The Artemis II mission has completed its manned trip around the moon and returned safely to Earth, marking the farthest humans have ever been from our planet, just edging past the previous record set by Apollo 13. It is also the first time humans have traveled to deep space since the Apollo era, setting up for an upcoming lunar landing and the early phases of a permanent lunar base.
But while most people watched in awe or barely noticed, one group could not stop obsessing over the mission: flat earthers.
As Professor Dave Explains in a recent video, the Artemis II mission provided live footage from launch all the way up to Earth orbit, and breathtaking images of the moon and Earth from deep space. The reactions from prominent flat earth figures have been nothing short of comic.
Eric Dubay claimed the mission was fraudulent, citing his belief that the original Apollo landings were faked in a studio. He pointed to NASA images of Earth and complained about seeing “nothing but ocean and part of Africa,” apparently missing clearly visible landmasses including South America, Spain, and much of Europe.
He then ran the images through an AI tool and announced they came back as “confirmed CGI images,” which raised an obvious irony given the flat earth community’s general distrust of trillion-dollar tech industries.
David Weiss contributed his own analysis, including renaming the mission “Fartmus” in a homemade animation, and expressing genuine confusion about what qualifies as a solar eclipse. When Artemis II crew members observed the moon blocking sunlight from deep space, Weiss apparently could not recognize it as an eclipse because it did not look identical to one viewed from Earth’s surface.
The live reaction broadcast featuring Weiss and Mark Sergeant produced perhaps the richest material. The two spent roughly an hour counting camera angle switches as evidence of fakery, misidentifying rocket components, and wondering aloud whether NASA might blame Iran if the rocket failed. Sergeant also appeared genuinely puzzled over why the spent solid rocket boosters were not “spinning out of control” after separation.
As Professor Dave notes, these figures no longer attempt elaborate pseudoscientific arguments. They simply watch genuine space travel unfold in real time, decline to look anything up, and declare everything fake.
Artemis II has been a milestone for humanity and, for a very different audience, an unintentional comedy.
