Artemis Stuff

(Apr 16, 2026 10:05 AM)Yazata Wrote: More photos of Hilt Boling, the Moon Kid. The woman taking the selfie is his mom. And some NASA guy is in the pictures too.

LOL! "some NASA guy"

I think that Jared is subtly reorienting the Artemis project away from racing the Chinese to deliver humans to the Moon, towards preparing a permanent Moon base. The US already beat China to the Moon almost 60 years ago, and there's no need to simply re-do that triumph. The goal now is to progress past 'flags and footprints' towards actually living on the Moon and exploiting its scientific opportunities and geographic resources. Elon and SpaceX probably changed their initial goal from Mars to the Moon recently to coordinate with this new NASA emphasis.

So Jared and his Artemis people held a press conference on May 26, 2026 to outline the first steps in creating a Moon-base, even before the first humans return. This Phase I will start immediately and will consist of uncrewed reconnaissance to choose a base site, then landing various instruments and autonomous rovers to characterize the site and its vicinity. They might also start landing supplies to be used when humans arrive in Phase II. (And this will incidentally give SpaceX and Blue time to get their crew landers ready.) Phase III will not just be humans to the Moon, but also heavy lift cargo, building out lunar infrastructure.

Jared says, "Phase 1 of the NASA Moon Base strategy is all the “Science of Survival.” These were the first few awards of what will be dozens. We want a lot of small, lower cost missions, lots of landers, and rovers to figure out what works and what doesn’t in that incredibly harsh environment. It has been more than half a century since we were on the Moon--we don’t want to rush into decisions on surface mobility, comms, power, or navigation. Phase 2 and 3 are where the heavy-lift capabilities, like a Starship and others come in, putting lots of mass efficiently on the Moon for the serious habitation and logistic requirements."

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2059717210344395101

Watch their press conference here, in which awards to several 'new-space' companies were announced to supply NASA with landers and Apollo-style Moon cars. Except these will be driver optional and will be able to drive cameras and scientific instruments around autonomously. I think that Jared wants them to transmit video of the Moon's surface and various features there back to Earth where NASA will live-stream it. So everyone on Earth will be able to discover new things on the Moon as soon as NASA does, in (almost) real time. (Jared hopes that will generate interest and excitement.) NASA also assigned their own legendary JPL to construct four Moon-drones to fly around and survey a larger region around the base site. Since there's no atmosphere on the Moon, these will use small thrusters instead of rotors. Lots of interesting stuff in the video below.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Nyki6O1oxIg

My first though is about the feasibility/timeline of drilling for subterranean habitats. Seems that would provide some measure of protection over a simple surface base.

(Yesterday 06:25 AM)Syne Wrote: My first though is about the feasibility/timeline of drilling for subterranean habitats. Seems that would provide some measure of protection over a simple surface base.

Yeah, they are considering that. One thing that's getting a lot of attention is lava tubes, which are believed to exist on the Moon, but maybe not in that lunar south pole region where they are planning their base. I guess that's one reason why they want to better explore the area.

We find lunar lava tubes by analyzing orbital data for skylights—circular holes created when the ceiling of an ancient, hardened lava flow collapses. Scientists use advanced remote sensing to scan these pits, confirming the presence of large, subsurface underground caverns.
- Gemini

Why have they selected the southern pole region?

(Yesterday 07:30 AM)Syne Wrote:

We find lunar lava tubes by analyzing orbital data for skylights—circular holes created when the ceiling of an ancient, hardened lava flow collapses. Scientists use advanced remote sensing to scan these pits, confirming the presence of large, subsurface underground caverns.
- Gemini

Why have they selected the southern pole region?

I think that the main reason is that they hope to find water ice. The lunar south pole is rugged and has deep craters. The Sun is always so low in the sky that the bottoms of these craters are always in shadow and hence are very cold. And I think that previous observations have confirmed water ice in the bottom of some of them.

Of course by their nature lava tubes will always be in shadow too. So they might contain water ice as well. I don't know how well the lava conducts heat from sunlight hitting the surface above. Lots of unknowns there, like depth.

Ah, yeah, finding a water source would help a lot.