Artemis II crew see first glimpse of far side of Moon [video]

It's pretty depressing that on a corner of the internet that's supposed to be a gathering of tech/geeks/nerds/stem people, discussing topics that "good hackers would find interesting", it's seemingly impossible to have a single thread about something like this that isn't almost entirely negative or political bickering.

I like how most people's reactions at this point are "yeah, whatever", as if it's every day that humans observe the far side of the moon with a naked eye through a window :). We do know what it looks like and we have photos from the surface, yes, but seeing the reaction from real people who're actually there does hit different, at least for me

A fun way to track the mission is via NASA's Eyes on the Solar System visualizer:

https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_artemis_2

Am I losing it? They can’t be seeing the far side of the moon right now, because they haven’t adjusted course to go round the far side of the moon yet…

So does this suggest the BBC is wrong and it’s the side of the moon we’re used to seeing, but just it’s “dark”?

But then the astronauts are saying it’s weird seeing the moon in a whole new light (excuse the paraphrasing pun).

I don’t understand.

FYI: https://issinfo.net/artemis

It makes me tear up seeing the absolute 'best of us' as humanity striving and exploring in the midst of so much wretched evil and awfulness.

Latest published image of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009006/

Photo and video gallery: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/

It's interesting to me how cautious NASA is being with Artemis II. I wrote about the risk / mortality calculation behind this, but everything from the trajectory, the decision not to do an orbital insertion, the checkout in high-Earth orbit is very cautious.

I wish this mission took greater risks. Or, just at least go as far as Apollo 8, but stay for a bit longer, and try out new things. It would be fun to take a finicky low mass radio telescope experiment to the far side of the moon.

Far side != Dark side

They have live tracker you can follow https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

edit: knee jerk reaction was wrong

Still think what he said is worth hearing.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWvRjeEgecb/?igsh=MXZoYjZobDM...

Rather than the far side, what about the Dark Side of the Moon?

I am curious. If it is on the far side, where does the light come from for the photos? Other stars?

Just some humans doing proper awesome human stuff and being good people advancing international brotherhood and scientific advancement.

Love seeing our Ontario native Jeremy Hansen on the microphone, and those two flags properly positioned beside each other.

I'm not a Christian today, but was raised that way. This is the hopeful message I want to see on this day, and the true meaning of the symbol. Hope for all humankind. Working together.

I'm going to be VERY disappointed if there's no Pink Floyd music or commentary from the Artemis mission. Particularly now. Life's short, and one can't be serious all the time...

Wallis and Gromit would be a partial substitute, but the boomers are still around.

It’s sort of curious that BBC always seemed to get linked to the Artemis news on HN instead of the official NASA website or US news agencies.

Are they going to land, to get out, take a look around? No. We have moon rocks at home.

There’s too many problems here on earth for me to get excited about a trip to the moon

Incredible achievement but I'll be honest — if you showed me this photo without context I would have no idea it was the far side. Just looks like the Moon. Also didn't realize we could capture an image like this in what I assumed was total darkness.

On one of Apollo missions they've read from Bible, Book of Genesis [1]. I wish they did something like that here - and I'm not even a Christian, let alone religious. They did relay some beautiful message [2] though.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tDZye57D4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELslc6O4UVk