Michael Snyder

@Lori_Garver @NASAAdmin Lori, you helped shut down shuttle, cancelled Constellation and pushed hard and wanted to focus on a “technology development program” with no focus and no defined purpose to guide it. As a person who lived that, I chose Jared’s plan every day.

I genuinely appreciate your interest & commentary as well Jared! We agree that the schedule is ambitious. I’m sorry my comments were based on info from media reports that was erroneous. Glad to hear we are on track/ahead of schedules. My specific concern is that excessive schedule pressure often leads to erosion of mission content (& potentially safety). We’ve made those trade offs in the wrong direction a few times before. Having a sustainable return to the Moon seems like the most important goal to me. Ad Astra

The goalposts are already shifting. Artemis III slips to late '27 (still unlikely) & landers may not have life-support. Artemis IV considering options to South Pole & talk of 2 landings in '28 has ended. Hot take - Summit proposes cooperation with China on lunar development!

@Erdayastronaut Why does SpaceX resist having crews having command and control over their spacecraft? What’s the point of sending people if they are just payload?

Just so I don't miss anything in my deep dive on Starship HLS, let me know what questions you have BESIDES the dozen plus refilling tankers, height / tippiness of it, and using methalox as those topics are greatly covered.

@CaptMarkKelly So disappointed in your response at this. You not only took down your crews but everyone that made sure it wasn’t “a disaster” based on race-baiting.

When a group of people all work together toward a common goal, nothing is impossible. Artemis II is a perfect example of that. Last week they proved again that America’s diversity is our strength.

@NASASpaceflight Fun fact. Shuttle OMEs would have never been considered if it wasn’t for someone. Oh yeah, it’s me, lol. 😉

A part of Shuttle Atlantis is heading to the Moon 😎

@CaptMarkKelly 80/20 issues, Mark. The Dems rely way, way too much on willing to die on the hill of the 20% issues.

@CaptMarkKelly I can’t remember the last time I mailed anything. USPS is junk mail 95% of the time, which of course has an environmental impact. I respect you. I helped launch you into space and did everything to keep you safe, but come on. Maybe instead of this, you should fund DHS.

Trump promised to bring costs down. Now, the U.S. postal service is planning to add an 8% tax on packages to cover fuel costs — fuel costs he’s responsible for raising in the first place. Arizonans are paying more at every turn. This isn't what he promised.

@DJSnM This was “my” ship. I always get a bit emotional when visiting her when back at KSC. Beautiful display but I’ll always argue a fleet retired too soon.

I know a lot of space fans are still on the space coast and planning to go to KSC Visitors center, which is absolutely worth your time. And as 'Mr Manley' I just want to make it perfectly clear that it's perfectly acceptable to get teary eyed when visiting Atlantis. (but if you're really sensitive about your masculinity or, just don't have time for the big reveal you can always enter via the gift shop to soften the impact)

@Clark38437391 @bscholl You bore me, as you likely do others. You like to attack. Take your billionaire-self and keep doing what you do with supersonic flight. If you wanna take your money and invest it where your mouth is, cool. This is not “communism” or a “moondoggle” and you need to stop.

@bscholl U.S. science funding is being cut 5-fold right now. 5 times less physics, math, chemistry, and molecular biology/biochemistry. 10s of thousands of grad students & postdocs are scrambling to find an off-ramp from science. But a few people are going to the Moon, for no purpose...

I'm genuinely excited to see America headed back to the Moon. But Artemis is a moondoggle and shows we haven't learned the deepest lessons of the Apollo era. Remember that Apollo did *not* result in durable progress in space. It marked a literal high point for more than half a century. The cost of space access remained prohibitively high until we had a rebirth of space entrepreneurship. Thank you for showing the way, SpaceX. Apollo was history's greatest tech demo—the Moon landing. This is inspiring—it shows the triumph of ingenuity, science, and reason. But also, Apollo led to half a century of stasis and regression. It was fundamentally uneconomic, contributed to creation of a cost-insensitive space agency and supply base, all more concerned with perpetuating their own existence, more concerned with make-work jobs than accelerating human progress. Now we're going back to the Moon... essentially the same way we did in 1969. Again uneconomically, again with central planning. A disposable rocket, no answer to how we create a self-sustaining lunar economy. Again, we're taking communists approaches in competition with the communists. Communism didn't work for the Russians, and it won't work for America either. The sooner we can be done with this moondoggle, the better. But there is also reason to be optimistic: this time around, there's a nascent, commercially-led vision for the moon. Lunar hotels. Mass drivers. Data centers in space. Helium-3. The commercial programs that gave SpaceX an early assist show a different and better path forward. This is where the better future lies, and this is where America should be focused. America should take the Moon, and we should take it the same way we took the American West. Let's encourage and protect lunar value creation. How about a Homestead Act for the Moon? Most important, let's stop dumping money and more importantly the time of our engineers and scientists on glory projects that will never lead to a better future. It is indeed time for another space race. Last time, we fought communism with communism. This time, let's remember what made America great. This time, let's fight communism with capitalism.

@andredimauro The earth is a sphere.

Is the #Moon in the ocean now? 🤣 Look at the trajectory of the #Artemis — does that look like it’s going to space? Or just up a bit and straight down? And this on April Fools’ Day “Relax, it’s physics, it’s orbiting Earth.” Sure… that’s orbit? Alright, geniuses — explain it. 😂

@KeepTheShuttle They aren’t/weren’t Discovery’s engines.

Discovery's old engines will be making one last launch tonight on #Artemis! palmbeachpost.com/story/tech/sci…

@TalkTV @JuliaHB1 Whatever, as someone who works daily on this program, I promise we are not taking the BBC into account.

🚨'The BBC are insane!' According to a show on BBC Radio 4, the Artemis 2 Moon mission raises "troubling moral questions" such as whether humanity risks repeating the mistakes of "colonial expansion". @JuliaHB1

@KeepTheShuttle Really? You’re still doing this and flaying your arms like one of those inflatable things? You’re a left-wing political hack that has never given data behind your claims. You just link stories favorable to you. Be better. I dare you to engage.

Is the chief proponent of carving up Discovery & moving the pieces to Texas about to lose his Senate seat? wapo.st/40zz130

Does anyone else question @drudge nowadays? They seem left-wing bent. I’m an old-school center-right dude, where I think most used to live.

@NASAAdmin 🫡

Endeavoring for not just one, but TWO Moon landings in 2028. Coming weeks: Artemis II around the Moon Mid-2027: Artemis III rendezvousing with one or both HLS providers, testing space suits in low Earth orbit Early 2028: Artemis IV lunar landing Late 2028: Artemis V lunar landing, beginning work on lunar base This is how we get back to the Moon with urgency, to stay.

@bnjacobs Why do we assume normal folks can’t understand this? For the most part, people are not dumb. This isn’t a delay and an additional mission has been inserted. 4 comes after 3. I think the MSM is more to blame for click-bait headlines.

I might have handled it a little differently. I’m all for adjusting the architecture — that’s smart management. But I wouldn’t have set up the headline: “NASA cancels Artemis lunar landing mission.” Why invite that? Keep Artemis III as the lunar landing mission. If you need an additional systems test in low-Earth orbit, call it Artemis IIL or Artemis 2L… make it clear it’s a bridge mission to wring out the hardware and reduce risk. Then when Artemis III flies, it’s still the landing the public has been tracking all along. Sometimes it’s not just about engineering logic… it’s about narrative continuity. Just my two cents. 🚀🙃

@SciGuySpace @Erdayastronaut Look, and let’s be clear, there’s 0 probability this would have been announced without a degree of confidence. There will be challenges. There will be a lot of work. It may or may not happen. We’re prepared. The last thing all y’all should do is discount us,

@Erdayastronaut SLS

So the big question, what rocket is going to launch Orion into LEO for Artemis III?! 👀 certainly they won’t waste an SLS rocket for a LEO mission.

@Simberg_Space Gateway does not equal SLS, not sure why you’re even trying to equate the two.

Seemingly left unsaid: This is probably the death knell for Gateway as well. It's not immediate SLS cancellation, as I've been calling for for years, but it's a huge step in the direction of programmatic sanity.

@NASAAdmin We stand ready for the challenge, sir. And I promise, as I’m sure you know, this workforce will do everything possible to make this a reality. On a personal note, I thank you for your leadership and bringing what many have thought to reality.

This is how we got to the Moon and did the near-impossible in the 1960s…

@Simberg_Space Why Orion? You think you can just fly a LEO spacecraft anywhere?

Translation: We are going to cancel SLS/Orion just as soon as politically feasible.

@deltaIV9250 For a time thrusters failed all the time on shuttle. We solved them. It became an extremely reliable system all the way to end. Those lessons learned could have applied to Starliner. I am confident they were brought up. Reasons not implemented? Not prepared to say publically.

So when Starliner lost 6 degrees of freedom briefly was it like, just stuck? Like if the thrusters didn’t come back would Suni and Butch have died? Dead serious with that It’s insane that thrusters, like, failed on every Starliner flight and this was seen as not-grounding-worthy