will be fun to watch the gesticulations for them trying to explain it away....

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They have no problem dismissing satellite images we of those sites that we can now see

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The mission should take 10 days from liftoff to splashdown

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I remember when we could do it in 6 days back in the 60s.

Everything was easy back then before we knew it was hard.