Artemis I was unmanned, so probably real.

Artemis II, launched on 1 Apr 2026, is the first claim of a manned mission to depart low-Earth orbit since 1972. Therefore, it’s an opportunity to look for the strings in real time.

Pretty much all imagery without people in it is probably real.

When you start to see the astronauts’ faces in shots with the Moon in the background super close, or astronauts with the Earth far away from them, those are fake. Thumbs up! Selfie! Yay! The imagery will look convincing I’m sure. It’s 2026, so technology has improved, including CGI and video splicing.

Pay attention to the post-mission interviews with the astronauts. Those will be interesting. There is a watch party for the return of Artemis II scheduled 10 April.

Hey, maybe they have solved the radiation problem since 2014 when NASA is last on record saying the Van Allen radiation is a big problem for humans. I doubt it.

I’m curious how they are going to show the Apollo landing sites. That’ll be interesting. Have we seen a high-def image of the Apollo landing sites since Apollo went there? Nope. Maybe we will now with AI image generation.

The Apollo missions, here.

Godspeed Artemis!