Welcome to the second issue of Fox In Motion. I'm Flux, and here's what's in store.
They're still going: 1977 archival footage documenting the Voyager probes.
Leave a light on: A guiding lightning storm, courtesy of the Earth.
The quest for more cheese: Artemis II is set to take four Earthlings around the moon and back.
Gone Fichen
In 1977, NASA was one of the main sources for video around launches. Today, I favor NASA Spaceflight. Not affiliated with NASA, but they have permission to use the name.
Watch: Voyagers’ Mission to the Outer Solar System (1977 Vintage Video) - NASA JPL
Flux Facts
A guiding lightning storm, courtesy of the Earth.
Leave A Light On: The sky turns to fire at the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela thanks to a show of natural light that occurs 140-160 nights per year called the Catatumbo lightning. It flashes 16-40 times per minute for 9 hours per day, with some year-to-year variation. It's Earth's own little pulsar, guiding sailors when more reliable methods of navigation were unavailable or not yet invented.
Video: That's Amazing: Lightning PhotographerThat's Amazing: Lightning Photographer (Note: Because of the subject matter, this video contains frequent stroboscopic flashing.)
Map it: GeoHack – Look up the lightning's location on various mapping services and tools.
News From Earth
Artemis II is set to take four Earthlings around the moon and back
Launch windows are on February 6-8 and 10-11 with backup dates in March
The vehicle that moved Artemis II to the launch pad is the same one that moved the Saturn V rockets from the Apollo missions. Called the Crawler-Transporter 2, this colossus and marvel of engineering weighs in at 6.6 million pounds, or about 7 of the International Space Station at Earth surface gravity.
“What's the deal with the windows anyway?”, you sagely ask.
To succeed, the timing of the launch must coordinate the position of the Earth and Moon to enter a "free-return trajectory." This gravity assist loop ensures that once the craft swings around the Moon, gravity naturally flings it back toward Earth for free. No extra fuel or potentially risky burn maneuvers required.
How they figure out how to send rockets to places: Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
Why it's hard: The tyranny of the rocket equation
And a more detailed article from Ars Technica: The fastest human spaceflight mission in history crawls closer to liftoff
And that's it for this week. The path from Apollo and Artemis has been long. The world seems different and scary as much as it did during Apollo, but unique in circumstances: they feared nuclear annihilation more than ecological devastation and rogue tech empires raiding the commons to force technologies into spaces they're poorly suited for. But the world spins on, and I hope I've left you more hopeful than less, with horizons that go a little further. At the end of the day, that's the goal.
Feel free to reply to this email and let me know what you think, or share your own horizon-expanding news and ideas.