Tonight I just happened to catch the Artemis II crew doing interviews with TV stations on the NASA live stream.
There aren’t timestamps for live streams, but this was on 4/2/2026 and was about 10h40m into this stream at the time of writing.
They were being interviewed by TV stations and what struck me was not just that they were energetic and joyful, but that some of those simple joys seemed to be connected to orchestrated events (like wake-up music or familiar, yet seemingly unexpected voices from Houston). These were small, but meaningful joys.
Watching the launch the day before made an unexpected impact: it was relieving to see a diverse group of experts collaboratively achieving the unimaginable again. Years of planning and preparation and final checks. The seriousness and the joy. Nothing taken for granted and everything planned with backups.
And then it hit me: the joy is certainly planned for too. So I asked the following:
Thankfully the wonderful Jacob Kaplan-Moss responded with an answer and a recommended resource of Mary Roach’s book Packing for Mars. Since I’ve not heard of it the library will be my friend.
Thank you, Jacob. I’ve added this to the reading list. With any luck I’ll learn a bit about how, specifically, to plan for joy. My best to the Astronauts! May you have the most supportive space.
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