We are L-2:07:30 on the Artemis II launch. I am sitting at Gremlin's house so we can watch the launch and I can blog about it at the same time.
(Gremlin is making dinner. He is Scully to my Mulder for the purposes of this evening's space nerdery. No space ghosts please. If you are unfamiliar with the reference, see:
)
I have been watching NASA's livestream since this morning. My cell phone carrier probably hates me for all the data I've used today. Anyway, some observations from earlier today:
It's wild to me how sometimes one can look at a thing and just see how it was a labor of love.
For instance, looking at the closeup of the white room from the outside, I noticed the Artemis II logo is painted on the side. It doesn't have to be. It does nothing for the mission, technically. It's there because this is a huge team of people who are genuinely proud of what they are accomplishing. It's there because even while doing the sciency-est of science, we are still human.
(See also: how everyone wears green for luck on launch days, how there's a tradition of the crew playing cards after they suit up and before the head to the launch pad.)
This has always been my beef with "more logical than thou" techbro types who sneer at my multiple humanities degrees and/or "being female"ness. Humans are not at our peak when we rely on rationality alone. We are at our peak when we embrace EVERYTHING about us that makes us human.
Yes, science and math are getting us to the moon. One of my favorite things about space launches is that we FLING HUMANS OFF THE PLANET USING MATH and then we BRING THEM HOME ALSO USING MATH. I'm not discounting the science and math involved here, because those are human endeavors too.
Yet: it's not JUST science and math getting us to the moon. Our curiosity and drive to explore, learn, know, and expand set "go back to the moon and eventually to Mars" as goals in the first place. Our cooperative nature as a species makes this possible. NASA has said as much, over and over, in today's coverage. These are human qualities that can't be reduced to data.
I love space launches because they only exist through humans embracing everything it means to be human.
Also: Props to NASA for REALLY upping their PR game. I remember watching the final return of Atlantis in 2011. Back then we got one camera pointed at the runway and a direct feed of the radio communications. That was it. Today, we're getting six solid hours of interviews, explanations, all kinds of camera feeds....
(T-1:55:30, and the current interviewee is talking about how "human spaceflight is the greatest team sport." YES! THIS!)
Normally I don't like to be talked at during events, but NASA is handling this really well. As one of the PR/communications people, I dig this.
Another text I sent Gremlin earlier:
Fuel is full. We just pumped a couple hundred thousand pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into a tank taller than the Statue of Liberty, and now we're going to strap four humans to the top of it and ignite it. We are an absolutely bonkers species.
I subscribe to the fan theory that Starfleet is necessary for Earth to be a chill utopia where people just hang out and make Creole food or tend vineyards. Starfleet siphons off the bonkers humans. The ones who WANT to be strapped to a Statue of Liberty's worth of LOX or start bar fights for fun. This explains why Starfleet ships all seem to lack circuit breakers, a technology invented in the 19th century.
(We are at L-1:50:50 right now and I'm just riffing.)
L-1:49:40: Are the crew really "relaxing" in the capsule? I'm of two minds on this. One is that yeah, I absolutely might take a little catnap, strapped there in my back. Nothing else to do. And in just under two hours I'm going to be more AWAKE than I've ever been in my life. The other is that how is anyone supposed to rest while strapped to a giant tank of liquid splodey? ...Not that there's anything one can DO about that, so probably no use thinking of it.
Just learned Reid Wiseman was in marching band. Of course he was. BAND NERDS UNITE.
I don't know if it's still true, but at one time, every American woman who had ever been to space had once been a Girl Scout. Former Girl Scouts make up 30 percent of the US adult female population, but we hold 80 percent of the leadership roles held by women in the US.
L-1:45:50: Victor Glover is talking about Challenger and I'm crying. Challenger is the first "world event" I remember. It made space flight a permanent and vital part of my attention. I know people who can't watch space flights because of Challenger; because of Challenger, I feel as if I can't not watch. I don't know how to explain it.
Glover: "I don't use the word 'excited,' because I'm focused." <3
L-1:42:33 Christina Koch out here explaining everything I ever loved about being outdoors. I channeled mine into back country backpacking, rescue, orienteering and so on in my 20s, but yeah. This.
Interesting thought (I guess?): The only people who have ever heard humans on the moon in real time are humans on the moon. Back on Earth, we heard their transmissions on a delay.
L-1:40:25 Jeremy Hansen grew up on a farm and made stuff out of random parts he found in the barn. Dork. (I also grew up on a farm and made stuff out of random parts I found in the barn.) He is also talking about the importance of group effort and I'm crying again.
I cry a LOT during space launches and returns. In the good way.
Gremlin says dinner is ready. I will post this now (L-1:38:15) and come back later.
--LATER--
L-1:05:30 Watching the crew clean up the white room the way an operating room team cleans up toward the end of surgery. Can't leave anything inside the patient. "The patient" here being a multibillion-dollar spacecraft and its support system.
There are "five different hot sauces" on Orion. "These are men and women of culture," says Gremlin.
LESS THAN ONE HOUR TO GO. I love that the brownies are actually labeled "Cosmic Brownies."
L-0:53:53 Now I'm watching the white room staff remove the shroud. They're tethered to the white room roof for this. I write a lot about workplace safety for various freelance clients, and I have to say that NASA has better standards for this than any place I've ever seen. Probably because NASA is not motivated by the extraction imperative. You can care a lot about human safety when you're not beholden to shareholders to make Line Go Up.
L-0:51:55 Better weather! We are now at 90 percent GO. I am at 100 percent GO (to the bathroom.) brb
L-0:37:40 I know I said this once already, but NASA has really upped their PR game here. Whoever is doing their PR/marketing/communications really understands the assignment. The timing and content throughout this broadcast has navigated a lot of tough communication issues very well: politics, cost, technology, and education.
I knew most of this going in because I'm (a) a space nerd and (b) used to launches just being raw audio and video feeds. So I did my prep reading because (a) I enjoyed it and (b) I'm used to not getting any of this info while watching, and I knew I wasn't going to want to distract myself by looking it up. But NASA is way ahead of me. I'm really happy with this, and I honestly couldn't be prouder of their communications team, in a professional sense. Or in a pedagogical one.
I am feeling like I should have picked up some ice cream on my way to Gremlin's, though. I don't want to go out now lest I get delayed and don't make it back in the next 35 minutes. I guess I shall have to watch this launch without the benefit of unnecessary calories, lol.
L-0:27:45 NASA has been saying all day that they've learned a lot from the Apollo missions. They've said that their goal was to keep what worked and update what needed it. This broadcast exemplifies that.
For the younguns in the audience: We quit going to the moon in part because the American public got tired of it. Why were we spending so much money to go to the moon, especially in an era of rampant stagflation and growing income inequality? NASA today realizes that its future depends on keeping the American public informed and engaged, and they're DOING IT.
Incidentally, this is also the most anti-fascist government broadcast I have seen in lo these many years. The opposite of fascism isn't leftism - god knows Mao and Stalin and the Kims have done plenty of atrocities. The opposite of fascism is science and reason. The opposite of fascism is the Enlightenment. The opposite of fascism is embracing human curiosity and reason in the service of projects and questions larger than any one person.
Today, the opposite of fascism is Artemis II.
L-0:24:00 Ironically, I ended the politics section just in time for NASA to show us the blurb about American exploration, typing the Artemis II mission to the 250th anniversary of the country. This is also propaganda, in the sense of "this is trying to tell me how to feel about American exploration, not the facts about it." But hey, at least it's not fascism.
L-0:20:00 I looked up the little spacesuits the kids are wearing. They're sold out of the adult small. ): I figured it'd make a fantastic default Halloween costume.
L-0:12:55: Communication loop merged. Waiting on the polls. I LOVE THE POLLS SO MUCH. Last stop to terminal count.
T-0:10:00 and holding: My favorite time I sat through a ten minute hold was in 2006 or 2007. It was just me and an incredibly glitchy raw feed of the countdown clock and the pad in the background, alone in my tiny studio apartment (which later turned out to have bedbugs), and it was one of the best afternoons I ever spent in that apartment, that city, or that phase of my life.
FINAL LAUNCH DIRECTOR POLL. I'm out at this point. Nose glued to screen. Godspeed, Artemis II.
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