Does Artemis II’s Flight On Wednesday Begin The Hunt For A New Frontier Or A Space Wild Wild West
Space:
The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Her 5-year mission:
To explore strange new worlds,
To seek out new life and new civilizations,
To boldly go where no one has gone before.
Who can forget that classic opening that William Shatner recited at the beginning of the original Star Trek episodes? Tomorrow, at 6:24 pm, the window opens for the Artemis II launch. A ship that will take four astronauts around the moon for the first time in around 50 years.
Despite the almost total MSM blackout of this mission, Space.com is excited about our return to real space missions.
Space.com reported:
“That Artemis 2 launch window opens on Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2324 GMT) and extends for two hours. If the launch is delayed or scrubbed for any reason, there are more opportunities for liftoff through April 6. But still, NASA officials are voicing a high degree of confidence in the mission’s chances of launching on the agency’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on time. Notably, NASA completed a flight readiness review for the mission ahead of SLS’ rollout to the pad on March 20, and has since flagged no issues or risk acceptances that need closing before clearing Artemis II to launch.”
https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1lKQRvgMVYkGE
Lori Glaze, NASA’s acting associate administrator, was equally as enthusiastic:
“Our flight systems are ready, the ground systems are ready, our launch and operations teams are ready, and our flight operations team in Houston are also ready. The crew arrived yesterday, and I know that they’re ready – they are more than ready.”
NASA has dotted all of its I’s and crossed all of its T’s, but the one thing they can’t control is the weather. So even with all their precautions, there is still a 20 percent chance of a weather-related postponement.
“But hopes are high for the big day: Artemis II will be the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which endeavors to ultimately return astronauts to the surface of the moon and build an eventual base there. The mission will fly NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day mission around the moon aboard a spacecraft called Orion.”
Living in Florida, we are all looking forward to the launch. We’ve seen hundreds of them, but this one will be different. Just knowing that there will be three Americans and one Canadian on board makes this one very unique.
The question is, why now? Could it be that the space race is not only heating up again, but this time it’s not a race at all, but a battle for an equilibrium of space offense and defense?
The Gateway Pundit wrote an article on this very subject titled: Space War: Chinese Plan To Disrupt Enemy Satellites’ Comms in the Event of Conflict.
The concern is that the Chinese have developed a self-propelled, highly maneuverable spaceplane that could be used for that purpose.
“Private space services company LeoLabs says its data shows a Chinese reusable space vehicle, believed to be a miniature spaceplane design, docked with or otherwise captured a separate object on multiple occasions during its recent 276-day-long stint in orbit. A highly maneuverable space vehicle with this kind of capability could be used to surveil, disrupt, and outright attack an opponent’s space-based assets, as well as retrieve or otherwise interact with friendly ones.”
While certain applications like on-orbit inspection, refueling, and servicing are relatively harmless, a space vehicle capable of approaching objects in orbit is inherently capable of functioning as a weapon – a “killer satellite.”
“A docking or capture capability on China’s reusable space vehicle could indicate the presence of robotics arms or other protrusions that could be used to attempt to damage or destroy an opposing satellite. The space vehicle could be equipped with other kinds of offensive capabilities to pair with this, including electronic warfare systems or the ability to launch some kind of projectile.”
Space Force’s Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson told the Washington Post:
“Both China and Russia are regularly attacking U.S. satellites with non-kinetic means, including lasers, radio frequency jammers, and cyber-attacks.”
It seems that the war for space has already begun. If I were a betting man, I’d bet the Artemis II space launch has nothing to do with the nostalgia of returning to circle the moon after 50 years, and there will be a lot more happening on this mission than we know.
