Artemis III Has a Crew

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Image (Credit): The Artemis III crew members (from left: Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio). (NASA/Bill Stafford)

Earlier today NASA announced its new four-member crew for the next set of Artemis tests. The two week long Artemis III mission will test spacecraft in low Earth orbit in preparation for Artemis IV, which will entail an actual crewed mission to the surface of the Moon.

The new crew are three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut from Italy. NASA has a full profile of each crew member, but here are the basics:

NASA may have a crew, but does it have any partners that are really ready for a lunar landing?

To date, the only fully operational spacecraft is the Orion capsule, which will be sent aloft via the Space Launch System. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin plan to send up demonstration lunar landers that will not contain all of the necessary components for humans preparing for a Moon landing. This sounds a little dangerous given that the real reason for Artemis III is a dry-run in space. It sounds more like a dry-run for a dry-run, but NASA may not have time to complete a true test.

In additon to lunar lander delays, SpaceX is busy trying to make a fortune with its IPO, while Blue Origin is still licking its wounds after the recent explosion at Cape Canaveral.

These four astronauts may be the best news out of NASA for some time to come, so it may be best to raise a toast to the four of them and then simply hope for the best.

The Next Space Race May Blind Astronomers and the Rest of Us

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Credit: Pixabay

While most of the attention regarding the space race with China revolves around the Moon at the moment, another space race is brewing that will become a big problem for astronomers if the race is successful. This second race is one to place data centers into orbit.

Over the years, astronomers have been expressing concerns about the impact that thousands of satellites on ground-based telescope. However, that is nothing compared to the number of data center satellites being planned for the future. SpaceX has already requested permission from the Federal Communications Commission for at least one million data center satellites. And other US companies such as Google with its Project Suncatcher, as well as the Chinese with similar investments, have their own plans to toss data centers into orbit.

We are fast-tracking ourselves towards the world of Disney’s WALL-E where we have polluted the night sky beyond recognition. Is this really necessary? Do we have other options?

Fortunately, we do, including Google’s planned data center in Texas, which will power itself from renewable energy. Another example is China’s efforts to put data centers in the ocean. Like the night sky, the ocean is a big place with a lot of possibilities if done right.

AI has already brought up enough concerns pertaining to childhood health, jobs for new graduates, and even a real armed Skynet determining its own targets. Do we really need to also surround the planet with more than a million satellites feeding into this questionable new world?

It may be time to take some of these decisions away from the stock market and ponder them for a few a little longer. Even Elon Musk was expressing such concerns in 2023. He signed a letter from the Future of Humanity Institute that stated:

Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.

That was a smart idea then, and it makes even more sense today before we go crazy spending billions, if not trillions, or dollars on a new space race that re-energizes a questionable technology while blotting out the night sky for those who are willing to look outside of our planetary bubble to learn from the universe.

It was B. F. Skinner who said:

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

Astronomy Questions: What Do You Know About SpaceX?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Gino Crescoli from Pixabay.

As part of the recent release of financial data related to SpaceX’s upcoming Initial Public Offering, we learned a few things about the company. Here are a few questions pertaining to that data and SpaceX operations in general.

True or False: SpaceX had a net loss in 2025.

Multiple Choice: SpaceX provides computing power to what AI company?

A. Anthropic
B. CoreWeave
C. Meta
D. Open AI

Multiple Choice: SpaceX was responsible for what percent of global rocket launches in 2025?

A. 36 percent
B. 51 percent
C. 60 percent
D. 85 percent

Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the “Astronomy Question Answer Sheet” page.

Space Stories: ESA & China Are Smiling, Blue Origin Beats SpaceX to the Moon, and JWST Analyzes Exoplanet Atmosphere

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Here are some recent space-related stories.

—European Space Agency: “Smile Lifts Off on Quest to Reveal Earth’s Invisible Shield Against the Solar Wind“

The Smile spacecraft lifted off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026. The launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to better understand solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather…Smile is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It will reveal how Earth responds to the streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun, using an X-ray camera to make the world’s first X-ray observations of Earth’s magnetic shield, and an ultraviolet camera to watch the resulting northern lights non-stop for 45 hours at a time.

—The Guardian: “Nasa Selects Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for First of Three Uncrewed Lunar Missions“

Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first...[NASA’s Administrator] said the three missions planned for 2026 would be followed by “more than a dozen” more in the coming years to test systems and equipment. He said the highly successful Artemis II mission last month that sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972 had been both a catalyst and incentive to advance the moon base plan.

—Astrobiology: “Astronomers Observe Exoplanet Atmospheres With New Cloud-detecting Method“

Every morning, clouds roll in, and by evening, they have cleared off. This sounds like a weather forecast for a coastal city here on Earth — but it’s for WASP-94A b, a well-studied gas giant orbiting a star located nearly 700 light-years away. A new study published in the journal Science documents the first detection of repeating cloud cycles on a hot Jupiter exoplanet. The first author of the study is Sagnick Mukherjee, a 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Mukherjee is part of a research team that analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope targeting WASP-94 A b, a gas giant in the constellation Microscopium. The team discovered that the planet’s morning side is blanketed in clouds of magnesium silicate, the same mineral found in common rocks, while its evening side is under clear skies.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Twelfth Starship Launch Successful

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Credit: SpaceX

Fortunately, the first SpaceX Starship launch of the year (and the twelfth for the rocket) went well yesterday with only a few bumps along the way. While it was not perfect, given that it was the first test of a new version of the rocket, it was a good night for the rocket-maker and NASA.

Here is SpaceX’s description of some of the bumps last night:

Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster performed a directional flip maneuver and attempted its boostback burn. It was unable to light all planned engines and performed a partial boostback burn that ended early. Super Heavy attempted to reignite its engines for the landing burn before experiencing a hard splashdown in the Gulf of America. During its ascent burn to space, Starship lost one of the Raptor 3 vacuum engines but demonstrated its engine-out capability and achieved its planned trajectory.

This latest test is encouraging, but would be more encouraging is a solid schedule of more tests this year to ensure the Starship will be ready for the Artemis III low Earth orbit tests next year. SpaceX is still significantly behind schedule on it launches. For instance, this twelfth launch was delayed many times.

Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are racing to be part of the Artemis III test in late 2027 to see if NASA is really ready for a crewed landing on the Moon in 2028. This latest launch brings SpaceX that much closer.