On Sunday, April 6, the Orion spacecraft carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will fly approximately 4,112 miles above the lunar surface -- the closest any humans have come to the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972 [1]. The crew will see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes, a view no human has witnessed in 54 years.

As the paper reported Thursday, the mission is proceeding on a flawless trajectory. The TLI burn on Wednesday night added 900 miles per hour to Orion's velocity, committing the spacecraft to a free-return loop around the Moon [2]. NASA's day-by-day timeline shows the crew performing systems checkouts and course corrections as they coast toward the lunar sphere of influence [3].

April 6 is also the date of Trump's deadline for Iran -- the ultimatum he issued demanding Iran capitulate or face escalation. The two events share a date and nothing else. The Artemis trajectory was calculated by engineers using orbital mechanics. The Iran deadline was announced on Truth Social. One follows the laws of physics. The other follows no discernible logic [4].

The spacecraft is the only thing in American governance currently on schedule. It will reach the Moon, loop behind it, and return to Earth by April 11. Whether the country it returns to will be at peace or deeper in war depends on decisions no engineer can model.

-- Kenji Nakamura, Tokyo