Artemis II

It was good to hear that the Artemis II mission astronauts splashed down safely after a successful mission.  I have to admit that I didn't follow it quite like I did with the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

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People may not realize what the year 1968 was like.  It started bad, at least for the United States.  The North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo.  Then the Tet offensive in Vietnam exploded - it was eventually crushed but the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese mounted a countrywide battle that took me by surprise and I imagine many others.  There had been lots of somewhat optimistic reports about the war over the years so even though the offensive wasn't a military victory it was a publicity triumph for the "bad guys".  It helped change both the war and the US elections.  

LBJ decided not to run for another term as President.

The next big thing were the assassinations, starting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.  That touched off riots across the country.  Then Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in California after the primary.  Those were both crushing blows to hope.

The conventions: Nixon (the crook to be) was nominated and Humphrey but the Democratic convention in Chicago was a shambles - the demonstrations and police response killed the chances for HHH to win.

But finally in December the Pueblo crew was returned and the Apollo 8 mission around the moon brought back at least a smidge of hope to me.

A timeline of 1968 including many other incidents:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-seismic-180967503/

Anyway, 1968 was really quite a year - on a more trivial note, the Packers won Super Bowl II in January but weren't involved in the 1968 season playoffs for the first time in 3 years, the end of the Lombardi coaching era.

Getting back to Artemis II, here is a good video by Anton:

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_tNW0oCTI

I found the animation of the flight very enlightening - I didn't know that the spacecraft "crossed the face" of the moon like that.  The looping back takes place AFTER the moon has "gone by". 

No rocket burns were required: free return.  I always wondered why it took so long to get to the moon if they are traveling at 25,000 MPH to escape the earth it would at first blush take maybe a day to go 250,000 miles ?  But gravity is involved slowing things down and then speeding them up again as the moon gravitation takes over.

Anyway, NASA, you did good - I feel at least a little hope during this crappy year.


Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm