NASA to Artemis II: ‘Use a T-shirt to block the sunlight’ in our $24 billion spaceship

Given its $24 billion price tag and two decades in development, one would think that the Artemis II mission’s Orion spaceship would be flawless. Alas, that’s not how things work in the space program. These machines’ designs are so complex and so many things can go wrong that there is always going to be a breaking point somewhere. Sometimes this involves comical but potentially dangerous consequences—like Artemis II’s toilet malfunction or its Microsoft Outlook glitches—while other times there are tragic endings, like the losses of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia and their crews. Still, I wasn’t expecting a “use a T-shirt or something to block the sunlight rather than the spaceship’s built-in window shades” in my 2026 NASA bingo card. That’s exactly what happened on Day 4 of the ongoing lunar flyby. I was listening to the highlights when this exchange—which I’ll explain below—between Mission Control and the Artemis II crew happened: Houston: We have a