I feel like this and orbital solar power beaming are the actual things we should focus on, and data centers are not the move.

Chairman Babin (R-TX) comes out swinging against the proposed NASA budget cuts: shortchanging NASA is simply not smart.

What a launch.

Rocket Lab’s HASTE mission “Bubbles” lifted off successfully at 9:36 PM ET from Wallops.

📸 Micah Pieczarka for NSF

With alt text

This rather creepy photo is Artemis II’s heat shield underwater, as taken by the U.S. Navy. This is the first photo we have of the heat shield, and upon initial examination it doesn’t seem to have the char loss that Artemis I’s had.

Welcome to the J Mission Power Rankings The first edition of our recurring column in which we arbitrarily rank the big spaceflight players. Disagree? Angry? That’s the point, I’m sorry to say.

As a former sportswriter, my brain is officially broken. Let’s do some power rankings.

Is now a good time to admit I’ve always found Venus to be the scariest planet?

😬

Well this is a bummer.

Booster touch-down
#NG3

New Glenn Flight Three, launching BlueBird Block 2 FM2 Mission. This is the first reuse of a flown New Glenn booster.
1/2

I’m a space romantic admittedly, but a small part of me believes humans will see Voyager 1 again.

👀

In the Science Ops room for the Mars Exploration Rovers. Opportunity, had landed hours earlier. We awaited first images. Murmuring and tension all around. On projection screen, terminal window began filling with text. Data on the ground. Image opened — and the room ROARED with joy. It was BEDROCK.

One of the main benefits of the Artemis architecture was that it pushed institutional support for traditional civil space concerns while also pumping funding into private firms who might make orbital access cheaper.

I get we all like punching the bag, but it has somewhat worked in this aim.

It’s also like, I am very sympathetic to fears of over-privatization.

But also, think of how little exploration and science would have gone on in Antarctica if the U.S. Antarctic Program had to invent and build new boats and planes every time they wanted to send an expedition there.

The Starship vs SLS culture war has been counterproductive to both IMO.

The crew of the Konstantin still doesn’t receive appropriate credit for this.

The Hubble missions will always be the coolest.

My hot take is that Artemis III flies next year to meet only Blue Origin’s lander, which will then become the lander for Artemis IV.

But Starship ultimately is the long term beneficiary from Isaacman’s plan, in that he’s said again and again reusable heavy lift is necessary for the lunar base.

My theory of the case is that Artemis II was the starter pistol on the New Space Age, and for it to come true, Flight 12 has to be (essentially) a full success.

We need momentum!

Never thought I’d say this about Orion, but: same

These keep being described as "Ingenuity-class" microcopters, yet they are supposed to carry ground-pentetrating radar, multispectral cameras, and will have to communicate directly with orbiters. Those are not compatible statements

The fact that they finally started testing yesterday is mildly amusing.

I hope that changes now that they clearly are feeling a bit more confident and mission-oriented again.

I’m working on a piece about the Artemis II vibe shift, and it really starts with NASA itself.

It’s also worth noting that part of the reason why so much of the spaceflight attention economy is taken up by SpaceX is that NASA just isn’t out in the public eye nearly as much.

Even Artemis II, they kind of waited to see if SLS could even launch before making it a big deal. That’s gotta change.

You do gotta stop and appreciate where we are.

Yesterday, the crew of Artemis II returned to earth from the moon. But even while that was happening, operations was preparing a resupply flight to our base in LEO.

People compared this mission to Apollo 8, but that’s the actual key difference IMO.

A screenshot of Youtube with the Artemis II Live Mission Coverage broadcast and its viewcount

NASA's Artemis II continuous coverage concludes with a whopping 78 million views over the 10 day mission

To the moon and back. Let’s do it again soon, yes?

Artemis II Return NASA's Orion spacecraft carrying Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, along with Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), splashes down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California, at 5:07 p.m. PDT, (8:07 p.m. EDT) on Friday, April 10, 2026. The Artemis II test flight launched on Wednesday, April 1, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin its 10-day journey around the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars. NASA’s Landing and Recovery team and the U.S. military are coordinating efforts to extract the Artemis II crew from the Orion spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel

What a great photo just added on the NASA Johnson Flickr page www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...