Artemis II Ready for Dress Rehearsal: Propaganda Press Misses the Real Story of This Dangerous Missi

[Elderberry]

Artemis II Ready for Dress Rehearsal: Propaganda Press Misses the Real Story of This Dangerous Mission

PJ Media by Robert Zimmerman | 6:22 PM on January 19, 2026

In the past few days, NASA finally rolled its SLS rocket and Orion capsule to the launchpad for the first dress rehearsal countdown in preparation for the Artemis II 10-day manned mission that sometime this spring will slingshot four astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth.

That dress rehearsal countdown will also include fueling the rocket, which will have to go smoothly before NASA sets a date for the actual launch. At the moment, the agency has a series of launch windows available, from February 6 through April 6. While it hopes to launch early in that window, that hope is not guaranteed. In preparing for the unmanned Artemis I mission in 2022, NASA had to do this practice countdown multiple times because of fuel leaks and other issues. The same could happen during the new Artemis II dress rehearsal countdown.

If you read any of the press stories about this roll-out, listed below, that’s about all you would know, other than the fact that this is the most ambitious and greatest thing NASA has ever done in decades and that the agency is doing everything possible to make sure the flight is safe and goes off without a hitch.

NOT!

In reading all of the stories below, I felt like I was reading the state-run presses of China and the Soviet Union.

    ABC/AP: NASA’s new moon rocket heads to pad ahead of astronaut launch as early as February
    CBS News: NASA hauls Artemis II moon rocket to launch pad for February flight
    Reuters: NASA rolls giant SLS rocket to launchpad for second Artemis moon mission
    UPI: NASA moves Artemis II rocket to launchpad ahead of mission to the moon
    New York Times: NASA’s Giant Rocket Completes Slow Roll Toward Artemis II Moon Voyage
    Forbes: NASA Rolled Out Artemis —Here’s Why It Matters
    BBC: ‘We’re ready to go,’ Nasa crew say as rocket inches closer to launch pad
    NPR: NASA’s Artemis II craft meets the launch pad ahead of crewed lunar orbit
    CNN: 4 astronauts will soon take an unprecedented path to the moon. But why aren’t they landing?
    Florida Today: NASA’s Artemis II moon crew will see views ‘human eyes have not seen’
    Scientific American: NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon is inching toward the launch pad
    Space.com: NASA rolls Artemis 2 rocket to the pad ahead of historic moon launch
    Space News: SLS/Orion rolls to pad for Artemis 2
    NASASpaceflight.com: Artemis II rolls out to LC-39B for first crewed lunar mission since 1972
    GeekWire: ‘The start of a very long journey’: NASA’s Artemis moon rocket makes slow trip to its launch pad
    CollectSpace: NASA rolls out Artemis II rocket to launch pad for flight to the moon
    Canadian Press: Jeremy Hansen ‘pumped’ about historic trip around the moon
    Japan’s NHK: NASA’s Artemis moon rocket moved to launch pad
    Australia’s Sky News: Huge NASA rocket reaches launch pad after painstaking 1mph journey

More: https://pjmedia.com/robert-zimmerman/2026/01/19/artemis-ii-ready-for-dress-rehearsal-propaganda-press-misses-the-real-story-of-this-dangerous-mission-n4948487

[Cyber Liberty]

Basic take-away:  NASA is rushing things to justify their existence, and the four astronauts will probably die as a result.

[BobfromWB]

Basic take-away:  NASA is rushing things to justify their existence, and the four astronauts will probably die as a result.

This has nothing to do with NASA's existence. NASA is being rushed by 47 to beat China. He's is forcing NASA to do the near impossible on the shoestring budget that he requested. 47 has no apparent interest in space per se, just achieving goals before the Chinese. He requested a budget so small that most, if not all of the science aspects of NASA would have been eliminated. The manned portion was also slashed to the bone; many feared NASA would shut down altogether.

It was only through Sen Cruz's efforts that some of the science was added back in the final NASA budget, as well as a bit more to the manned portion. Both additions are woefully short of the original budget, itself horribly short of what is necessary to maintain the US position in space.

As it is in the science aspect, 47 has seeded Mars to the Chinese as far as any discovery of life goes. The cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission means that the goal, since 1976, of finding life on Mars has ended for the US. [ The 1976-78 Viking missions all but proved the existence of life on Mars with their Label Return experiments. ]

It means that the billions of tax-dollars spent since 1976 are wasted. The Chinese will now pick up the gauntlet and take credit for any discovery of life on Mars with their sample return mission.

I do not think, as rushed as the Artemis II mission has been, that anyone will die as a result. Trajectories  and orbits are just math; they will have plenty of supplies [ or at least the ability to carry 2 tons of supplies ].

The hear shield issue: NASA tested the shield repeatedly in different states - in the worst case the heat did not penetrate to the inside of the capsule. Why? Because by the time the shield reached a bad state, the capsule had already penetrated far enough into the atmosphere that the heat had lessened to a considerable degree, such that the heat posed no threat.

Robert Zimmerman waxes hysterical in his article.

[Cyber Liberty]

I hope you are correct