Got a Major Charge Seeing Artemis Zoom Off? Progs Are Here to Tell You It Was ALL Bad

Alright. I admit it.

It took everything I had to watch the last two minutes of the Artemis II countdown and the liftoff. Not because I wasn’t a fan of the idea – totally am – but because my heart was so in my throat I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening and feeling like I was personally responsible for jinxing them.

You know, in all the  Apollo years, I never once fretted over the launches – it was the stuff that came afterward and the reentry that always was a little dicey.

But NASA has left a lot of us with a hardcore case of Post Traumatic Shuttle Disorder. The botched launch and subsequent nine-month marooning of the two Boeing Starliner astronauts did nothing to restore our confidence in the agency’s competence and integrity, although my admiration for anyone willing to climb into a NASA-branded vehicle rose exponentially.

I mean, courage on crack, there.

I had the live link up in the headlines when we were two hours out, and I felt better that a lot of you all were on the same concerned page. Maybe not being as big a baby as I felt I was, but we were all still worried to our very bones.

So I fed the ferals – major dad is yelling ‘Six minutes to launch‘ from the couch – and piddled around with comments – ‘Two minutes to go’ – and, dammit. I had to watch.

Oh, boy. Prayers up.

ARTEMIS UP

And wasn’t it something? 

ZOOM ZOOM

Liftoff.

The Artemis II mission launched from @NASAKennedy at 6:35pm ET (2235 UTC), propelling four astronauts on a journey around the Moon.

Artemis II will pave the way for future Moon landings, as well as the next giant leap — astronauts on Mars. pic.twitter.com/ENQA4RTqAc

— NASA (@NASA) April 1, 2026

NASA’s cheesy coverage didn’t help with the yips – the burps in the video, no telemetry on the screen, etc. – holy smokes. Scared the crap out of me a couple of times when it blinked out, but I guess they didn’t have Elon’s bells and whistles budget. But, hey!

They haven’t done something like this in FIFTY YEARS.

Difference in quality between NASA and SpaceX’s launch livestreams. pic.twitter.com/9jK6Hk2r4h

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) April 2, 2026

What NASA did have was a magnificent moment of raw power, courage, and projection headed to the Heavens and they did it safely.

The chorus of cheers erupting from the spectators on the ground was so fantastic, and I was sniffling like a baby, listening to it, in my own moment of grateful relief and pride.

Huge congrats @NASAAdmin what a W for America

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) April 1, 2026

Yeah. It’s something to be so proud of as an American.

WE DID THAT, AND ONLY WE COULD DO THAT

My cousin captured Artemis takeoff from his flight. So cool

📸: @radddd44 pic.twitter.com/PpvnP2Ekd2

— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) April 1, 2026

As my friend, the normally staid and logical Cynical Publius said afterward (in as close to a ‘SQUEEEE!’ as he could ever come):

RE: The Moon Launch

OK, look, I admit it. I am an astronaut fanboy nerd (except for one ex-astronaut politician whose head resembles a scrotum).

If you are a late Boomer or early Gen Xer, you remember.

You heard Genesis read from an astronaut orbiting the Moon.

You and all…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) April 1, 2026

…You cried over Challenger and Columbia.

You got older and wondered why we became so timid.  Why not more of the Moon?  Why not Mars?  Why not beyond?  The ISS seemed so…. limiting.

You always said that the US space program was the one thing you did not care how much your were taxed for.

Elon became a god of space travel, and you were there for it.

So it’s our day, fellow astronaut nerd fanboys and fangirls.  Put on your make-believe astronaut beanies and goggles, be 8 again, and remember the way you took that refrigerator cardboard box and turned it into the inside of an Apollo capsule with magic markers, Scotch tape and buttons stolen from your Mom’s sewing box.

WE’RE GOING BACK TO THE FREAKING MOON BABY!!!!!🚀❤️🤍💙🇺🇸

Now, to be fair, the launch evolution and entry into orbit weren’t completely glitch-free…

https://t.co/fNhs97KbYT pic.twitter.com/LKcBulD4Ht

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 2, 2026

…but, by God, we’ll take it, and the astronauts have already gotten it fixed.

So you know that all the reveling and pride in this tremendous American success would have to eat away at the very thin, filmy fabric that wraps the tender, psycho psyches of the deep, perpetually resentful philosophers of the progressive movement.

And it did. Although they probably had these screeds ready well in advance, in the event of a successful launch, the jubilation and swelling of American chests with pride over Artemis screaming skyward had to have them feverishly adding more bitter bile to their earlier scribblings and spews.

This Sky News reporter let viewers know he was still bitter that it was all white men at Dunkirk.

Sorry. 

In the Apollo program, which, of course, completely delegitimized everything it accomplished, the colonizing bastards.

YEAH, AND THEY ARE GOING FOR ALL OF HUMANITY THIS TIME – APOLLO WAS ALL WHITE MEN

Weak self hating cadaverous melts like that tosser are a big reason we are where we are today as a society

White men literally built the world we have today

From the aeroplane to mobile phones to the internet so He can rot in hell

— Zee 🔥 (@Zeeeee_xx) April 1, 2026

The BBC beclowned itself, fretting over the specter of ‘troubling’ colonialism, before being shamed into deleting its navel-gazing Xweet.

DO WE RISK REPEATING THE MISTAKES OF COLONIAL EXPANSION AGAIN?

The black pilot for the white outer space supremacy ship. pic.twitter.com/GLlkiqARmm

— Charter 24 (@Charter24USA) April 2, 2026

Because so many Brits have threatened space with colonization, or do they mean in the general sense?

Canadians are spazzing at jokes about their countryman going for a ride along.

Americans were the first people there, ergo, we are the moon’s indigenous people. The moon is our ancestral exploration grounds.

— Aldous Huxley’s Ghost™ (@AF632) April 2, 2026

Like, lighten UP, Francis.

Actually, one of the funniest things IS a Canadian ‘going to the moon’ and having to hitch a ride with US.

— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) April 2, 2026

But the one naysaying shot across the bow that has gotten everyone’s goat came from a peculiar little virtue-signaling tech rag peopled by some pretty sad nerdy wonks, who, being compelled by their very nature to say something, the best they could come up with was this.

“everything amazing is actually very bad.” these writers are like if suicidal ideation were sentient, but also had a massive superiority complex. pic.twitter.com/SdtLbDrwQT

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) April 1, 2026

Of course, you knew the author, well, fit this mold.

Extremely tired of technology journalism being a group of people telling us everything is actually bad https://t.co/a4yMfwB71D pic.twitter.com/DQH9g66NjT

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) April 2, 2026

And not a soul is putting up with their pretentious moralizing anymore.

MOON-LON-LABE

— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) April 2, 2026

No one else has ever even come close.

We got there first, ‘Finders keepers’

And everyone who ISN’T us owes us a land acknowledgment if they put a toe anywhere near it.

— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) April 2, 2026

And, as the happy youngster expressed to CNN when they asked why he wanted to be at the launch?

BECAUSE WE’RE GOING BACK TO THE F**KIN’ MOON, THAT’S WHY

🚨 BOOM! This kid just dropped STRAIGHT FIRE on CNN ahead of Artemis II launch

“Why do you want to be here?”

KID: “We’re going back to the FRICKIN’ MOON, that’s why!” 🔥🇺🇸

History being made! pic.twitter.com/Ws5TyZP1U6

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 1, 2026

We’re not just going – we’re going BACK.

America’s next leap is underway..
Godspeed Artemis II 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/x87WuRm9jA

— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) April 1, 2026

May the good Lord continue to watch over the Artemis II crew and bring them home safely.

‘Merica.

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