Cathy Spencer

Society “you’re too old” Artemis 2 Crew: “hold my beer”

The Artemis 2 crew, returning from a lunar flyby, is doing something they've never done with people on board. Orion is flying at 40,000 km/h. At that speed, the atmosphere isn't air, it's a wall. You can't just dive down—the crew would be crushed by the G-forces, and the ship would burn up. So they came up with this idea. Orion will enter the atmosphere, heat up to 2800 degrees, and bounce back into space. Like a pebble bounces off water. Remember throwing flat stones down a river as a kid? Up there, it has a couple of minutes to cool down. Then it reenters and lands. The trick is that such a jump drops the G-forces from 10g to 4g. The difference between tolerable and done. The Apollo missions returned differently. They didn't jump, they simply glided through the upper atmosphere like a skier down a hill, gradually losing speed. One pass and that's it. It worked, but the G-forces were severe. The Soyuz reenters the ISS quite simply. Its speed is half that of Orion, and the atmosphere handles it in one pass. No tricks needed. But Orion arrives from the Moon. Different speed, different task. That's why they came up with this jump. But if the calculations are off even slightly, the rebound will throw the ship back into orbit, into space. There are no braking engines left. They'll simply wait for the Earth to pull them in. With a finite supply of oxygen. And if the rebound is even higher, they'll be blown off into space altogether. I hope everything goes perfectly...

@lucyshow11 I played with my three sons forever with this!

Fisher Price Magic 💕

🧡 Go Smokey! 🧡

Me! 🌎🛰❤️

@NASAArtemis Thanks for taking my name around the Moon, Rise! What a thrilling trip for a science teacher on spring break!

Did you send your name aboard Artemis II??? If you did, then your name is literally in my pocket!! And every time you see me floating around the Orion spacecraft — that’s where your name is! With ME! Don’t worry — I’ve kept your names safe as I’ve flown around the Moon 🫡 -Rise

@Nidan787 @armstrongspace I lived in Huntsville AL where Marshall Space Flight Center is located. Many schools, parks, and buildings are rightly dedicated to our heroes.

@armstrongspace Gus Grissom. If he hadn't given his life in the Apollo 1 fire the Apollo program would not have gotten the extreme motivation for excellence which allowed it to succeed.

On this day in 1959, NASA announced America’s first astronaut group, the Mercury 7. The group included Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton. Which of the original Mercury 7 is your favorite?

@RobLogic I found out this past weekend that apparently my dog is part goat.

These goats don’t walk on water… they just yeet physics on concrete

Artemis II Trajectory compared to Apollo 11 and Apollo 13

@RobLogic Never knew there was a sedate version of air hockey minus defenders!

Satisfyingly perfect game of Carrom

Everyone Should Meet Them: WOMEN OF SPACE These four women represent different generations of space science, from paper calculations to digital systems and the exploration of other planets. Katherine Johnson: A key mathematician at NASA, she calculated orbital trajectories for historic missions. At a time when computers were still limited, her hand calculations were so reliable that astronauts asked to check the results before launch. Margaret Hamilton: She led the development of software for the Apollo program. Their work allowed the onboard computer to prioritize tasks during the Apollo 11 lunar landing, avoiding potential failure. It also helped lay the foundations for modern software development. Diana Trujillo: A Colombian aerospace engineer who participated in the Perseverance rover mission to Mars, where she led the team responsible for the vehicle's robotic arms, a critical system for collecting and analyzing high-precision Martian rock samples. She also led the first Spanish-language broadcast of the Mars landing. Christina Koch: The NASA astronaut holds the record for the longest continuous stay in space by a woman, at 328 days. She participated in the first all-female spacewalk. And recently, she became the woman who has been farthest from Earth.

@NASA_Johnson I came. I saw. I floated!!! -Rise

Hi! I’m Rise! About a week ago, I launched aboard the Artemis II mission with four of my besties. Since then, I have been serving a very important purpose aboard the Orion spacecraft… I float. (And I look cute.) Today, I am taking over the Artemis social media accounts! -Rise

From Apollo 8 to Artemis II, every crewed mission’s photograph taken from the Moon.

Musician approved post. 🎶

@StacyRayS @KingTheoVol Prayers up!🙏

Asking for prayers for @KingTheoVol he is in a fight for his life right now and not going well. He asked me to do a prayer chain for him. Any little prayer helps

Sky full of stars. Following a successful lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts captured this breathtaking photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way, on April 7, 2026.

@BrerFaux @atensnut I read it twice, too, but I was trying to find bonus points. Can you say teacher?

@atensnut Negative 2 now. I f'd up and read it twice.

I got 6 points left.