Image (Credit): An image showing three new unnamed craters located on the Moon, two of which were noted by the Artemis II crew. The crew is proposing names for both of these unnamed craters. (NASA)
“From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.”
–Statement by Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen after the Orion capsule traveled 248,655 miles from Earth earlier today, breaking the record of Apollo 13. The capsule, named Integrity, continued on its mission to fly past the Moon before starting its trip back to Earth.
Image (Credit): China’s Long March 10 rocket. (South China Morning Post)
Now that Artemis II is well underway as NASA prepares for an eventual crewed landing on the Moon, one might ask where the Chinese are in their own race for the Moon.
The answer is that the Chinese are moving along with their program as well, as noted in a recent Ars Technica article that highlighted China’s test in February of its new reusable booster and crew capsule. The test of the Long March 10 rocket and Mengzhou spacecraft (“dream vessel”) was considered a success, moving China closer to its own lunar mission. The next test will be to put the Mengzhou spacecraft into orbit later this year.
At the same time, the Chinese are testing a lunar lander to bring the taikonauts to the lunar surface.The lunar lander is called Lanyue, which means “embrace the moon.”
China is still aiming for a crewed landing on the Moon before 2030, followed by an International Lunar Research Station by 2035. The country is also planning to have a station orbiting the Moon by 2045, similar to the Gateway that NASA has decided to drop from its plans for now. The Chinese orbiting station would assist with scientific work on the Moon as well as a future trip to Mars.
Neither NASA nor China have the luxury of any detours over the next few years as each plans to be the first to return to the surface of the Moon. The current Artemis II mission puts the US in a good position to meet its own goal to land on the Moon before China assuming everything goes as planned with the mission and any technical issues can be easily resolved.
With all eyes on the Moon mission, it is worth revisiting the musings of Frank Herbert as he provided one possible path for mankind.
While the Dune: Part Three movie is not set to premiere until December, the first trailer is out to prepare us for what is to come, and it is a powerful two-and-a-half minutes. You can see bits of our favorite characters as well as new ones, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, and Isaach de Bankolé.
This is a mind-bending, beautifully crafted, yet bleak story about the will to power, where one man leads his followers in a war that killed sixty-one billion humans, sterilized ninety planets, and wiped out the followers of forty religions. From this wisp of a teenager in Dune: Part One, we witness him becoming the whirlwind that darkens the galaxy.
Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader’s name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question. That’s how 900 people wound up in Guyana drinking poison Kool-Aid. That’s how the U.S. said “Yes, sir, Mister Charismatic John Kennedy!” and found itself embroiled in Vietnam. That’s how Germany said “Sieg Heil!” and murdered more than six million of our fellow human beings.
What Mr. Herbert left for us is an amazing story that continues to live on in the careful work of Denis Villeneuve. He has created a piece of art that not only entertains us but also warns us, like all good story-telling.
One of the comments from someone viewing the trailer was:
[M]y grandfather had the original star wars trilogy, my father had lord of the rings, [I] have dune.
“The Planetary Society is deeply disappointed by this budget proposal. The White House’s budgeting office has put forward the same budget cuts to NASA and NASA Science that were rejected by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress last year. This proposal needlessly resurrects an existential threat to U.S. leadership in space science and exploration.”
-Statement from a Planetary Society press release after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its proposed NASA budget for Fiscal Year 2027. The proposal would cut the overall agency budget by 23 percent and reduce the Science Mission Directorate by 47 percent. You may remember a similar attempt at cuts that was later reversed by the Congress. It appears everyone will be playing this game again this year.
Note: The budget picture above may look like a lunar landing, but it is a full-scale crash if allowed to stand. We can call the impact site “Trump Crater” filled with the remains of our space program if it cannot be reversed.
This week’s image shows the Artemis II crew – NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, NASA Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. It looks like a movie poster, which makes sense given that it is one of the better shows this year and lasts for 10 days.
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