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By the time the puck drops for Game 1, the crew of Artemis II will likely be bobbing in the Pacific Ocean just west of San Diego in their Integrity capsule awaiting the all-clear for the hatch to be opened and the astronauts and spaceship transported to a US Navy vessel that will be standing by for recovery operations.

That will bring to a close a ten day mission proving the space-worthiness of the Orion capsule and related support systems and it seems Integrity passed pretty much every test with flying colours with the only major problem being probably one of the most important systems on the capsule.

The ACM. (That’s “ass centering module” for those who don’t speak the NASA dialect of Nerdish!)

Fortunately, they had a ready and handy plumber in the most experienced member of the crew…NC State’s own Christina Koch who came to the rescue and kept the system working for the most part in a case of technology imitating art:

Gallagher: I prefer one moon, you know? That way you know what to call it: The Moon.
Lt. Ted Santen: [Over the radio] More colour commentary from the space janitor.
Gallagher: The correct term is mechanical systems engineer.
Chip Pettengill: ….But he will accept space janitor.

“Red Planet” (2000)

What most people might not know is that the johns have always been problematic for long-duration space missions which is why Star Trek and other science fiction shows rarely showed one, much less dwelt on how unpleasant life could be in a microgravity or zero-G environment if the bloody thing decided to not work. Harrowing stories of what they had to do on the shuttle to move things about to their proper location made you want to ensure you were the mission commander rather than a mission specialist… 😉

We also say goodbye to one of the most influential artists of the old school hip hop era who passed away yesterday with his most famous track during warm-ups that just happened to fit the “Artemis II” theme we’ve been running this week.

Game 1 Warm-Ups

Zamboni and Game 2 Warm-Ups