April 2, 2026
To the Moon—into the comments
Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker
Fans love the DIY Moon tracker — then spiral into unit wars and AI drama
TLDR: A fan-built Artemis II tracker with live mission info charmed readers, then instantly sparked debates over miles vs. kilometers, “AI-coded” design vibes, and where the data comes from. It matters because fans rely on tools like this to follow spaceflight—and they want accuracy, transparency, and trust.
A scrappy fan dropped a “little Artemis II tracker” and the internet did what it does best: obsess over the details. The page dishes live mission vibes—Outbound Coast to the Moon, a cool 6.66 km/s, Earth and Moon distances, even a half‑second comms delay—with a NASA TV box and NOAA space weather in the sidebar. One user simply said “Nice,” and then boom: the comment section lit up. “Does NASA do miles per hour?” asked one, invoking the infamous Mars Climate Orbiter mix‑up like a protective talisman. Metric vs. Imperial became the first battlefield of the night.
The second? AI vibes. One eagle‑eyed commenter declared their brain “instantly recognized it’s AI coded,” citing the glow, spacing, and font—the internet’s new designer red flag. Cue a split: is it machine‑made, or just a slick, lo‑fi aesthetic? Meanwhile, the wholesome crowd rallied around the builder’s energy—“this is vibe code goodness!”—while peppering them with the ultimate trust test: Where’s the data from? Multiple folks asked if a NASA API powers the tracker or if it’s computed from public mission plans. Verdict from the thread: love the tool, argue about the units, side‑eye the design, and demand receipts. Classic internet spaceflight fandom, now boarding.
Key Points
- •The tracker displays Artemis II in the Outbound Coast phase with MET T+1d 22:24:24 (Day 2/10).
- •Current telemetry shown: speed 6.66 km/s, 167,925 km from Earth, 222,846 km to the Moon, and a 0.56-second comms delay.
- •The next major event listed is the Lunar Flyby in approximately 2 days and 5 hours.
- •Trajectory data are computed from NASA’s Artemis II mission plan; the page updates every 5 seconds with all times in UTC.
- •Live space weather from NOAA SWPC shows Kp Index 3.0 (Unsettled), solar wind 1.6 p/cm³ at 682 km/s, and IMF parameters Bt 5.4 nT, Bz +5.2 nT; a NASA TV section is included for coverage.