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ARTEMIS II ROLLOUT COMMENTARY

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Hey, Space Placers! I hope you had the chance to tune in to WTOP today for our live team coverage of the Artemis II rollout https://wtop.com/the-space-place/2026/01/the-world-will-have-a-look-rollout-of-nasas-artemis-ii-stack-gets-underway/ . If you did, you joined thousands of NASA employees, family members, contractors, press corps and likely millions more worldwide to see for the first time the Artemis II moon rocket in all her massive glory.  Today was a major milestone for America’s, and humanity’s, return to the moon after almost 54 years since Apollo 17. Seeing this awe inspiring event unfold from “First Motion” out of the Vertical Assembly Building at precisely the predicted time of 7 a.m. electrified the thousands present. As the elven-million pound Artemis II “Stack”, riding on the back of the massive six-million pound Crawler-Transporter #2, made its way to Launch Pad 39B at 1 mile-per-hour, one could not help but ponder the day when NASA “Lights That Candle” to ...
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UPDATE ON NASA ARTEMIS II ROLLOUT

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HEY, SPACE PLACERS! Artemis II Crew NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida A press conference was held today to update the status of the upcoming Artemis II moon mission https://wtop.com/the-space-place/2026/01/moon-here-we-come-nasa-inches-closer-to-lunar-return-with-artemis-ii-mission/ . All systems are GO  https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/01/16/artemis-ii-moon-rocket-ready-for-big-move/ .     From the Artemis II launch team there was an air of excitement about tomorrow’s rollout of the Artemis II stack. This excitement was aptly stated by John Honeycutt, Artemis II mission management team chair: “These are days we live for. SLS and Orion are ready to go to the pad. This mission feels a lot different from Artemis I as Artemis II is the next step to landing on the moon.” Honeycutt, who is the final word in determining whether Artemis II is a “GO/NO GO” for launch based on the myriad of inputs provided to him, added, “We have one job - safe return and we will fly whe...
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MOON, HERE WE COME

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 Hey Space Placers! MOON, HERE WE COME A lifelong dream fulfilled... Follow Artemis here and on @wtop.com  January 15, 2026 Greg Redfern skyuguyinva@gmail.com   Kennedy Space Center, Florida Hundreds of NASA employees and contractors are working on this three day holiday weekend to attempt something that hasn’t happened since December 1972 - sending NASA astronauts to the moon. Final preparations to transport the Artemis II mission https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/   “stack” comprised of the Space Launch System rocket https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/space-launch-system/   and the Orion spacecraft https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/orion-spacecraft/ to Launch Pad 39B are underway. Once the go ahead is given, the eleven million pound stack, secured to a huge transporter-crawler - Number 2 https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-crawler-transporter-2-sets-record/  to be precise - will rollout from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building htt...
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For 21 years, enthusiasts used their home computers to search for ET. UC Berkeley scientists are homing in on 100 signals they found.

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Hey, Space Placers! A screenshot of the SETI@home user interface on a desktop computer in 2009. The software ran on millions of home computers worldwide, analyzing radio data from space in search of signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Robert Sanders/UC Berkeley I did this WAYYYYYYY back when - decades ago actually Did you? Get all the details here. Sky Guy in VA 
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ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE

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Hey, Space Placers! Roman Space Telescope at Goddard Space Center  More to come. Sky Guy in VA 
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Young Galaxies Grow Up Fast

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 Hey, Space Placers! The 18 galaxies from the ALPINE-CRISTAL-JWST survey. Each picture shows the location of ionized gas (as traced by the hydrogen alpha line, the spectral signature of hot hydrogen gas) in the galaxies. Several of the pictured galaxies are interacting, meaning two or even three galaxies are in the process of merging. Credit: Andreas Faisst (Caltech) and the ALPINE-CRISTAL-JWST Survey team "Astronomers have captured the most detailed look yet at faraway galaxies at the peak of their youth, an active time when the adolescent galaxies were fervently producing new stars. The observations focused on 18 galaxies located 12.5 billion light-years away." Read more here  . Sky Guy in VA
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