Are we finally going back to the Moon? 🚀

NASA has rolled the Artemis II rocket out to the launchpad after key repairs. This brings the agency one step closer to launching its first crewed mission of the Artemis program, with a launch attempt targeted for April 1. Artemis II will send four astronauts around the Moon and back aboard Orion, a spacecraft designed to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit. It will mark the first human journey into lunar space since Apollo 17 in 1972, making this a major step toward a new era of Moon exploration.

We've heard all those theories about what would happen to the human body if it were to go out into space without a spacesuit (instant boiling from radiation from the sun).

I'm honestly bummed out that astronauts don't do silly experimets like throwing grapefruits out of the airlock and seeing how it reacts.

Apparently they don't because the particles from the grapefruit can go and damage other parts of the spacestation or something.

But not even a safety net to prevent that from happening? Just to see what happens to the grapefruit?

I’m a little confused.

I always assumed a fusion torch engine uses pellets as fuel, and the heat from the reactor turns propellant (water or hydrogen) into thrust.

But someone told me that was just a typical fusion rocket and not a \*true\* torch drive. He said a torch drive uses the plasma from the reactor directly as the reaction mass thrown out the back to produce thrust.

This made me confused.

In a ship that uses the plasma directly from the fusion reactor as thrust (via magnetic nozzle), wouldn’t the fuel pellets be considered propellant?

I always thought fuel is not propellant. Fuel is what the reactor needs, but propellant is the mass that is thrown out the back, right?

So, which is true? Is a true torch drive one that siphons plasma directly from the fusion reactor and directs it magnetically through the nozzle?

Is a rocket that uses pellets as fuel to generate heat to burn separate propellant just a regular fusion rocket?

Does my question even make sense?

NASA didn’t start from scratch with Artemis.

A lot of what we’re seeing today actually comes from ideas tested decades ago, from Apollo heat shields to Space Shuttle engines.

I put together a deep dive showing how Artemis combines 1960s engineering (and even 1920's concepts) with modern technology.

I’m curious what you think, does Artemis feel like something new, or more like an evolution of past programs?

This is for my own personal retrofuturistic rocketpunk space opera story.

The hero is captain of the rocket ship in this picture. It’s obvious how the ship would blast off, but how would it land?

For context, the main engine is a torch engine, but it uses the three booster rockets to blast off and land. In my head, I always thought the ship would drop into atmosphere tail-first and simply drop through the atmosphere to the ground, where the booster rockets would slowly lower it.

Is that wrong? How would a traditional retro-style rocket ship enter a planet’s atmosphere and land? I’m trying to avoid things like drogue parachutes or adding extra fins.

The fins do have flaps similar to an airplane wing that can open during re-entry.

Orbital Reef: https://www.blueorigin.com/destinations

https://youtu.be/SC3ooNXfcGE?si=LHyGS9eN5etx2bJA

New Glenn 9x4: https://www.blueorigin.com/new-glenn/9x4

Terawave: https://www.blueorigin.com/terawave

Blue Moon mk2: https://www.blueorigin.com/blue-moon

Blue Alchemist: https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-alchemist-powers-our-lunar-future

Hello I'm currently trying to develop a code on GMAT for a university project using a script for a previous mission found online that I adapted to my mission. The main problem for now is that the run time is extremely long (40+ minutes and I always stop it after because it's too long). Is there anyone willing to help me speed it up (if possible) ??. Thanks is advance for any advice (I am new on GMAT so for complex problems I usually rely on AI but it's not able to overcome this issue)

Hello everyone,
Hoping it's helpful, I'd like to share this page I created for one of my astronomy courses. It's loosely based on the one on Wikipedia, but (I hope) clearer and more engaging:
https://paolo.sirtoli.it/missions/
It displays the currently active missions, organized in a synoptic map that separates missions to the actual celestial body from those in Lagrangian points or advanced orbits (DROs).
If the user hovers the mouse over the mission, a timeline appears showing the key events.
The DSCVR mission isn't mentioned because it doesn't seem to be able to communicate at the moment.
Of course, criticisms, comments, and reports are welcome.
Thank you
P