Wandering Adventure Party

@greenhombre One other new system being tested on Orion during this mission is an optical communications system, a high bandwidth laser-based comm link between Orion and the earth that, if it works, may provide live (or playback) hi-def video of scenes like the moon & even possibly an “earth rise”.

@greenhombre This is a test flight of the Artemis system, including the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft that I worked on. With that there are many Orion systems being flown for the very first time, such as the internal environment control and life support systems, audio communications, manual control systems, etc. It is an ambitious test flight and an essential step toward proving the spacecraft and preparing for later lunar landing missions.

@greenhombre a valid question to ask, but of course my response is biased. My answer is we don’t even know what we don’t know about the moon. We’ve barely spent any time on or covered but the merest square meters of the surface, by humans or by robots. That’s the point of return & exploration, to advance scientific knowledge & discovery. And we have many ideas, but till we actually do it, we don’t know how to build & sustain outposts on other bodies in our solar system. Moon is where we begin.

@8ofpentacles thanks!

@Nonya_Bidniss thanks! & hope you are enjoying a well deserved retirement after your years of service. In my case all my work for NASA spaceflight was as a contractor employee, but my father was NASA civil service, he started there near the beginning of Apollo in the early 60’s. So between the two of us my family has had a combined 64 continuous years supporting NASA, Apollo->Space Shuttle->Orion
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So as of yesterday I am retired, had a 37+ year career working in #NASA human spaceflight, Space Shuttle and then the #Orion spacecraft. I set my retirement date in the hope that the #Artemis 2 mission, Orion’s first crewed flight, would have completed by then but Feb launch was delayed and by “cosmic coincidence” Artemis 2 finally launched yesterday - my final day. Very proud of all my colleagues and all the hard work we’ve done to get to this point. Onward to the #moon - and beyond. Ad astra.

Gulf fritillary #butterfly on a Turk’s cap blossom in the backyard.

#SilentSunday #stunday #photography #butterflies #butterflyphotography #flowers #bloomscrolling #nature #insects #insectphotography

Obedient plant and #bumblebee in the front garden.

#photography #bees #pollinators #PollinatorGarden #gardening #flowers #bloomscrolling #insects #insectphotography