So I'm currently house / dog sitting in South Carolina right now. It is stupidly hot. Even if I'm only a few states up, this is kind of ridiculous. (Apologies to my South Carolina natives!) But anyways, I have been trying to occupy my time. I've down a few readings down here, both online and in person (Hi Holly! Thanks again for meeting me!) and it's been wonderful. I've also been on the lookout for local events. I had the pleasure of listening to a NASA ambassador talk about the new Artemis missions that are coming up. I also got cool stickers (will show later), but that's besides the point. The point is that we're going back to the Moon.

So the question becomes, why are we going back to the Moon? This was my primary question, because I know that the U.S. halted Moon missions under President Obama. Well, the answer is because we think there's water there. Lots of it.

I was told that there may even be more water there than what's on Earth. A lot of it may be underneath the surface, but some may be on the surface as ice - which is why we're landing at the south pole of the Moon. The long term goals of these missions is to prepare for missions to Mars and to eventually have a permanent base on the Moon. The Artemis III mission will feature the first person of color and the first woman on the Moon.

Now, for some NASA lore (as I'm so lovingly calling it.) The Moon missions were named after Apollo, god of the Sun in Greek mythos. Ironically, he is associated with Mercury (representing communication and travel) in astrology. There are lots of Moon missions, but let's cover the basics:

  • Mercury
  • Gemini
  • Apollo

Are the big programs we've had so far. And then we have some of the more recent ones named after Artemis, Apollo's twin sister. She is the goddess of the hunt, wilderness, childbirth, and chastity, but later came to be associated with the Moon/Selene. Fitting, no? I think it's funny that two modern myths - one of the Moon's association with fertility, and another with the Moon bringing out the animalistic side of things - still persist today, and can likely be linked to her. Or at least, that's the connection I made in my head, and I am certainly no expert on that.

So a fun fact about the Apollo III mission is that some parts of the ship were made by Airbus! (And also SpaceX but who cares.) The new rocket will also feature solar panels. The crew will be up there for 30 days.

So, because I'm curious, I thought it'd be fun to look into NASA's charts.

In order from left to right: the NACA chart (A rating), the day NACA combined with NASA chart ( X rating, date without time), and the NASA chart (rating DD).

So the reasoning behind these charts is the times. NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) has a pretty self explanatory time. It later was absorbed and dissolved into NASA on October 1, 1958 (the middle chart). I used 8:00 a.m. for the time on this, as I assumed employees were informed when they got to work based off of the Astrodienst articles here and here. However, the chart for NASA (right) is made for when the approximate time the bill was signed by Eisenhower, not when it went into effect, which was the middle chart. Just for funsies I've added asteroids Apollo and Artemis to all of the charts.

I won't be going into detailed analysis of the charts, but I will say that NASA's chart (far right) has such an intriguing Mercury!

The main thing I'd be curious about astrologically with the Artemis III mission is if the lunar nodes would be direct like they were on the Apollo 11 mission.

Anywho, here are some of the cool hand outs I picked up that you all might find interesting. A little bit of a bummer there is no Pluto postcard, even from a non-astrological perspective. #MakePlutoaplanetagain

Pictured: some bumper stickers and a solar system trading card set (top left), postcards from the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (top right and bottom left), and some handouts detailing the Artemis mission (bottom right).

Anyways, thanks for reading guys! I know this wasn't totally astrology based, but I hope you found it a little insightful.

If you're from NASA and reading this for whatever reason, hi! Let me know if I got anything wrong. I know y'all hate astrology (fair) but at least we can bond over our love of space. :)

Much love,

Abby