NASA Officials Sidestepped Questions on Artemis II Risks After Discovering Mission Involves Actually Going to Space

HOUSTON — NASA officials awkwardly deflected reporter questions about Artemis II mission risks this week after a shocking internal discovery revealed that the ambitious lunar program involves astronauts physically traveling through the vacuum of space to reach the moon, sources confirmed Thursday.

The revelation came during a routine mission briefing when junior engineer Rebecca Martinez innocently asked, 'Wait, we're actually sending people up there? Like, way up there?' prompting a series of hurried whispered conversations among senior administrators.

'This ought to make for some good reading,' said Mission Management Team Chair Dr. James Patterson, nervously shuffling through a stack of papers while avoiding eye contact with reporters. 'I mean, assuming anyone can read in the terrifying void of space, which, now that I think about it, presents its own set of challenges.'

Further investigation revealed that multiple NASA officials had somehow assumed the $93 billion Artemis program involved an elaborate Hollywood soundstage production, similar to what conspiracy theorists claim happened with the Apollo missions.

'I thought we were just going to film some really convincing footage of people bouncing around,' admitted Deputy Associate Administrator Linda Chen. 'When someone mentioned 'rocket fuel' and 'launch trajectory,' I figured those were just really technical film terms.'

The awkward situation worsened when reporters pressed for specific risk assessments, leading to one official frantically googling 'how dangerous is space' during the live press conference.

'Look, space is big and scary and has no air,' Patterson explained to the room. 'We're still calculating the exact mathematical probability of that being problematic, but preliminary estimates suggest it could be somewhat inconvenient for human survival.'

NASA has since announced they will be conducting a comprehensive review of what space travel actually entails, with results expected sometime after the originally planned mission launch date.