A Manager's Guide to Orbital Mechanics

The Problem With Prepositions

The Multiverse Employee Handbook defines “mission parameter comprehension” as “the critical ability to distinguish between going TO a celestial body and going ON a celestial body—a distinction that seems trivial until marketing has already ordered 847 T-shirts celebrating a landing that will not occur.”

In February 2026, four astronauts will launch aboard Artemis II for humanity’s first crewed lunar mission in over fifty years. They will travel 240,000 miles to the Moon, swing around it using gravity, and return directly to Earth. Ten days. Zero landings. No moonwalks. No flags planted.

This is exactly what the mission was designed to do.

The confusion arises because people hear “lunar mission” and immediately imagine Neil Armstrong-style bootprints. They envision flags. Photographs. Historic first steps. The cultural memory of Apollo is so powerful that “going to the Moon” automatically implies “landing on the Moon” in most people’s minds.

But orbital mechanics doesn’t care about cultural expectations. And the difference between a flyby trajectory and a landing mission isn’t semantic—it’s billions of dollars in additional hardware, years of development, and an entirely separate spacecraft that won’t be ready until Artemis III.

Welcome to the era when prepositions matter more than you’d expect.

The Fifty-Year Knowledge Gap

The last humans near the Moon were the crew of Apollo 17 in December 1972. Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the surface. Ronald Evans remained in lunar orbit. Then humanity simply stopped going.

Fifty years is long enough for institutional knowledge to evaporate completely.

The engineers who designed the Saturn V have retired or passed away. The manufacturing facilities were demolished decades ago. The suppliers who made specialised Apollo components went out of business or pivoted to different industries. NASA didn’t just lose the rockets—it lost the knowledge of how to build them.

The original Apollo blueprints still exist, filed in archives, but they’re insufficient for modern safety standards. Apollo operated under 1960s-era risk tolerance—considerably more cavalier than today’s approach to keeping astronauts alive. Everything had to be rebuilt from scratch.

The corporate parallel is precise: Imagine your company trying to recreate a product from fifty years ago. The original engineers are gone. The manufacturing facilities were demolished to save on property taxes. The suppliers have moved on. Your documentation consists of incomplete blueprints that don’t meet current safety regulations.

But Marketing has already promised clients it’ll work exactly like the original.

And unlike typical corporate promises, if this one fails, people don’t just lose money—they die in vacuum whilst the world watches on live television.

Why Artemis II Doesn’t Land

Artemis II has four very specific objectives:

Test the Space Launch System (SLS) with crew aboard—the most powerful rocket since Saturn V
Validate Orion spacecraft systems in deep space beyond Earth’s protective magnetosphere
Verify life support, navigation, and communications during the ten-day mission including lunar far-side blackout
Prove the heat shield works on return at 40,000 kilometres per hour atmospheric entry

Notice what’s not on that list: landing.

There is no lunar lander on this mission. No surface-rated spacesuits. No landing legs. No ascent propulsion. Artemis II is testing whether we can safely get to the Moon and back—the prerequisite for attempting a landing.

The Human Landing System (Starship HLS) won’t be ready until Artemis III, currently targeting mid-2027 though 2028 or 2029 seems more realistic. SpaceX is developing it whilst simultaneously developing Starship for Mars missions, satellite deployment, and whatever gets tweeted on any given Tuesday. Their objectives don’t always align with NASA’s schedule.

This creates a curious situation: the most visible mission—the one getting media attention, the one with crew announced, the one people are excited about—is explicitly designed to NOT do the thing everyone assumes it will do.

The management lesson: Sometimes the most important achievement is successfully completing the boring prerequisite that proves you can do the thing before actually doing the thing.

The Free-Return Trajectory (Or: Orbital Insurance)

Artemis II follows what’s called a free-return trajectory. Here’s why that matters:

If everything works perfectly, Orion’s engines fire at precise moments to shape the trajectory, control the approach distance, and manage the return. But if something fails—engines malfunction, guidance fails, power drops—the Moon’s gravity automatically slings the spacecraft back to Earth without requiring additional propulsion.

It’s orbital insurance. The trajectory is designed so that doing nothing still gets you home.

Apollo 13 famously used a free-return trajectory after their oxygen tank exploded. The spacecraft was already on a path that would loop around the Moon and return to Earth. They just had to survive the journey.

Artemis II builds this safety feature into the mission from the start. Days 3-4: trans-lunar injection burn sends them toward the Moon. Days 5-7: swing around the far side (no communication with Earth during this period—first humans to experience that since 1972). Days 8-10: coast back and prepare for splashdown.

The corporate parallel: It’s like designing your project plan so that if everything fails, you still deliver something useful rather than complete disaster. Except in this case, “something useful” is “four astronauts returned alive” and “complete disaster” is significantly more permanent.

The Crew Making History

Commander Reid Wiseman: 165 days on ISS, two spacewalks, systems engineering background, former naval aviator and test pilot. He brings operational experience and technical depth.

Pilot Victor Glover: First person of colour to travel to the Moon. SpaceX Crew-1 veteran, 168 days on ISS, four spacewalks. Extensive test pilot experience. He’s making history by being included in it.

Mission Specialist Christina Koch: First woman to travel to the Moon. Holds the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days on ISS). First all-female spacewalk. Electrical engineering and physics background. Another historic first that’s frankly overdue.

Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen: First non-American to travel to the Moon. First Canadian to go beyond low Earth orbit. Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 fighter pilot. And remarkably—this is his first spaceflight ever.

Most astronauts get Earth orbit missions first. Hansen gets the Moon on his debut. That’s either tremendous confidence in his abilities or a very aggressive training programme. Possibly both.

What Comes Next (And Why China Matters)

Artemis III will attempt the actual landing—targeting the Moon’s south pole region where permanently shadowed craters contain water ice. Two astronauts land, two stay in Orion. Six-and-a-half days on the surface. Four to five spacewalks. First lunar landing since 1972.

China is targeting their own crewed landing by 2030 using the Mengzhou crew vehicle, Lanyue lander, and Long March 10 rocket. They’ve unveiled lunar spacesuits. They’re sending robotic precursors—Chang’e 7 in 2026, Chang’e 8 in 2028. They’re building on successful missions including the first far-side sample return in 2024.

Both nations are targeting the same south pole region.

A former NASA administrator stated bluntly: “Countries that get there first write the rules.”

This isn’t Cold War ideology. It’s geopolitical positioning. Scientific discovery, long-term infrastructure, technology development for Mars missions, international prestige, and establishing norms for space resource utilisation—all determined by who lands first.

The corporate parallel: Two companies racing to dominate an emerging market. One has the legacy brand and historical credibility but aging infrastructure. The other has newer systems and centralised decision-making. Both are spending billions. The winner sets industry standards. The loser explains to shareholders why they’re second.

The Management Lesson

The Square-Haired Boss’s error wasn’t enthusiasm—it was reading only the first two words of the contract before announcing plans.

“Lunar mission” doesn’t automatically mean “lunar landing.” The distinction matters. Not just semantically, but in terms of hardware, budget, timeline, risk, and whether you’ve correctly explained to stakeholders what they’re actually getting.

Artemis II is a test flight. It validates systems. It proves concept. It demonstrates capability. These are essential prerequisites for the landing attempt that follows.

But they’re not the landing itself.

Understanding that distinction—between the thing and the prerequisite for the thing—is what separates competent project management from expensive surprises when you discover the deliverable doesn’t match expectations.

In orbital mechanics, prepositions have precise meanings. “To” and “on” aren’t interchangeable. Neither are “around” and “onto.” The difference costs billions and takes years to bridge.

And sometimes the most important missions are the ones that prove you can do the impressive thing by successfully doing the boring thing that makes the impressive thing possible.

That’s Artemis II. Ten days. Four astronauts. Zero landings. Maximum validation.

The Moon will still be there when we’re ready to land. It’s been patient for fifty years. It can wait another two.