The crew of Artemis II
Barnabas62
Shipmate, Host Emeritus
in Purgatory
I’m not sure whether this deserves a thread. I’ve enjoyed following the Artemis II voyage and wish them very well as the potentially dangerous re-entry approaches.
But one factor outside of the achievements has fascinated me. The Artemis II crew have been quite different from the previous generation of Apollo astronauts in the way they have communicated. They’ve seemed very open, prepared to be vulnerable, excellent communicators. Mostly, but not always, the Apollo generation seemed to belong to the ‘stiff upper lip’ school.
Reminded me a bit of the differences between the original Star Trek crew and the Next Generation crew.
A sign of cultural change? Or just my imagination? Anyway, I found it a change for the better. Views?
But one factor outside of the achievements has fascinated me. The Artemis II crew have been quite different from the previous generation of Apollo astronauts in the way they have communicated. They’ve seemed very open, prepared to be vulnerable, excellent communicators. Mostly, but not always, the Apollo generation seemed to belong to the ‘stiff upper lip’ school.
Reminded me a bit of the differences between the original Star Trek crew and the Next Generation crew.
A sign of cultural change? Or just my imagination? Anyway, I found it a change for the better. Views?
Comments
That the whole Apollo programme was played out with the backdrop of the Cold War explains a lot.
Reading books about the programme as well as a few auto-biographies, it seems there was a conscious desire to present a very 50s view of the world (and this translated into how astronauts were portrayed, how their wives were expected to behave and so on).
The first Star Trek had Spock, the denial of the value of emotions and the emphasis on logic. The Next Generation, from the 80s and into the 90s, had the empathic Counsellor Troi and the android Data who became progressively more human and humane. So I think fiction represented some of the trends of the time away from “John Wayne”.
All of the Artemis II astronauts are in their mid to late 40s and I suppose may be representative of those who’ve lived through the cultural changes during their growing up. It looks as though their childhood was in the 1980s and 90s. I definitely like what they show!
But it's not like astronauthood just skipped from Apollo to Artemis. The current Artemis II crew have the example of a long series of ISS crews, Space Shuttle crews and so on to follow.
Well, only a minority of even the 60s generation were hippies, and senior managers/civil servants etc would still have lived in a world that resembled the 50s (if a little Mad Men rather than Leave it to Beaver)
There was a fair amount of image management going on around the original Apollo astronauts (they were from the *military* with all that meant in terms of drinking and womanising).
Ah, 'The Right Stuff'! Not all astronauts were in that mould, especially with the advent of Spacelab, the Shuttle and the ISS.
I have mentioned before here on the Ship that I am of dual heritage- USA/UK.
The son of one of my cousins is an Admiral (like his dad, my cousin, before him) in the US Navy and one of his closet friends is Commander Wiseman.
This mission and the tribute to Wiseman's late wife who was also a close friend has been fairly emotional for my extended family members on both macro and micro levels!
My family members would confirm that their crew member friend is as he appears to be in interviews- a decent and personable human being.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/10/artemis-ii-landing-return-moon-mission
During the Space Shuttle era, we were below the flight path of the shuttles when they landed at Edwards AFB in California. We lived in California at the time. We could see them streaking over us. When they landed in Florida we could hear the sonic boom as they entered the atmosphere.
Now we just need NASA to avoid falling out with you-know-who to keep future missions on track. I was 1 when Apollo 17 happened, so have no memories of moon landings at all. I so badly want my generation to have a moon landing of their own. Hopefully Artemis II will lead to it.
I think the demeanour of these particular astronauts and the way they engaged their audience as well as demonstrating their professionalism will be a standard for the future. In combination with the technical, professional and meticulous success of the mission, will it help to enable future funding. Maybe? I hope so.
Yes, it’s expensive. And there have always been questions about the practical value of putting humans into space. I’ve no doubt they will be asked again. Personally I think it’s well worth it and there will be future unexpected benefits.
But still costs a fraction of what it costs to blow bits of Iran up...
Quite so. As a lover of the Space Shuttle and its landings, I can't help feeling, though, the abrupt arrival of Artemis II was more than a little undignified.
A slow down from 25K mph to 20mph in about 10 minutes is necessarily pretty abrupt. What surprised me was the length of time the drone parachutes were left in place and the relatively short time of descent using the main parachutes. But then I’ve never seen before a descent using both so possibly it was just the modern normal. From memory, the Apollo landings took more time on the main ‘chutes.
I was surprised at the length of time between splashdown and getting the crew out of the descent capsule. But the commentary explained very well the need for that, the emphasis both on crew safety and the subsequent inportant recovery of the capsule.
The interval did leave the CNN commentators with a lot of time on their hands and that was pretty obvious!
But all in all a somewhat nerve-wracking and fascinating broadcast event.
Apollo 13 was in many ways the most remarkable journey ever. The bit that sticks most in my mind is the huge challenge to power up the Descent module with very very little power available. Kudos to Ken Mattingly, who was most instrumental in cracking that challenge.
Would we recognise similar diversity in a Chinese crew? Obviously we'd know if there was a woman, but how many of us would spot if the crew were or weren't all Han?
Happy to stand corrected on that