22 Feb Update: From NASA PAO: NASA to Rollback Artemis II Rocket, Spacecraft 21 Feb Update: I just talked to BBC World News TV about the recent issues with the Artemis II mission [audio]. Keith’s note: Things change fast in the Artemis II world. On Friday NASA posted an update: “NASA is targeting no earlier than Friday, March 6, for the launch of Artemis II, pending completion of required work at the launch pad, analysis of test data, and the outcome of a Flight Readiness Review in the coming days.” Then today (Saturday) according to this post: “NASA is taking steps to potentially roll back the Artemis II rocket and Orion spacecraft to the VAB … after overnight Feb. 21 observing interrupted flow of helium in the SLS rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage. … This will almost assuredly impact the March launch window.“ Update: Detailed description from Jared Isaacman below:

Keith’s note: Jared Isaacman @NASAAdmin Tweeted this summary of yesterday’s SLS Wet Dress test. “With the conclusion of the wet dress rehearsal today, we are moving off the February launch window and targeting March for the earliest possible launch of Artemis II. With more than three years between SLS launches, we fully anticipated encountering challenges. That is precisely why we conduct a wet dress rehearsal. These tests are designed to surface issues before flight and set up launch day with the highest probability of success.” Full text below.

Keith’s note: Last week I posted a quick Photoshop (No A.I.) montage on social media using NASA pics of Artemis II / Apollo 8 crews. Space nerds hammered me online because Apollo 8 orbited the Moon and Artemis II won’t. Duh. They miss the point.

• Apollo 8 was humanity’s first visit to the Moon in 1968 which was a very bad year.
• Artemis II will be humanity’s first return to lunar space in 2026 in half a century which could also (probably) be a very bad year
• 70% of the world alive today have never seen humans visit another world. For them Artemis program will provide their first moon landing. For them, we will be doing the same thing again for the first time.
• Waiting to see how NASA PAO dials up the actual launch coverage for #Artemis and whether its more pro-Administration Rah Rah – or a real chance to look at past, present and future history – in a cogent, dare I say it – hopeful – perspective. AdAstra y’all.

Keith’s note; last week NASA decided to halt support for MD Planetary Science Division Analysis and Assessment Groups. The following email was shared widely by Benjamin Greenhagen, Ph.D Chair, Lunar Exploration Analysis Group LEAG Community: “It will be harder for us to sustain two-way communication between the community and NASA decision makers without meeting support and travel grants, but we will. LEAG will continue to organize events and invite NASA leadership” Full email below.

Keith’s note: It looks like a lot of Americans still believe in a bunch of conspiracies (surprise surprise) including the whole Apollo Moon landing thing. NASA will launch Artemis II to circle the Moon in 2026. The Artemis III landing on the Moon will be in 2028 or whenever. News and rumor – and fears and hopes – all collide (badly) in today’s news bubble. It is going to be a challenge for NASA to put forth – not just the play-by-play of these missions – but also the rationale and (gulp) even the proof that they are real. I recall experiencing the 1969 landing. The world stopped and watched in awe. Will that happen again more than half a century later as we return?

• Recently I posted a revision of an earlier post “Doing Something Again For The First Time” (Update)“: “75% – 3/4 of the people on this planet have never seen humans walk on another world. We’re suddenly in a race to go back to the Moon and we are not clearly in the lead. The next time humans walk on the Moon will be the first time this happens as far as most of humanity is concerned.” Well, I forgot to factor in the people (across age groups) who think we never went in the first place. So I guess for them Artemis III (or a Chinese mission) will be their first lunar landing too.
• The Conservative Manhattan Institute’s recent Report on Republicans’ opinions survey says: “Moon landing: A similarly sized chunk of the Current GOP (36%) believes that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked by NASA. Again, younger men are more likely to hold this view (51% of men under 50 vs. 38% of women under 50). There are stark racial divides: while only 31% of white GOP voters believe the conspiracy, this rises to 59% among Hispanic Republicans and 63% among black Republicans.” Based on personal experience I suspect that the Moon landing deniers exist in similarly large numbers among Democrats and Independents and across all age groups.

Keith’s note: 75% – 3/4 of the people on this planet have never seen humans walk on another world. We’re suddenly in a race to go back to the Moon and we are not clearly in the lead. The next time humans walk on the Moon will be the first time this happens as far as most of humanity is concerned. History is just history. Instead of grainy, flickering black and white imagery on a hulking television we’ll all see people bouncing on the Moon in 4K streaming on our cellphones. How does NASA adapt to this paradigm shift? So far, it is not doing that well. More below.

Keith’s Update: below is a copy of a 31 Jul 2025 NASA memo from Sean Duffy titled “Directive on Fission Surface Power (FSP) Development” which says “The FSP project leverages innovation in commercial microreactor technologies specifically referenced in the White House’s 23 May 2025 Executive Order 14299 “Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security”.” Keith’s earlier note: According to Politico: “Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator.” Not that using nukes on the Moon (or Mars) is a bad idea. Its is a smart one. But wait: check the evaporating program of record: NASA lands on the Moon once – skips all the Gateway stuff, cancels SLS/Orion – and nothing else is on the books. When will the reactor be landed? Will there be Americans on site to turn it on and use it? At the pace that Artemis is becoming a collection of notional TBDs, this is like building a boat shed for the speedboat you want to buy for the summer house on the lake that you have not built yet – and cannot afford to visit anyway.

Keith’s note: According to “CBS News poll: Most Americans favor U.S. returning to moon, going to Mars“: “There is a lot of public favor for the idea of the U.S. returning to the moon, and also for eventually going to Mars. About two-thirds do, while a third does not. Younger Americans who are not old enough to remember the first moon landing are especially in favor, perhaps looking forward to seeing that exploration in their lifetimes. These views generally cut across ideological and party lines, as well.”

Keith’s note: According to NASA “Carrying science and tech on Firefly Aerospace’s first CLPS or Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight for NASA, Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched at 1:11 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company is targeting a lunar landing on Sunday, March 2.”

Keith’s note: This evening I spoke with CGTN about the return of the Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission; global interest in lunar exploration; and space exploration in general. [Audio] Video below:

Keith’s note: This item was posted on NASA.gov on 8 May 2024: “OTPS seeks input from the lunar community to inform a framework for further work on non-interference of lunar activities“. Cool stuff – and important as human activity on the Moon starts to expand with many new players. But who knew about it? I checked and there was no email from NASA PAO on this. When I look at the NASA press release page there is nothing mentioned. No mention is made on the 80 million-follower @NASA Twitter account either. So there does not seem to be much in the way of interest by NASA PAO in pushing out news about OTPS stuff – however cool and relevant it may be. The NASA Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy has a link but you have to know to go there to find the link. OTPS has no social media presence. The OTPS AA Charity Weeden does not have a Twitter account and her LinkedIn account doesn’t do much. Her Deputy has a Twitter account (I think it is hers) @AerospaceFury that has been inert since 2017. However, I did stumble across this OTPS thing for the first time on a LinkedIn post overtly related to an official NASA effort by Therese Jones (the Point of Contact for this NASA activity) which I promptly liked and reposted. But when I went to search out her Twitter account for an official post I discovered that she has blocked @NASAWatch (and my personal account) – thus making it hard to simply retweet it. So, I used another account to see if I could access her Twitter account and found a tweet here from 1:33 pm EDT today and then grabbed the link and tweeted it on @NASAWatch. Her Twitter account has ~2,500 followers. @NASAWatch has 50 times as many followers. Not that big – but 118,000 is more than the lone NASA-related employee account’s 2,500 – the only account that was talking about this activity. It is good that someone took the initiative to get wider exposure for this when official mention was lacking. But wouldn’t you think that an organization and its staff – with such an important role – one saddled with an underpowered PAO/outreach capability – would want to make the most of external/earned media – and not overtly block people/accounts that can help get the good word out? I guess not. 10 May update: the tweet has been deleted – but I am still blocked. Oh well. Maybe NASA OTPS will lift a finger and get PAO to make them an official social media account so that their cool stuff can reach the largest possible audience – in a professional fashion.

Keith’s note: IM-1 landing has landed. My lunar landing talking head dance card for today (so far):

• 6:00 am BBC 5 Live radio
• 8:00 am KTRH radio
• 1:50 pm Bloomberg radio/TV [Audio]
• 2:20 pm Alhurra TV [Audio]
• 4:20 Bloomberg radio/TV
• 5:30 BBC 5 Live radio
• 6:00 pm Deutsche Welle TV [Audio]
• 6:30 pm CGTN (cancelled – overlap)
• 6:20 Bloomberg – Live landing
• 7:00 pm ARD TV
• 8:00 pm Deutsche Welle TV [Audio]
• 8:30 pm BBC World Service scrubbed
• (Friday) 2:00 pm CGTN scrubbed

Keith’s note: Japan successfully landed its SLIM spacecraft on the Moon this morning. However there seems to be a problem with its solar panels which are not charging its batteries. This may have to do with the panels’ orientation to the sun after landing. Unless that can be rectified the spacecraft can only operate for a matter of hours before its batteries are drained. SLIM did deploy its two small rovers and efforts are being made to see if any data has been collected. One of the rovers has responded. I was on CGTN a few minutes ago to talk about SLIM as well as the end of Astrobotic’s Peregrine mission to the Moon which returned to Earth the other day after a propulsion system failure prevented a lunar landing. I was also asked about former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin’s slam against NASA’s Artemis program. [audio]

Keith’s note: Take the time to read the Astrobotic press release (below). While it is sad that Peregrine won’t land on the Moon it is very important that everyone – including NASA – takes note of the unrivaled transparency and promptness of updates that Astrobotic has provided. They’ve set a new standard that all responsible users of space should follow. Ad Astra.

Keith’s note: The popularity of space exploration – both real and imagined – is something that those of us in the developed and throughly wired developed world take for granted. What we often do not appreciate is how much of our content leaks out and finds its ways across the rest of the world. And in so doing how it can inspire millions of people – ones that we never stop to think about – to aspire to explore space. [much more below]

Keith’s note: I did an interview with Deutsche Welle about Chandrayaan-3. They aired an intro piece before me where they talked with a family in India and their children’s reactions to the landing and I almost had tears in my eyes since, as I said in my interview that was me as a little boy. [DW Audio]. I also did an interview with CGTN talking about how the Moon is a place that everyone can and should visit. [CGTN Audio]

Keith’s Note: according to NASA: “More than 20 missions are planned to the Moon between now and 2026, with participants including NASA, international agencies, and industry. Many of these missions are going to operate in proximity to each other on the surface of a celestial body for the first time in history. This will raise challenges humanity has never faced. A new Lunar Landing and Operations Policy Analysis by NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy examines some of the policy challenges that having numerous missions at the Moon will create.” More: NASA Releases Report on Policy Matters in Upcoming Moon Missions

Paul Spudis now has a crater on the Moon named after him. Let's go visit Paul. He's easy to find – he's right next door to Shackleton. https://t.co/Pz9o2sejzJ pic.twitter.com/gJZ67pbrIY — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) October 1, 2021

Lockheed Martin, General Motors Team-up to Develop Next-Generation Lunar Rover for NASA Artemis Astronauts to Explore the Moon, Lockheed Martin Corporation “Lockheed Martin and General Motors Co. are teaming up to develop the next generation of lunar vehicles to transport astronauts on the surface of the Moon, fundamentally evolving and expanding humanity’s deep-space exploration footprint.” “NASA’s Artemis program is sending humans back to the Moon where they will explore and […]