Out-of-this-world presentations

James Scott, a retired NASA space systems engineer and senior research scientist, recently gave two presentations about the Artemis programs heading to the moon — one on Monday, March 23 at Historic Lyme Village in Bellevue and the other on Wednesday, March 25 at the Norwalk Elks. Artemis II is scheduled to blast off at 6:24 p.m. this Wednesday, April 1. The United States of America has goals of building a space station on the moon and future space exploration by landing on Mars. This mission will last 10 days as they explore around the southern pole of the moon looking for a place for the next mission to land. They are hoping to find some ice under the surface of the moon. This launch, with the astronauts, will be the first time for the United States to return to the moon in 53 years. The astronauts traveling on Artemis II will be Victor Glover, pilot; Reid Wiseman, commander; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and a Canadian, Jeremy Hasen, mission specialist. They will be in quarantine for 14 days before their April 1 scheduled blast-off time to prevent any illnesses. The Orion capsule, which they will be traveling 685,000 miles in, is about the size of a minivan for the four astronauts to live in for 10 days. Artemis II will not actually enter the orbit of the moon, but will be slingshot around the moon's far side in a figure-eight trajectory that will put the spacecraft on a direct course back to Earth. This is the second test flight for Orion, which has adventured beyond Earth, but never with a crew on board.