Published 6 April 2026
e549 with Andy, Michael and Michael – boldly go into a deep set of space discussions featuring Artemis II, ways to keep track of the historic flight, COTS software and hardware aboard the spacecraft, Bernie Sanders conversation with Claude, TU Wien’s mini QR code and a whole lot more!
Andy, Michael and Michael boldly go into a deep set of space discussions focusing on the launch of Artemis II. Mission Control starts off with the Artemis II Tracker built by Jakob Rosin for Jakob Rosin, and as he says, every other space nerd who stayed up for launch night. The tracker is a fantastic assembly of data related to the mission, and is well worth bookmarking to keep up to speed on the progress of the astronauts as they approach the Moon and make their return journey to Earth.
Andy, Michael and Michael take a look at an article describing how COTS (commercial, off the shelf) technology are used in space missions, and the steps needed to ensure such technologies are appropriate for the mission. It is no surprise that iPhone use aboard Artemis II caught the co-hosts’ attention, and after recording the episode, they found even more insight on how the iPhone 17 Pro Max was cleared for use. Another COTS technology used aboard the spacecraft was email – and also needed some glitches to be resolved.
Other interesting stories came from the Gizmodo article, such as the pre-launch card game which continues until the mission commander loses, and the challenges with the Universal Waste Management System that were initially resolved in Earth orbit, through another issue surfaced later in the voyage with the vent line. At time of this writing, all systems to go with the Universal Waste Management System were rated as ‘go’. The Moon plush named Rise, which acts as a zero gravity indicator, was designed by a second grader named Lucas Ye.
In the non-space portion of the episode, the team discusses browsergate, Bernie Sanders’ conversation with Claude and a mini QR code from the TU Wein that could help store up to 2TB of data on an A4 sized page!
Wrapping up the episode, Andy shares his contact information through his aggregation site of andypiper.me
Do you think that the orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro Max matched the uniform color of the Artemis crew? Have you placed your order for a copy of Rise? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!
These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Selected Links
Artemis II
Digital Trends article: Artemis II crew videos show astronauts goofing around with an iPhone in space
9 to 5 Mac article: Here’s how NASA cleared the iPhone 17 Pro Max for astronauts on Artemis II
Gizmodo article: 5 Things You May Have Missed During NASA’s Historic Launch of Artemis 2
CNN article: More than half way to the moon, the Artemis II astronauts grappled with a toilet problem
Tom’s Hardware article: Artemis II astronaut finds two Outlook instances running on computers, calls on Houston to fix Microsoft anomaly — puzzled caller describes ‘two Outlooks, and neither one of those are working’
ABC News article: 8-year-old watches his plush toy rocket to the moon with Artemis II mission
Games at Work e430: that’s no moon, it’s the Moon! (for the India Moon landing in 2023)
Security & Privacy
AI
Techdirt article: Bernie Sanders “Interviewed” A Chatbot To Expose AI’s Secrets. It Has No Secrets. It Just Agrees With You.
Ars Technica article: Here’s what that Claude Code source leak reveals about Anthropic’s plans
Connect with Andy
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