Apollo 8 and Artemis II Historical Parallels and Differences

Apollo 8 In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 flew a risky mission to orbit the Moon for the first time. Was the decision to fly this mission primarily because the LM was not ready and NASA did not want to lose time and momentum, or was it because the CIA concluded that the Soviet Union might attempt such a mission before NASA? (credit: NASA) Artemis 2, Apollo 8, and the problem with history by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 13, 2026 Last week, as the Artemis 2 crew looped around the Moon, taking spectacular photos and deftly handling media inquiries, numerous podcasts and news programs had on experts to explain why NASA was conducting this mission, and why it was pursuing the Artemis program to land people on the Moon. The answers were, of course, diverse. There were claims that NASA wants to find and use resources on the Moon like water ice and helium-3. There were statements that this was about competing with China. There were those who pointed out the pork-barrel politics aspects of the program. And, of course, there were the ones who claimed that this was about vision, about exploration, about boldly going where no one has gone before (at least since 1972, anyway.) None of these rationales was convincing, and all of them together are vaguely accurate but unsatisfying. What is lacking today is the clarity of the Cold War and the Apollo program. But even Apollo was a bit less clear than we think. The simple, and mostly correct, explanation as to why the United States sent astronauts to land on the Moon in 1969 was to beat the Soviet Union there and demonstrate American technological superiority after suffering several humiliating setbacks in the newly emerging field of space exploration. It was politically symbolic more than anything. The simple, and mostly correct, explanation as to why the United States sent astronauts to land on the Moon in 1969 was to beat the Soviet Union there. But had John F. Kennedy not been assassinated in November 1963, it is possible that he might have backed out of his Apollo commitment, which was starting to become a financial—and thus political—liability. Kennedy’s death turned Apollo into a memorial, possibly giving it enough support to ensure its completion. There is no way to truly know, but there is enough evidence to raise that possibility. (See: “Murdering Apollo: John F. Kennedy and the retreat from the lunar goal,” part 1 and part 2, The Space Review, The Space Review, October 30, 2006.) The Artemis 2 mission has been compared to the December 1968 Apollo 8 mission. Whereas Apollo 8 orbited the Moon, Artemis 2 looped around it. But the Ingenuity spacecraft has greater capabilities than Apollo 8 did, including the ability to carry four astronauts amid greater comfort. Artemis 2 was really justified as an engineering test mission to prove the spacecraft, and the mission itself lacks a political impetus independent of the overall Artemis program, unlike Apollo 8. Politics and Apollo 8 Apollo 8 was a bold and risky decision by NASA officials to send them on that journey, the first ever beyond low Earth orbit. Over the decades, many historians have focused on the decision to send Apollo 8 around the Moon. The two major drivers were the availability of the Lunar Module—which had fallen behind schedule—and unmanned Soviet space missions that were clearly tests of their circumlunar spacecraft, called Zond. According to his autobiography, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman in early August 1968 received orders to go to Houston immediately. “I flew a T-38 to Houston and walked into Deke’s office. I knew something was up when he asked me to close the door,” Borman wrote. “We just got word from the CIA that the Russians are planning a lunar fly-by before the end of the year,” Deke Slayton told him. “We want to change Apollo 8 from an earth orbital to a lunar orbital flight. I know that doesn’t give us much time, so I have to ask you: Do you want to do it or not?” Yes, Borman replied. “I found out later that the Soviets were a hell of a lot closer to a manned lunar mission than we would have liked. Only about a month after I talked to Slayton, the Russians sent an unmanned spacecraft, Zond 5, into lunar orbit and returned it safely to earth.” Borman’s account is dramatic, but not inaccurate. It’s also not the full story. But were Soviet actions the trigger for NASA’s decision to send Apollo 8 around the Moon? Other available historical evidence does not fully support that conclusion. In the 1960s the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence agencies were closely monitoring the Soviet space program, trying to discern what they were doing. A declassified CIA memo from October 1968 reported on the activities of the CIA’s Foreign Missile and Space Analysis Center, FMSAC, pronounced “foomsac” in the intelligence community at the time. FMSAC was established in late 1963 to give the CIA the ability to perform technical analyses of foreign—primarily Soviet—missiles and spacecraft. FMSAC became very good at trajectory analysis, taking radar and other data on the flights of foreign missiles and rockets collected from ground stations and determining the capabilities of those rockets and missiles based upon their flight path (see “Dancing in the pale moonlight: CIA monitoring of the Soviet manned lunar program,” The Space Review, June 10, 2019, and “Apollo’s shadow: the CIA and the Soviet space program during the Moon race,” May 13, 2019.) The declassified October 1968 CIA memo is a general account of FMSAC’s activities over the previous year. It stated: “In the space area, FMSAC has the exclusive lead over all elements of the intelligence community and on an almost daily basis provides direct intelligence support, including many personal briefings, to the senior officials of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Council and the Presidential Science Advisory Council.” Carl Duckett, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology wrote that among the Center’s accomplishments in 1968, “The likelihood that the U.S. will conduct a manned circumlunar flight with the Apollo-8 vehicle in December is a result of the direct intelligence support that FMSAC has provided to NASA on present and future Soviet plans in space.” But were Soviet actions the trigger for NASA’s decision to send Apollo 8 around the Moon? Other available historical evidence does not fully support that conclusion. Apollo 8 A Proton launch pad photographed by an American reconnaissance satellite in 1984. The Proton was the vehicle the Soviet Union planned to launch the Zond spacecraft around the Moon in 1968/69, and monitoring launch activities was key to understanding when they might do that. (credit: Haryr stranger) The spooks are watching The best and most comprehensive historical account of the Apollo 8 lunar decision is contained in Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox’s 1989 book Apollo: the Race to the Moon. Murray and Cox devoted ten pages to the subject. They clearly stated that the decision to send Apollo 8 on a circumlunar mission was overwhelmingly determined by Apollo’s aggressive schedule and not Cold War competition. In those ten pages they did not mention the Soviet lunar activities. Apollo officials started initial discussion of a circumlunar mission in spring 1968, primarily as a theoretical option, long before concern about the Soviet Union sending cosmonauts around the Moon. A circumlunar mission without a lunar module had first been mentioned a year earlier to make up time lost due to the Apollo 1 fire, so the basic concept for what became the Apollo 8 mission had been percolating for a while. The proposed mission was more seriously evaluated by NASA officials in early August when it became clear that the Lunar Module originally scheduled for the upcoming mission was delayed. George Low, the director of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, explained that the Lunar Module “had what we call ‘first ship problems.’ It always takes the first ship longer to get through.” The Lunar Module would not be ready until March 1969. To stay on schedule for testing both the Saturn V and the Command and Service Modules, NASA would have to launch a mission into high Earth orbit without the Lunar Module. George Low argued that in place of a high Earth orbit mission, NASA should instead fly a circumlunar mission. During several days in August, Low discussed this with various senior officials before taking it directly to NASA Administrator James Webb. Webb tentatively agreed to the plan but withheld final approval until after Apollo 7 flew in low Earth orbit in October and proved the Apollo spacecraft. It was a gutsy decision for NASA officials to make. None of the official NASA records on this subject, or George Low’s diary, mention Soviet plans to conduct a circumlunar flight. Low and other NASA officials were certainly aware of Soviet circumlunar efforts, but there are no official NASA records indicating that it was even considered in their decision-making. Although intelligence information on Soviet activities was classified at the time and would not have been mentioned in unclassified NASA records, the Soviet activities were also mentioned in public news sources, and therefore NASA officials could have at least referred to those accounts. Even if the CIA did provide extensive information to NASA about Soviet circumlunar plans, that does not necessarily mean that, as the memo indicates, NASA’s decision was a “result” of CIA information. The CIA and the National Security Agency had both been monitoring Soviet space activities throughout the year. In April 1968, the CIA produced a “Memorandum to Holders” supplement to an earlier 1967 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Soviet space program. Although the CIA was producing NIEs on the Soviet space program every two years, enough had happened in the past year that they wanted to update recipients of their 1967 report. The Memorandum to Holders included a table of space launches that mentioned the March 1968 Soviet Zond 4 mission, which it designated a “Circumlunar Simulation.” According to the memo, the mission was a “partial success,” which was explained in a footnote as “all phases of this mission appeared successful except reentry/recovery.” Zond 4’s mission had also been covered in the press at the time, so it certainly would have been well-known even to NASA officials without access to classified intelligence reports. George Low could have mentioned it in his unclassified diary. The April CIA memo also specifically addressed Soviet circumlunar plans: “The Soviets will probably attempt a manned circumlunar flight both as a preliminary to a manned lunar landing and as an attempt to lessen the psychological impact of the Apollo program. In NIE 11-1-67, we estimated that the Soviets would attempt such a mission in the first half of 1968 or the first half of 1969 (or even as early as late 1967 for an anniversary spectacular). The failure of the unmanned circumlunar test in November 1967 leads us now to estimate that a manned attempt is unlikely before the last half of 1968, with 1969 being more likely. The Soviets soon will probably attempt another unmanned circumlunar flight.” An accompanying bar chart made the same point, with the last six months of 1968 shaded as “earliest possible” for a manned circumlunar flight, and all of 1969 shaded as “more likely.” It is possible the CIA obtained new information after producing that April memo that led their experts to believe that a Soviet manned circumlunar flight was more likely in early 1969 or even late 1968 than they had assumed in April, increasing the pressure on NASA to do something. Perhaps in June or July the CIA somehow learned about the upcoming Zond 5 flight and informed NASA. The Zond 5 flight took place in September, after the Apollo 8 decision was essentially made. It is also possible that FMSAC was exaggerating its role in NASA’s circumlunar decision, or at least assuming that FMSAC had played a greater role in convincing NASA’s leadership to attempt the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon than it actually had. Without more details, it is still not possible to know. Even if the CIA did provide extensive information to NASA about Soviet circumlunar plans, that does not necessarily mean that, as the memo indicates, NASA’s decision was a “result” of CIA information. Only the NASA officials who made the Apollo 8 decision knew what factors influenced them most. That was primarily George Low, whose records point to the Apollo schedule being the primary influence. Apollo 8 Apollo 8 Apollo 8 Apollo 8 Apollo 8 The US intelligence community kept close tabs on the Soviet space program during the 1960s, including taking many reconnaissance photos of the sprawling launch complex for the N1 Moon rocket at Baikonur. Sometimes rockets were photographed on the launch pad. (credit: Haryr stranger) Photos and signals American intelligence assets focused on the Soviet Union were getting increasingly capable. CIA and NSA listening posts around the world were gathering up signals from Soviet spacecraft as well as monitoring the movements of ships used to track spacecraft and recover them from the water. Much of the information on this intelligence remains classified, although it is slowly coming out. (See “A taste of Armageddon (part 1),” The Space Review, January 3, 2017, and “A taste of Armageddon (part 2),” The Space Review, January 9, 2017.) We can be certain that the intelligence community is monitoring the Chinese lunar program, and providing their best assessments to NASA officials. In July 1966, the Air Force launched the first of the National Reconnaissance Office’s KH-8 GAMBIT-3 reconnaissance satellites, and by early November 1968, 17 of them had been launched, with one failing to reach orbit. The GAMBIT’s powerful camera could reveal amazing detail about Soviet submarines, missile silos, and rockets. GAMBIT’s photos revealed details on the ground 30 centimeters or better, and they could have shown spacecraft hardware being prepared at the Soviet launch site. But most Soviet activities were indoors and their rockets spent little time at the pad. It is unlikely that the CIA had good intelligence about an impending Soviet circumlunar flight until shortly before it occurred. Certainly the race to the Moon with the Soviets established the larger context in which all NASA decisions were made. The preponderance of evidence still supports the conclusion that it was the Apollo schedule that drove the decision, not specific Soviet actions. There are comparisons between Apollo and Artemis. We can be certain that the intelligence community is monitoring the Chinese lunar program, and providing their best assessments to NASA officials. But the Chinese have also been far more open about their plans than the Soviets were about theirs. It is a good bet that when they plan to send their own taikonauts to the Moon, they will tell the world. Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitte

Opening The Path To The Lunar Surface

Artemis 2 return The Orion spacecraft Integrity splashes down to conclude the Artemis 2 mission April 10. (credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel) Opening the path to the lunar surface by Jeff Foust Monday, April 13, 2026 The timeline for the Artemis 2 mission included a six-minute blackout during reentry as the Orion spacecraft, entering the atmosphere at nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour, created a plasma sheath the cut off radio communications. Engineers determined exactly when the blackout would begin and when it should end, allowing for communications to resume. That didn’t mean, though, that controllers weren’t nervous. “Blackout, there’s really no beating around the bush with that,” Rick Henfling, entry flight director, said at a press conference Friday night. “It’s a difficult time because the flight control team wants to see data. We want to look at the data, we want to provide input to the flight crew on how to fly their spaceship. And when we don't have data, we’re trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.” So they waited with everyone else. “We knew when blackout was going to start. It started when we expected. We knew when it was going to end. It ended when we expected,” he said. “That gave us the trust that the spaceship was flying itself correctly.” “It’s a difficult time because the flight control team wants to see data,” said Henfling.“When we don't have data, we’re trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.” The Orion spacecraft splashed down right on schedule at 8:07 pm EDT, within about a kilometer and a half of its targeted spot in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. Two hours later, the four Artemis 2 astronauts were out of the Orion, transported by helicopter to the recovery ship USS John P Murtha. Several hours later, the spacecraft itself was secured inside the ship. There were minor glitches along the way: Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman reported problems talking to the recovery teams in boats just outside the capsule by both radio and satellite phone. Those recovery teams also had problems installing a floatation collar around the capsule. That was a microcosm of the mission itself. From liftoff April 1 to splashdown a little more than nine days later, the Artemis 2 mission largely went according to plan. None of the issues encountered during the mission threatened the safety of the crew of the ability to complete the mission’s major objectives—even if problems with a wastewater vent line for the capsule’s toilet were fodder for jokes. Perhaps the most serious issue, at least for future missions, was a helium leak in an oxidizer line for thrusters in the spacecraft’s service module. That leak did not affect performance of the minor burns needed to correct Orion’s trajectory on Artemis 2. NASA officials indicated they saw some leaks before launch but they got worse as the mission progressed. “The leak rate we saw in flight is now an order of magnitude higher than what we saw on the ground,” Amit Kshatriya, NASA associate administrator, said at an April 9 briefing. “It’s still acceptable, but that will lead us to probably an extensive redesign of that valve system.” The redesign won’t be needed for Artemis 3, scheduled to launch next year, since Orion will remain in low Earth orbit with limited demands on the performance of the thrusters, but will be needed when Orion returns to, and orbits, the Moon on Artemis 4 in 2028. “I don’t need those valves to hold pressure in the same way for a LEO orbiting mission, but for a lunar orbit mission, I do. I need all the performance in the system so I can pressurize,” he said, hence the need to redesign the system. “I’m convinced this will not be the pacing item for a lunar mission, so we’ll be able to fix it in the time we need to,” he concluded. “It might take a little while.” Artemis 2 return The Artemis 2 astronauts—Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman—at Ellington Field in Houston for a welcome-home ceremony April 11. (credit: Helen Arase Vargas / NASA-JSC) Looking ahead to Artemis 3 The agency took a victory lap with the successful end of the Artemis 2 mission. “After a brief 53-year intermission, the show goes on, and NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon and bringing them home safely,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said Saturday at an event at Ellington Field in Houston to welcome home the crew. “As we return to the lunar surface, we build the base and we never give up the Moon again.” Kshatriya offered similar sentiments at the post-splashdown briefing. “The path to the lunar surface is open, but the work ahead is greater than the work behind us.” “The path to the lunar surface is open, but the work ahead is greater than the work behind us,” said Kshatriya. That work ahead starts with Artemis 3. The revised plan for the mission, announced in late February, would send Orion to low Earth orbit around the middle of 2027 to rendezvous and dock with either or both Human Landing System landers being built by Blue Origin and SpaceX. Those companies are working to accelerate development of those landers, but neither the companies nor NASA have disclosed details about how they will speed up landers to ensure at least a prototype would be ready by Artemis 3. “We’re not resting” after Artemis 2, said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA, during a discussion Monday at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. She said that, five minutes after the Artemis 2 splashdown, her deputy sent a note to Isaacman outlining the status of Artemis 3 preparations. “We’re moving on scales of minutes, hours, and days, not months, years, and decades,” she said. Much of the hardware for Artemis 3 is taking shape for a launch next year. The SLS core stage will ship next week from the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to KSC, where it will join the engine section. The mobile launch platform that supported the Artemis 2 launch is soon heading back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, having suffered less damage than during Artemis 1. The Orion crew and service modules are also on track. The biggest questions involve the new elements for Artemis 3, as well as the mission plan itself. Besides HLS, NASA has discussed testing Axiom Space’s lunar spacesuit, known as AxEMU, on Artemis 3. “We’ve provided the agency with a number of options” for testing the suit on Artemis 3, Russell Ralston, senior vice president and general manager of extravehicular activity at Axiom said during a briefing at Space Symposium. “It would certainly be a valuable exercise, but we just don’t have the specifics at this time.” Jonathan Cirtain, president and CEO of Axiom, said the company intends to test AxEMU—currently completing its critical design review with a qualification unit being built—next year, but said those tests could be done on the International Space Station instead of Artemis 2. He said he had a “confidence briefing” with Isaacman after last month’s Ignition event that outlined changes to the Artemis architecture. “I reassured him on our ability to deliver the Artemis suit should it be utilized on Artemis 3,” Cirtain said. “However, whether it’s Artemis 3 with the HLS service providers or in a free-flying demonstration to the International Space Station, the administrator made it crystal clear to me that he expects to fly our suit next year.” He added that a test on Artemis 3 might not include a spacewalk, something that could be done on ISS. For Artemis 3, the intent would be to test how the suit holds up to launch loads, along with potential tests in both pressurized and unpressurized environments inside the lander. There is also the issue of coordinating Orion with potentially both Blue Origin’s Blue Moon and SpaceX’s Starship on the same mission in low Earth orbit. “We have to find a common orbit. We have to find a common launch opportunity, and orchestrating a launch of an SLS and two HLS’s will be some kind of feat,” said Kent Chojnacki, HLS deputy program manager, in an interview before the Artemis 2 launch. “So, we’re working on what the art of the possible is there.” That would need to be done on a tight timeframe. Chojnacki said he had been instructed to prepare for an Artemis 3 launch no earlier than March 2027 and no later than June. “This is a relay race,” Koch said. “In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically that, and we plan to hand them to the next crew.” The landers, he said, would not have to be the full versions needed for a lunar landing: the landers would not need landing gear or the guidance, navigation and control systems needed for landing. “We asked for ideas ranging anywhere from doing proximity operations,” he said, similar to what took place on Artemis 2 where Orion flew around the SLS upper stage, “all the way to a docking with a crew cabin, where you can cross the hatch and do operations within the common atmosphere.” “We’re working with our partners in the Human Landing System, SpaceX and Blue, to help better define exactly what that Artemis 3 mission will look like, but we’re moving fast,” Glaze said. She did not disclose how long that process will take. NASA also has not announced a crew for Artemis 3. The Artemis 2 crew was named in April 2023, at a time when the mission was projected to launch in late 2024. Asked after splashdown when NASA would announce the astronauts flying on Artemis 3, Kshatriya simply said, “Soon.” He then added, “I will not put units on that.” That crew will have a hard act to follow. The Artemis 2 astronauts have been universally praised for their performance on the mission, including how they have communicated the experience of flying around the Moon in a small capsule, seeing the Earth recede and grow again. In a call with reporters on the way back to Earth, Christina Koch said she and her crewmates were ready to hand the baton—literally—to their colleagues that will fly Artemis 3. “This is a relay race,” Koch said. “In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically that, and we plan to hand them to the next crew. Every single thing we do is with them in mind.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

CLEP And The Struggle For Positional Advantage

Mars base The Moon and Earth seen during the Artemis 2 mission. (credit: NASA) Strategic celestography and lunar competition: Artemis, CLEP, and the struggle for positional advantage by Glenn Scofield Monday, April 13, 2026 Human exploration of the Moon is often presented as a scientific endeavor, but the scale and scope of contemporary lunar exploration programs suggest that great power competition is expanding into the broader Earth–Moon system. As the United States and China expand their presence beyond geocentric orbit, lunar resource distribution and cislunar orbital dynamics are shaping a new phase of strategic competition. This rivalry increasingly revolves around two evolving lunar architectures: the US-led Artemis campaign and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) with its Chang’e series of missions. Both programs seek to expand access, presence, and operational reach throughout the Earth–Moon system, and both will grow more capable as commercial launch systems and autonomous spacecraft operations continue to mature. Like classical geopolitics and maritime strategy, strategic celestography assesses how celestial environments create positional advantages. The rapid commercialization of space during the “Third Space Age” (2016–present) has fundamentally altered the economics of operating beyond Earth orbit. Advancements in reusable heavy-lift launch systems, civil-commercial partnerships, orbital refueling, and autonomous navigation are reducing the barriers to sustained lunar and cislunar activity and expanding access to their strategically valuable regions. Strategic celestography provides a framework for understanding this shift. Like classical geopolitics and maritime strategy, strategic celestography assesses how celestial environments create positional advantages. Like the maritime domain, space contains finite and strategically meaningful physical features that shape state behavior. Yet strategic celestography differs from traditional strategic geography in that celestial environments continuously shift relative to the Earth. In these environments, strategic value depends not only on location, but also on when a state can access positions and how orbital motion affects their utility over time. The Moon is the first major test case for this framework. Its surface contains strategic locations with disproportionate value for sustained operations, while the broader cislunar environment includes orbital regimes that are increasingly important for communications, space domain awareness (SDA), and national security activities. As a result, the emerging competition between Artemis and CLEP is not simply about prestige or scientific exploration, but also about which power will establish advantageous positions within the Earth–Moon system and how those activities will shape geopolitics. Strategic value of the lunar surface In this emerging competition, the lunar south polar region has become the primary focal point of US and Chinese planning due to its concentration of resource-rich and operationally favorable terrain. Data from scientific missions, including the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have confirmed the presence of accumulated water ice within permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in this area. These deposits could support in situ resource utilization (ISRU), with future lunar infrastructure converting water into hydrogen and oxygen propellants, potentially making the Moon a forward logistical hub for reusable space operations. Combined with the lack of atmospheric drag and low gravity on the Moon, this could greatly reduce the burden of transporting terrestrial resources into space and facilitate expanded space operations. The lunar south pole also offers important solar illumination advantages over equatorial regions. Elevated ridges and crater rims can receive extended periods of solar exposure, reducing the severe power and thermal fluctuations associated with the Moon’s extended day-night cycle, during which surface temperatures can vary by several hundred degrees, thereby extending the service life of lunar equipment and infrastructure. These conditions also make the region more suitable for local construction and infrastructure development, as reliable solar power will allow future operators to sinter lunar regolith into structural material for launch pads and other surface and subsurface structures that support operations and help protect astronauts from the harsh environment. Taken together, water deposits, solar illumination advantages, and increased thermal stability reinforce the disproportionate advantage of certain strategically valuable lunar areas. As on Earth, key locations offer enhanced benefits in energy access, logistics, and persistent presence. It is therefore unsurprising that both US and Chinese lunar exploration architectures have placed high emphasis on the south polar region. Strategic value of cislunar space If the lunar surface represents one dimension of strategic value, the wider cislunar orbital environment adds another. Cislunar space extends from geostationary orbit (GEO) to the Moon and includes important orbital regimes and gravitational equilibrium points. Among its most important features are the five Earth-Moon Lagrange points, designated L1 through L5, where complex three-body gravitational interactions between the Earth, Moon, and spacecraft create relatively stable orbital trajectories. These positions provide several operational advantages in the Earth–Moon system. As on Earth, key locations on the Moon offer enhanced benefits in energy access, logistics, and persistent presence. China demonstrated early access to this orbital are under CLEP. In 2018, China launched Chang’e-4 and deployed Queqiao-1, the first dedicated relay satellite placed near the Earth–Moon L2 region to provide communications access to the mission lander and rover operating on the Moon’s far side. The Chang’e-4 mission also marked the first successful rover operation on the far side of the Moon. In 2024, China reinforced its cislunar presence with Queqiao-2. Together, these relay assets demonstrate how cislunar positioning supports persistent operations and communications in otherwise difficult-to-access or frequently masked parts of the Earth–Moon system. Queqiao-1’s Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) is a highly elliptical three-body trajectory that remains relatively stable near the Earth–Moon L2. This halo orbit benefits from favorable gravitational conditions that reduce satellite stationkeeping requirements and conserve energy and onboard propellant. NRHOs also provide persistent line of sight to the lunar south pole region and far side of the Moon, supporting communications as demonstrated by Chang’e-4. In addition, they are well suited for spacecraft transfers between NRHO and the lunar surface. The placement of Chinese spacecraft in these orbits underscores a growing SDA challenge. Cislunar space remains comparatively lightly monitored, and its sheer scale magnifies the problem: it encompasses a volume more than 1,000 times greater than the space below GEO. Tracking spacecraft across this region is difficult due to the long distances, line-of-sight masking caused by the Moon, and the complexity of three-body orbital dynamics. As more spacecraft enter cislunar trajectories, the ability of the US to observe and interpret activity across the Earth-Moon system will become an increasingly important national security requirement. Competing architectures of Artemis and CLEP The strategic competition unfolding in the Earth–Moon system between the US and China is best understood as a competition to establish presence, access, and endurance across key lunar and cislunar environments. Artemis reflects a US-led architecture that combines crewed exploration, legacy infrastructure, and commercial support. Its significance lies not only in returning astronauts to the Moon, but in establishing a structure for sustained operations. Yet Artemis remains constrained by its legacy systems. The program relies heavily on the Space Launch System (SLS), which uses Space Shuttle RS-25 engines and other proven technologies, but at a far higher cost than emerging systems such as SpaceX’s Starship. The delay of the first Artemis lunar south pole landing from 2024 to 2028 has also widened a strategic window for China to strengthen its own lunar capabilities. Starship development and its Human Landing System (HLS) variant are therefore central to Artemis’s goal of a sustained lunar presence, with NRHO providing a staging point for HLS operations to the lunar surface. Artemis and CLEP are not merely space exploration programs driven by national pride. They are competing approaches to secure positional advantages in the Earth–Moon system. China’s CLEP takes a different approach. Rather than relying primarily on a crewed architecture, China has pursued a state-led model centered on robotic missions, relay systems, and the rapid buildup of independent space capabilities. Through CLEP, China has launched six increasingly complex lunar missions, Chang’e-1 through Chang’e-6, which have included orbiters, landers, and sample return missions. These missions have allowed Beijing to accumulate experience at comparatively lower cost than Artemis. China’s Queqiao-1 and Queqiao-2 relay satellites demonstrate how these systems can help sustain lunar operations in the south polar region and on the far side of the Moon. NASA’s 2026 test of the Orion Artemis 2 Optical Communications System (O2O) offers a useful parallel to China’s established relay architecture. Moreover, China’s longer-term plans include the 2026 launch of Chang'e-7 and its small rocket-powered hopping probe for exploring hard-to-access PSRs, the development of the Long March 10 heavy-lift crewed lunar launch vehicle, and a proposed International Lunar Research Station near the lunar south pole. These plans show that Beijing, like Washington, is pursuing a sustained strategic lunar presence rather than one-off scientific achievements. China’s developing commercial space sector will eventually complement its state-led exploration model. As Chinese commercial firms expand, the associated economies of scale will reinforce China’s cislunar ambitions by decreasing launch costs and increasing launch cadences. Notably, China surpassed the US in annual launch totals from 2018 to 2021, before SpaceX-driven growth reversed that trend and restored US launch dominance and strategic advantage in space. The emergence of a capable Chinese commercial launch enterprise will likely renew pressure on US space leadership. Artemis and CLEP are not merely space exploration programs driven by national pride. They are competing approaches to secure positional advantages in the Earth–Moon system. Artemis emphasizes crewed operations and relies heavily on commercial suppliers such as SpaceX to complete its future goals, while CLEP prioritizes a robotics-first model that is likely to grow more sophisticated as Chinese capabilities expand. Nevertheless, both programs are oriented toward securing scientific achievement and broader national power. Strategic implications of positional advantage States have primarily designed their contemporary national security space architectures for geocentric operations, with satellites supporting Earth-based national security priorities. As state and commercial activity increasingly expands farther outward, the limitations of those legacy architectures will become more apparent. The Third Space Age is likely to drive significant growth in great power assets operating in cislunar space, with major implications for SDA, communications, remote sensing, and counterspace operations. For example, spacecraft approaching Earth from cislunar trajectories can exploit unique approach vectors and velocities to create new surveillance and warning challenges across multiple domains. These conditions could allow China to conduct counterspace activities or achieve strategic surprise against US spacecraft operating in traditional Earth orbits. Such activities could include the use of cislunar space to place satellites in retro-geosynchronous orbits that complicate surveillance and increase the risk of time-sensitive threats within the GEO belt. As space competition intensifies, maintaining awareness across the Earth-Moon system will become as important as the ability to access and exploit it. Current US space architectures may prove insufficient to detect and respond to these emerging threats. These developments will require doctrinal adaptation, as existing space planning remains heavily oriented toward geocentric operations. As US Space Force doctrine recognizes, cislunar space is a distinct regime with distinct planning factors. As states expand into cislunar space and onto and beneath the lunar surface, they will need updated analytical frameworks that can assess why certain celestial positions matter, where they are located, and how they shape access and influence. Some analysts have even called for the development of Lunar Intelligence (LUNINT) to better monitor and assess activity across the Moon and cislunar space. These adaptations are needed because celestial environments will increasingly shape grand strategy, information requirements, and great power competition. In that respect, strategic celestography is not simply a descriptive concept; it offers a systematic way to think about competition in an expanded strategic environment with increasingly important economic and national security impacts. Allied contributions to lunar competition Coalition dynamics are likely to influence the balance of power in the Earth-Moon system. One of the clearest differences between Artemis and CLEP is that the former is embedded within a broader allied framework, while the latter is more tightly organized around Chinese state capacity. That distinction matters because coalition architectures can help distribute technical risk, widen industrial participation, and reduce the financial burden of space activities. Commercial actors, backed by private investment and state support, could eventually exploit celestial resources in ways that parallel earlier eras of commercial expansion and strategic competition on Earth. Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission offers one example of how allied contributions may matter in practice. In 2024, Japan demonstrated a highly precise autonomous lunar navigation and landing capability, achieving an accuracy beyond that of earlier Chinese Chang’e missions. Over time, space-hardened processors capable of neural network-enabled computations will further improve autonomous precision landing in complex celestial terrain, increasing access to strategically valuable locations and facilitating the deployment of autonomous construction systems and support infrastructure. Pursuing strengthened partnerships with like-minded technologically advanced nations such as Japan provide a pathway for the US to share operational and technological costs, as well as risks and rewards, in an extended competition for resources and positional advantage beyond Earth. The legal and commercial foundations of lunar competition Competition in the Earth-Moon system is also being shaped by emerging legal and commercial frameworks. Although the Outer Space Treaty precludes signatory states from asserting national sovereignty over the Moon, the US passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015, allowing US citizens to recover and use space resources. Japan, an important partner in Artemis, established its own similar framework in 2021. Together, these legal developments help facilitate commercial activity and long-term competition over strategically valuable positions beyond Earth. Historical parallels Historical precedent shows that scientific and commercial expeditions have often led the way to the development of new strategic nodes. During early European maritime expansion, islands such as the Azores and Canary Islands served as forward staging areas for operations across maritime spaces. Access to and control over these locations carried significant strategic value, allowing states to accumulate wealth and expand their national power. Yet space differs from maritime geography due to its dynamic nature. Its “islands” are constantly moving, and spacecraft cannot simply anchor in orbit around a planet. Nevertheless, the logic remains sound, as orbital mechanics constrain movement through space much like the wind patterns and currents that shaped maritime trade during the Age of Sail. Similarly, just as European states established forward ports for resupply, lunar infrastructure development, propellant production, and in-orbit refueling operations would reduce Earth-based logistical burdens. As economies of scale increase and exploration expands, reusable spacecraft could resupply in cislunar space before departing for Mars, near Earth asteroids, and other interplanetary destinations. Commercial actors, backed by private investment and state support, could eventually exploit celestial resources in ways that parallel earlier eras of commercial expansion and strategic competition on Earth. Conclusion The renewed focus on lunar exploration reflects more than a return to human activity beyond low Earth orbit. As the US and China expand their presence throughout the Earth-Moon system, they are creating positional advantages that will shape strategic outcomes on Earth. As activity expands, the ability to access, sustain, and operate within key orbital regimes and resource-rich lunar regions will become increasingly important. Strategic celestography helps explain how access, infrastructure, and competition evolve as commercial, civil, military, and intelligence activity extends beyond geocentric orbit by treating celestial environments as strategic features and linking positional advantages to national power. In this sense, the emerging competition between Artemis and CLEP is not simply a contest over scientific exploration. It is about which state secures the most advantageous positions in a new era of great power competition in space, and how those positions will shape the future balance of power. Glenn Scofield is a retired US Air Force intelligence analyst whose work focuses on strategic competition and deterrence, with an emphasis on Northeast Asia and the geopolitical consequences of expanding activity in space. He holds an MA in National Security Studies and a BA in Political Science.

Cold War Era Lauch Vehicles

Hexagon launch The first HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite sits on its pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1971. Twenty of these schoolbus-size satellites were launched, with one failure. They photographed huge amounts of territory during each mission, enabling photo-interpreters to detect and assess adversary weapons capabilities. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection) Who watches the birds? Cold War era launch vehicle photographs by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 13, 2026 During the Cold War, the US Air Force launched hundreds of rockets from both the East and West Coasts. Usually, the military made some kind of announcement that a launch had occurred, or was about to occur, without releasing any further details, and for many years, rarely releasing any photographs. The result was that many military space launches—probably a significant majority of them—had no public photographic evidence that they happened. But starting in the late 1990s, an Australian space enthusiast by the name of Peter Hunter began collecting photographs of United States Thor, Delta, Atlas, and eventually Titan launches. Hunter was a 747 pilot for Qantas, and during his long layovers in Los Angeles he visited an archive of launch vehicle photos near San Diego. He was able to gain access to it through his professionalism, charm, and Australian accent. Over many years of hard work, he produced a collection of high-resolution scans of as many launches and launch vehicles as possible, later providing copies to multiple museums and historians. Hexagon launch Hexagon launch The second HEXAGON satellite, launched in January 1972. Early in the program the plan was to launch multiple times per year. As the satellite lifetimes increased, the launch rate decreased. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) The value of Peter Hunter’s work was significant for writers of military missile and space history, because it enabled writers and publishers to be more varied in what they showed, rather than using the same officially released publicity photos over and over again. His collection also demonstrated that the military had some talented photographers, particularly during the early 1960s, who captured the moodiness and the isolation of a fog-shrouded rocket on the California coast, or a rocket sitting a short distance from a sandy beach in a Florida sunrise. There was also historical value to some of the photos, which indicated payload or configuration changes that were not reflected in the public record. Hexagon launch The third HEXAGON reconnaissance launch, in July 1973. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch The 13th HEXAGON launch, in June 1977. By 1976, the NRO had reduced the HEXAGON launch rate to one per year. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hunter was not able to find every rocket and every launch, however. There were still gaps in the collection. The Air Force certainly photographed and filmed every launch, but not all of those images were saved in the same place, or even saved at all. Now, a new collection of launch photographs has closed some of the gaps. John Hilliard had worked for the National Reconnaissance Office before he retired and began collecting rocket launch photos. His collection includes some of the missing photos in Peter Hunter’s collection. Hexagon launch The 14th launch, in March 1978. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Thanks to Hunter and Hilliard, we now have launch photos of over half of the 20 HEXAGON reconnaissance satellites launched between 1971 and 1986. Before Hilliard’s collection, only about half as many were available. We also have more photos of the KH-11 KENNEN satellites and their successors. There are other photos of other missing launches in Hunter’s collection, including some rare missions, and I’ll share some of them in the future. But Hunter and Hilliard, through their hard work, have made it possible to chronicle more of these important reconnaissance programs. Hexagon launch The 15th launch, in March 1979. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch The 15th launch, in March 1979. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch The 16th launch, in June 1980. By this time, the program was scheduled to end, although it was not replaced with an equivalent capability. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch The 16th launch, in June 1980. By this time, the program was scheduled to end, although it was not replaced with an equivalent capability. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch Hexagon launch The 17th launch, in May 1982. Before this launch, National Reconnaissance Office officials had considered ways to retrieve a spent spacecraft using the Space Shuttle, with the goal of refurbishing it and re-launching it a final time. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch The 18th launch, in June 1983. (credit: John Hilliard Collection) Hexagon launch

Book Review: "A Tale Of Two Martian Cities"

Mars base How should future Martian settlements be governed? (credit: SpaceX) A tale of two Martian cities by Thomas Gangale Monday, April 13, 2026 “Quid est enim civitas nisi concors hominum multitudo?” — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Republica 1.39 “For now we see through a glass, darkly.” No Hari Seldon, as in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, stands ready with psychohistory to predict humanity’s future on the Red Planet. Yet the choices we make today about governance, rights, and human nature will shape the first permanent settlements on Mars in the 2040s and 2050s—and, by extension, the long-term trajectory of our species beyond Earth. The early decades of the colonial period on Mars will not arrive with a finished constitutional order already in place. Instead, two distinct settlements are likely to emerge, each still in the process of formation. Projecting this bipolar geopolitical structure to Mars, two distinct settlements are likely to emerge in those decades. In speculating on the political future of Mars, we can take note of how current lunar geopolitical trends are influencing the establishment of permanent human presence on the Moon. On the one hand, there are the Artemis Accords, a set of non-binding multilateral arrangements between the United States government and more than 60 other governments of Earth that elaborates on the norms expected to be followed in outer space. On the other is the International Lunar Research Station, a planned lunar base currently being led by Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration. Projecting this bipolar geopolitical structure to Mars, two distinct settlements are likely to emerge in those decades. Let us call one Libertas; sponsored by a US-led consortium, it is consciously progressing along a path from the principles in the Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords toward the confederative end-state articulated in the Charter of the United Martian States and The Martian Federalist essays. The other we shall call Harmony, a Chinese-led outpost, organized under a Sino-Russian centralized socio-political mode. Neither settlement has yet achieved the mature governance structures envisioned in its respective model. The analysis that follows focuses on the divergent anthropological trajectories already visible and the long-term consequences those trajectories are likely to produce. The two settlements and their governing anthropologies Libertas and its later sister settlements are intended to achieve full internal autonomy. In the end-state of a confederation of sovereign city-states, major Union-level decisions will be made through direct popular vote via initiative, referendum, and recall. The Union government will have strictly enumerated powers and will only be as large as is necessary to provide infrastructure and interoperability among the participating settlements. The Martian Space Guard will be strictly capped at 0.2% of the total Union population and limited exclusively to defensive, search-and-rescue, and humanitarian functions. Secession from the confederation is designed as an unamendable core principle, placed alongside fundamental individual liberties drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Martian Federalist essays warn that even modest concentrations of coercive authority in lethal environments tend toward tyranny. Governance in this model therefore rests on the premise that human beings are sovereign moral agents whose dignity is inherent and non-derogable. Collective welfare is expected to emerge from voluntary cooperation among free persons rather than top-down direction. The economic asymmetry between the two hypothetical nascent settlements is already substantial and structural. Harmony, by contrast, remains under direct Sino-Russian metropole control. Authority flows top-down from a Party-led Central Committee with reporting lines to Beijing and Moscow. Daily governance prioritizes five-year resource quotas, ideological cohesion, and “comprehensive national security.” A larger multi-role security apparatus handles both external defense and internal stability, including biometric monitoring and mandatory ideological education. Individual rights exist but are explicitly subordinated to the overriding imperatives of mission success and collective survival. The anthropology here assumes that disciplined unity and centralized command, rather than dispersed consent, offer the greatest probability of enduring when the margin between life and death is measured in kilograms of oxygen and minutes of life support. These are not mere incremental policy preferences. They represent fundamentally different answers to the classical question posed by Cicero—what is a city, if not a concord of a multitude of humans —and what form of concord is best suited to the unforgiving realities of Mars. Economic, geopolitical, and civilizational dynamics, and AI divergence The economic asymmetry between the two hypothetical nascent settlements is already substantial and structural. The Libertas consortium benefits from a cumulative GDP roughly three times that of the Sino- Russian core when core allies and major partners are included. This scale is amplified by private-sector innovation, voluntary capital flows, and network effects. Most multi-aligned actors have shown a preference for the Artemis/Charter framework because it offers higher material quality of life, transparent governance, and low-coercion adaptability. Third-party settlements and talent are attracted organically rather than through heavy subsidies. Harmony faces a persistent structural handicap. Its larger internal security apparatus diverts significant labor, energy, and ISRU capacity from productive expansion. While centralized direction enables rapid mobilization during narrow planetary alignment windows, it correlates with lower long-term innovation rates and higher output volatility. Most hedging powers on Earth lean toward or maintain associate status with Libertas; Harmony’s network remains narrower and more dependent on Earth subsidies and tight political control. Migration patterns already expose the anthropological divide. Exit from Libertas to other settlements is treated as a protected right and is facilitated as a matter of principle. In Harmony, any expressed desire to migrate or secede is treated as a security threat and met with containment or suppression. An independence movement in Harmony would likely be received in Beijing and Moscow much as the American Declaration of Independence was received in 1776 London—as illegitimate separatism threatening mission integrity and national prestige. Artificial intelligence will amplify the divide. In Libertas, AI governance would emphasize transparency, pluralism, and decentralized innovation, accelerating bottom-up problem-solving. In Harmony, AI would be tightly coupled with state control and ideological alignment, enabling disciplined execution but risking echo chambers and suppressed dissent. Over time, Libertas’s pluralistic AI ecosystem is positioned to compound innovation advantages, while Harmony’s controlled AI may deliver short-term reliability at the cost of long-term adaptability. The genetic frontier: Homo martialis and the Frankenstein Paradox Nowhere is the clash of anthropologies sharper than in the prospect of deliberate, heritable genetic engineering for Martian adaptation. By the 2050s and 2060s, both consortia would possess comparable technical capabilities. Martian-specific traits such as enhanced radiation repair, microgravity-tolerant physiology, reduced oxygen demand, and altered circadian rhythms are biologically plausible. Harmony faces the stronger temptation. Its anthropology permits the subordination of the individual genome to collective goals. A Homo martialis program could be framed as a strategic necessity: faster self-sufficiency, lower life-support mass, and reduced Earth dependency. The project would begin as a calculated technological triumph. Yet it carries a profound Shelleyan risk. The regime most capable of authorizing such engineering is also the one most fearful of the uncontrollable “Other.” A genetically distinct subspecies, native to Mars, would inevitably develop its own identity and eventually a claim to nationhood. The declaration, “We have spawned a new race here…. We’re a new nationality and we require a new nation,” would not be an aberration but a likely outcome. Biology and environment would interact: raised in 0.38 g and closed-habitat conditions, the engineered population would be shaped by a different lived experience than their Earth-origin creators. The He Jiankui precedent is instructive. Chinese authorities punished the rogue scientist primarily for violating national regulations on germline editing. A state-directed program would face fewer procedural obstacles, but the same doctrinal conservatism that enables bold technological risk also generates resistance to the sociological disruption a new subspecies would introduce. Fear of losing control over the creation could therefore act as a powerful internal brake. Libertas, grounded in informed consent and individual dignity, is far more likely to abstain from large-scale heritable redesign. It would probably limit itself to voluntary somatic enhancements while accepting slower adaptation in exchange for ethical consistency. The contrast is stark: one model risks creating an uncontrollable successor species; the other risks technological conservatism born of principle. Projection to 2100 and the Martian adjudication Parameterized growth models, grounded in the contrasting mechanics we have examined, consistently project Libertas achieving superior outcomes over the long term. Starting from small outposts of roughly 50 residents by 2050, Libertas benefits from higher innovation rates, lower security overhead, voluntary network effects, and more efficient resource allocation. Under conservative assumptions, Libertas could reach several hundred residents with meaningfully higher ISRU self-sufficiency and material quality of life by 2100. Harmony would grow more slowly, constrained by persistent diversion of resources to internal control and the inherent frictions of centralized direction in a high-latency environment. The gap widens steadily after the initial decades as Libertas’s adaptability and attraction of voluntary settlers compound, while Harmony’s model continues to pay a structural tax in the form of security overhead and reduced bottom-up innovation. Mars itself will serve as the ultimate adjudicator. These projections are illustrative, not predictive. Sensitivity analysis shows that even optimistic assumptions favoring Harmony’s short-term mobilization rarely reverse the long-term trend. Black-swan events, technological leaps, or cultural evolution on Mars could materially alter trajectories. AI divergence further amplifies the gap: Libertas’s pluralistic AI ecosystem is likely to compound adaptive innovation, while Harmony’s controlled AI may deliver short-term reliability at the cost of brittleness when confronting novel challenges or emergent identities. Nevertheless, the structural tendencies remain clear. One anthropology bets on dispersed dignity, consent, exit rights, and emergent order. The other bets on centralized discipline, enforced unity, and subordination of the individual to the collective mission. Mars itself will serve as the ultimate adjudicator. The Red Planet is indifferent to terrestrial philosophies. It will test, with unforgiving precision, which conception of human nature proves more adaptive to its distances, latencies, resource constraints, and psychological pressures. Conclusion The contest between Libertas and Harmony is more than a thought experiment. It is a high-stakes test of two enduring visions of human society under conditions that will punish every weakness and reward every strength. One model trusts in dispersed authority, voluntary cooperation, and the right to exit; the other places its faith in centralized command, ideological cohesion, and the subordination of the individual to collective survival. Both approaches are coherent within their own premises. One accepts short-term inefficiencies in pursuit of long-term adaptability and self-renewal. The other accepts constraints on liberty in exchange for discipline and rapid mobilization. The structural consequences are already foreseeable. Economic scale, innovation rates, migration flows, AI development, and even the temptation of genetic redesign all flow from these foundational choices. Parameterized projections show the decentralized model compounding advantages over decades, while the centralized model pays a persistent overhead in security, control, and suppressed initiative. Yet history is full of surprises; black-swan events, technological breakthroughs, or unforeseen cultural shifts on Mars could still reshape the outcome. Ultimately, the Red Planet itself will render the verdict. Mars cares nothing for terrestrial ideologies. Its thin atmosphere, high radiation, communication latencies, and closed life-support systems will serve as an impartial laboratory, revealing which conception of human nature proves more resilient across generations. The settlements we establish there will not only extend our species outward—they will hold up a mirror to our deepest assumptions about dignity, order, freedom, and responsibility. We still see through a glass, darkly. No psychohistorian stands ready with certainty. What is clear is that the political and anthropological decisions made in the next two or three decades will echo for centuries. By wrestling honestly with these two paths now, we improve our chances of choosing wisely when the moment arrives. Thomas Gangale is an aerospace engineer (BS, University of Southern California), political scientist and international relations scholar (MA, San Francisco State University), space jurist (JSD, University of Nebraska), space historian, dog walker, cat herder, and visiting professor at the University of Mars. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

Aliens On THe Moon-What The Artemis II Cameras Detected

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CSGQfZ2EOU

Artemis II Is Back Home With a Great Landing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej9vhpQ-MUg