{"id":59688,"date":"2026-04-10T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=59688"},"modified":"2026-04-10T11:23:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T11:23:56","slug":"welcome-home-artemis-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=59688","title":{"rendered":"Welcome home, Artemis II!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n\r\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Allow me this admission that comes with a plea for understanding if I look a bit bug-eyed for most of the day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The four-person Artemis II lunar orbiter mission is set to splash down this evening in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Calif. The rocket that propelled the astronauts to the moon now gives way to the Orion spacecraft that will carry the astronauts back home.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Understand that my candid plea is deserved because of what occurred on Feb. 3, 2003 at the end of space shuttle Columbia&#8217;s 16-day Earth orbit mission. The Columbia shuttle mission, commanded by Amarillo resident Rick Husband, ended when the shuttle broke apart as it returned. We lost all seven of the astronauts in that tragic conclusion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Now we hear about possible damage to the Orion heat shield. I hope you understand my anxiety today as the Artemis II crew prepares its return to Earth&#8217;s <em>terra firma. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The four-member crew has joined the growing list of space-travel heroes who will be feted with parades and endless speaking engagements.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Let&#8217;s get through this latest moment of possible danger. I likely will weep tears of joy when I see those parachutes open and Orion splashes into the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\r\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allow me this admission that comes with a plea for understanding if I look a bit bug-eyed for most of the day. The four-person Artemis II lunar orbiter mission is set to splash down this evening in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Calif. The rocket that propelled the astronauts to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=59688\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Welcome home, Artemis II!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8386],"tags":[10544,1068,5622,3182,3944],"class_list":["post-59688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-science-news","tag-artemis-ii","tag-columbia","tag-moon-mission","tag-nasa","tag-rick-husband"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59690,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59688\/revisions\/59690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}