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Anyone following the Artemis II mission to the moon? If things go according to plan, this historic mission will take humans farther from earth than we've ever gone under our human capabilities. They will have a brief communications blackout as they slingshot around the moon. They're also expected to see an eclipse of the sun, as the moon will block out the sun from their perspective; they'll be able to see the sun's corona. NASA has a website and an app to track in real-time the progress of the mission. They are as of this moment approaching 80,000 miles from earth, nearing 175,000 miles from the moon, traveling at a speed of 4,582 miles per hour.

The website is available here: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

You can see an animation of the flight path here on Youtube:

Main thing I heard about it so far is that the astronauts have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither of them work.

Yep I’m following it. I watched every launch that was on tv. Yep I’m a geek about manned space flight. I watched Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon. I prayed for the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew with the rest of the nation. For a teen it was the most exciting time because it was the first efforts of mankind stepping onto another world. As an old man I still love to watch these flights. It makes me feel like a kid again.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong

I'm trying to understand people who say it's fake. They are the same people who claim the earth is flat. I'd like to understand their arguments and where they're getting their facts/beliefs.

gracefortoday wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 11:23 am I'm trying to understand people who say it's fake. They are the same people who claim the earth is flat. I'd like to understand their arguments and where they're getting their facts/beliefs.

What you might find helpful in understanding these people, is that they likely have a broken or abusive or traumatic distrust of authority. They often are prone to distrust experts and authorities, and find the underdog much more authentic.
That might be a quite common thread.

R7ehr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 12:28 pm

gracefortoday wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 11:23 am I'm trying to understand people who say it's fake. They are the same people who claim the earth is flat. I'd like to understand their arguments and where they're getting their facts/beliefs.

What you might find helpful in understanding these people, is that they likely have a broken or abusive or traumatic distrust of authority. They often are prone to distrust experts and authorities, and find the underdog much more authentic.
That might be a quite common thread.

I used to think that, but perfectly normal people seem to get sucked into conspiracy theories these days. I blame social media and the Internet.

gracefortoday wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 11:23 am I'm trying to understand people who say it's fake. They are the same people who claim the earth is flat. I'd like to understand their arguments and where they're getting their facts/beliefs.

I started a thread about it several years ago when it seemed on the rise. I haven't heard much out of it recently, the last public reference I saw was the stop the steal attorney Lin Wood professed belief in it.

https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2179

Update: they are set to make their lunar fly-by this afternoon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/live ... 57155.html

Looking back at Earth:





The moon:

One of the signs of a fading empire is when they attempt to repeat their past glories, much as how each pyramid built was smaller than the last.

gracefortoday wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 11:23 am I'm trying to understand people who say it's fake. They are the same people who claim the earth is flat. I'd like to understand their arguments and where they're getting their facts/beliefs.

Wife: it doesn’t help that they did the launch on April 1. That was incredibly foolish if they didn’t want to feed the conspiracy theories. There obviously was a rocket, and it obviously took off somewhere (people could see it for hundreds of miles from the original launch point). I would personally believe it headed towards the moon. I know at least one person who was raised in a Soviet country, and a lot of it for them is connected with atheism.