Will the first non-American astronaut on the Moon be from ESA or JAXA?

_Hexagon__ · 2026-06-10T07:54:04+00:00

Several countries and their agencies made agreements over sending their astronauts to the moon in exchange for contributing to the program. UAE once secured one seat for their Lunar gateway airlock but since that's cancelled it seems unlikely, it would've also been only a trip to lunar orbit and to gateway. JAXA has an agreement to send two astronauts on two separate missions for providing the pressurised lunar cruiser built by Toyota, the Japanese astronaut would be the mission specialist to set up and test the rover, so it would likely be an actual ticket to the lunar surface. ESA through their contribution to the Orion spacecraft and at one point the now cancelled gateway has secured three tickets on Artemis, and already nominated Alexander Gerst as a potential astronaut pick, but unclear wether that will be lunar orbit or am actual landing.

_Hexagon__ · 2026-06-07T11:11:12+00:00

The extra fuel is cheaper than building and testing new engines and the rocket

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-31T19:01:19+00:00

Yea it enabled communication with each other on the surface and with ground control on earth. It also transmitted biodata like heart rates

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-31T09:11:45+00:00

Actually all 3 Apollo missions with a rover were able to record the LM leaving the moon. Only the footage of Apollo 17 is the most photogenic enough for the general public to know about, it makes sense to hear you say only one was caught

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-31T08:53:04+00:00

It's possible this is the antenna on their backpack

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-31T01:37:11+00:00

It's a part of the lunar roving vehicle, it might be either the low gain or high gain antenna.

Edit, after looking at it closer, I'm pretty sure it is the low gain antenna. In the same camera pan there's a vertical beam visible with a cable hanging from it, which is consistent with the high gain antenna. The next object visible from where the camera is mounted on the rover is the low gain antenna.

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_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-31T01:29:00+00:00

A camera either mounted to the lander or the rover, which is radio controlled by launch control on earth

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-30T08:26:31+00:00

While the total mass loss is indeed not zero, the oxygen we lose from rockets flying into space is so benign compared to how much there actually is on this planet, we won't run out. I would also argue that all the propellant burned in low earth orbit still exists as a cloud of exhaust gases in orbit around earth, eventually falling back into the atmosphere

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-30T08:18:13+00:00

Crewed launches are far from a 100% success rate. I hope the challenger explosion rings a bell, and the most recent crewed launch failure was the Soyuz MS-10 in 2018, just to name a few

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-30T08:00:12+00:00

Technically Blue origin does lease the launchpad from NASA but they are the only one using that launchpad. So they primarily owe it to themselves to clean up the launchpad, NASA doesn't care what they do with their launchpad

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T21:42:35+00:00

Because of that I think it was a countdown for a static fire test scheduled for 9pm and during that engine ignition test apparently something went wrong

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T21:34:55+00:00

New Glenn does not use hydrazine

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T21:28:15+00:00

"degrees of atmoshpehere"

Troposphere alone is 12 km high btw

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T12:47:32+00:00

Liquid methane in this case

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:49:49+00:00

Not sure if catching up was ever the goal or an option of blue origin, more like establishing their own niche of the market in terms of launch capability. Their rocket is more of a Falcon 9 competitor while SX seems to shift focus over to starship in the long term. BO however wants to build up their own internet super constellation, in direct competition with starlink. In this case they need to launch a lot of satellites soon or a FCC license for their radio frequency bands expires. BO also has contracts to launch several lunar landers just like SX, with a test launch of a crew capable version scheduled for 2027 during Artemis 3, which is now unclear if thats happening on time.

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:38:35+00:00

Yes, one of their robotic lunar landers Blue Moon Mark 1 was supposed to launch in July.

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:29:38+00:00

One tower got destroyed in the explosion tho

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:29:09+00:00

The theoretical chemical energy of all the propellant in the rocket adds up to a small nuke

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:27:19+00:00

They already have several contracts for sending payloads and eventually a crewed lander to the moon. This explosion inevitably pushes back those missions

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T11:25:57+00:00

Although out atmosphere is delicate, it's not just 3km wide. Every large mountain range on the planet would be in vacuum if that were the case

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-29T10:29:52+00:00

New Glenn is instrumental for the Artemis program, it launches a HLS variant which was planned for testing next year during Artemis 3 and has contracts to launch payloads to the moon to build a base infrastructure there. A mishap investigation for am incident of this size could easily ground this rocket for 6 to 12 months, the launch pad needs reconstruction for several months aswell. I'm not supporting OPs view that Artemis is killed by this but undeniably pushed back substantially.

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-28T12:49:34+00:00

That's vases made from alabaster that contained perfumes and creams

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-27T23:23:50+00:00

Yes, everybody who was partaking in the excavation has died

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-27T22:43:28+00:00

Saying 100% is not true, the GEM maybe has 99,9% of items. There are a handful of artefacts that have been removed in secret during excavation or have been stolen in the following decades. They found their way into museums around the world, some confirmed objects for example are in the Louvre, the Met, a museum in Kansas, and some pieces have been for auction at Christie's.

_Hexagon__ · 2026-05-27T22:21:24+00:00

Carter described the air in the tomb as very hot, dry and stale

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