have courage, dear heart

It's probably already been spread around here enough already, but in case anyone's missed it; 7 hours after launch, commander Reid Wiseman, dealing with tech issues, uttered the generational quote "I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working."

After fixing the issues that were afflicting the onboard toilet, mission specialist Christina Koch (who has quickly become my favourite of the four) laughingly said “I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”

On Easter Sunday, the Artemis II crew hosted a makeshift egg hunt, by hiding packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs around their Orion capsule.

The way the crew always makes sure to make it very clear they're in space when doing interviews. From stuff like Wiseman just hanging out floating sideways on screen or Koch letting her hair loose so it can freely span out flowing around her.

While in transit, the crew decided to record a parody of those bad 80s sitcom intros where everyone turns and smiles at the camera.

When the crew reached the furthest point from Earth in the mission, they jokingly clambored over each other in an effort to get to the far side of the capsule, so that they could individually claim to be the furthest person from earth.

At the same time, on the ISS which was at the time on the other side of earth, the 7 astronauts onboard had a light-hearted race to the far side of the station, making jokes about being the furthest humans from Artemis.

On the way back to earth, NASA actually managed to establish an audio call between the crews of the ISS and Artemis II (where they shared the above info), and Koch called one member of the ISS crew, Jessica Meir, her "astro-sister" as the two of them previously spacewalker together in 2019. Meir then responded I'm so happy that we are back in space together, even if we are a few miles apart" (a few here being 230,000).

i still can’t get over the fact that they did practical effects!! and there was NO GREENSCREEN

in season 1 we see robby struggling with his mental health through flashbacks, conversations, and eventually his breakdown in ep 15. but much like dr mohan’s panic attack in s2, ep 10, the crisis presents itself in a way that a lot of people (gen z especially) are familiar with in terms of witnessing or experiencing debilitating anxiety

season 2 is different, we perceive robby’s mental health from a largely outside perspective. he’s lying, lashing out, and denying his current state to friends and colleagues. we are watching him experience a mental health crisis in real time and it’s… not palatable or comfortable. he’s acting unprofessionally, even cruelly, to people he’s supposed to be in charge of. it’s not pretty, dare i say it’s probably not supposed to be. it’s realistic. not everyone experiences a crisis internally or in an isolated fashion as is often presented in media.

as someone who works in emergency management (not medicine) he’s someone who’s not only experiencing profound ptsd and depression, but moral and stress injury sourced in the work he performs day in and day out. it’s an exhausting feeling and nearly impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it. it’s scary to experience and frustrating to communicate through- your reality feels fundamentally altered compared to everyone around you.

tldr; dr robby is experiencing a complex mental health crisis and while it doesn’t excuse his actions, it is related to his outward behavior and actions. all his worst instincts are coming to the surface bc the man has been in crisis for months and is ready to give up, he doesn’t care about the consequences bc he doesn’t expect to be there for the fallout (shown in his response to the shutdown and al-hashimi)