{"id":45777,"date":"2026-04-09T14:07:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45777"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:07:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:07:55","slug":"the-moon-is-already-on-google-maps-did-artemis-ii-really-tell-us-anything-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=45777","title":{"rendered":"The Moon is already on Google Maps\u2014did Artemis II really tell us anything new?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This is all well and good. But the Artemis program\u2019s most lasting scientific discoveries will almost certainly only come when astronauts get down to the surface. That may happen in 2028, depending on how fast SpaceX and Blue Origin can move forward with their commercial landers.<\/p>\n

Neal said one of the big takeaways from Artemis II, apart from the performance of the Orion spacecraft itself, will be to teach NASA how to make geology part of human spaceflight again. The last Apollo landing mission in 1972 included astronaut Harrison \u201cJack\u201d Schmitt, the only professional geologist to travel to the Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have much more productive science return with humans in the picture at the Moon than we do with them out of the picture,\u201d Neal said. \u201cAnd we see that with the Apollo missions, the landed missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Members of the Artemis II science team at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n

\n Credit:
\n NASA\/Luna Posadas Nava\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\n Members of the Artemis II science team at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n


\n Credit:<\/p>\n

NASA\/Luna Posadas Nava<\/p>\n

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Observations from future missions orbiting closer to the Moon than Artemis II might also offer some scientific return. There wasn\u2019t much point, Neal said, in adding spectrometers or other types of instruments to the Artemis II crew\u2019s toolkit. They were simply too far away to make any unique spectral measurements not already available in NASA\u2019s archive.<\/p>\n

Still, the views returned from Artemis II inspire awe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing for me was reliving when I was a kid growing up, watching my Mum praying every time they went behind the Moon,\u201d Neal said. \u201cI had a few flashbacks, but the big thing is listening to the excitement of the science team. Kelsey Young, who was on the NASA broadcast, just couldn\u2019t stop smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might think that, after looking at hundreds of images taken of the lunar surface, I would get sick of it,\u201d Young said. \u201cI have not, nor do I anticipate getting sick of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite infectious,\u201d Neal said. \u201cThe Earthrise image that they took is one for the ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is all well and good. But the Artemis program\u2019s most lasting scientific discoveries will almost certainly only come when astronauts get down to the surface.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}