Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jovan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. Send how the
Speaker 1: tech are you? So? Initially I had planned to have
Speaker 1: a brand new episode because we have so few left
Speaker 1: before I hand the show over to new hosts. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in the process of putting that show together, I had
Speaker 1: multiple no this is ironic technological failures that have set
Speaker 1: me back. So rather than go without an episode today,
Speaker 1: I thought one thing we could do is revisit an
Speaker 1: episode that published a couple of years ago about the
Speaker 1: Artemis program. This is the program at NASA that it
Speaker 1: aims to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
Speaker 1: Now that particular program has recently it's been announced that
Speaker 1: it's had some setbacks, some delays, not a big surprise.
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of issues going on with
Speaker 1: NASA and spacecraft in general, and so now the mission
Speaker 1: that would send astronauts to do a flyby of the Moon,
Speaker 1: they would pass behind the Moon and then come back
Speaker 1: to Earth. That is pushed back to twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we would once again have astronauts on the
Speaker 1: Moon's surface by twenty twenty seven. Whether that happens or
Speaker 1: not remains to be seen, but I thought perhaps it
Speaker 1: would be a good idea to revisit this episode the
Speaker 1: Artemis program and kind of reflect on the mission itself,
Speaker 1: like why does the mission exist, what are its goals,
Speaker 1: and what potentially could we gain from this, keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that it's frequently impossible to predict what you could
Speaker 1: gain because these missions come with them certain massive challenges
Speaker 1: the engineers have to figure out how to solve, and
Speaker 1: in the process of solving those challenges, we can sometimes
Speaker 1: uncover the possibility for technologies that can benefit us in
Speaker 1: other ways, not just in order to survive on the
Speaker 1: Moon's surface, but do other stuff. And so it's really impossible,
Speaker 1: I would argue, to anticipate what benefits we could see
Speaker 1: beyond just the mission accomplished section of these sorts of things,
Speaker 1: And in my mind, that's a great reason to pursue
Speaker 1: these really challenging goals. Now, should we pursue the challenging
Speaker 1: goal of going back to the Moon as opposed to
Speaker 1: some other challenging goal. That's a different discussion, one that
Speaker 1: I think is also worth having I don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a zero sum game necessarily, but ultimately we do
Speaker 1: have to start prioritizing what we're focusing on, what we're
Speaker 1: dedicating resources to, and in the process we might come
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that one pursuit is more worthy than another.
Speaker 1: And we'll really see how that shakes out once the
Speaker 1: new administration takes power here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: whether or not we see a more aggressive approach toward
Speaker 1: space exploration. I would certainly expect that to happen, considering
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk, you know, he has a private space company,
Speaker 1: and he's real buddy buddy with the President elect. So
Speaker 1: if I had to wager, I would say that we'd
Speaker 1: see a lot more space stuff in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, let's listen to this episode the
Speaker 1: Artemis Program, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about space and NASA's most
Speaker 1: recent program, intended to put American astronauts back on the
Speaker 1: Moon and eventually to go beyond the Moon. But first
Speaker 1: let's do a quick look back into the history of
Speaker 1: the space program. So back in the early nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: the United States was in a fierce competition with the
Speaker 1: then Soviet Union. The Soviets had shocked Americans upon the
Speaker 1: launch of the satellite Sputnik that was the first man
Speaker 1: made object launched into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik didn't
Speaker 1: really do a whole lot other than send out a
Speaker 1: little beep of a radio signal as it traveled miles
Speaker 1: above the Earth's surface, but the implications of that launch
Speaker 1: were enormous. First, the fact that the Soviets could launch
Speaker 1: an object into orbit suggested that the USSR also had
Speaker 1: the capability of launching, say, you know, a missile somewhere else,
Speaker 1: like across the world at the United States. Coupled with
Speaker 1: a nuclear warhead. That was a chilling thought. The US
Speaker 1: and the USSR held a great deal of animosity for
Speaker 1: each other, which is putting it lightly, or at least
Speaker 1: the governments of those countries did, and each government supported
Speaker 1: an awful lot of propaganda aimed at vilifying the other side.
Speaker 1: As a child of the eighties, I remember a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of anti Soviet, anti Russian kind of messaging
Speaker 1: in pop culture and beyond well, anyway, the second part
Speaker 1: of this is that the world is a stage, as
Speaker 1: Shakespeare once wrote, and on that stage, the Soviets were
Speaker 1: poised to take on the role of most technologically and
Speaker 1: scientifically advanced nation on the planet, and that was something
Speaker 1: that the US government wasn't too keen on either, and
Speaker 1: so there was a very strong incentive to give the
Speaker 1: US space industry its own shot in the arm to
Speaker 1: catch up and then ultimately to pass the Soviet space program.
Speaker 1: The space race would showcase the best and worst of
Speaker 1: human traits. Among the best were ingenuity, problem solving, collaboration, exploration,
Speaker 1: and curiosity. Among the worst, you had pride, you had
Speaker 1: boasting not to mention the fact that the finish line
Speaker 1: kept getting pushed back whenever one side would achieve something notable,
Speaker 1: like you might say, oh, well, really, the real test
Speaker 1: is to put the first person up in space, And
Speaker 1: then the Soviets did that, and the Americans said, well, really,
Speaker 1: the real test is docking two spacecraft in space together.
Speaker 1: And then the Americans did that, and the Soviets said, well, really,
Speaker 1: it's and so they kept pushing that back until finally
Speaker 1: it got to the real goal isn't to put something
Speaker 1: into orbit, but to get to the Moon, and that
Speaker 1: was viewed as the ultimate goal. The ultimate finish line. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, for reals, a lot of the space race
Speaker 1: was really just about moving those goal posts so that
Speaker 1: one side could not easily declare victory and superiority over
Speaker 1: the other side. And yes, it is more than a
Speaker 1: little bit childish. It might remind you of kids playing
Speaker 1: a game where they keep changing the rules whenever it
Speaker 1: seems like they're losing. However, that childish desire is also
Speaker 1: what helped drive and perhaps more importantly, fund the actual
Speaker 1: engineering and science that would lead to some of the
Speaker 1: greatest achievements in human history. These are achievements that would
Speaker 1: spin off numerous beneficial technologies that we rely upon and
Speaker 1: benefit from today. Anyway, in nineteen sixty three, the US
Speaker 1: Space Agency NASA initiated a new program named Apollo, and
Speaker 1: this was an official response to a promise that had
Speaker 1: been made in nineteen sixty one by US President John F. Kennedy.
Speaker 1: He announced a commitment to get astronauts to the Moon
Speaker 1: by the end of that decade. Now, in Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: Apollo is the son of Zeus. He's the god of
Speaker 1: the arts, of poetry and of the Sun. The Apollo
Speaker 1: missions saw several successful Moon landings, beginning with Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: in July nineteen sixty nine and ending with Apollo seventeen
Speaker 1: in December nineteen seventy two. The program also had its
Speaker 1: share of tragedy. In nineteen sixty seven, three astronauts died
Speaker 1: in a pre flight test when a fire broke out
Speaker 1: in the cockpit of the command module. NASA would later
Speaker 1: designate this mission, originally known as Apollo two oh four
Speaker 1: Apollo one, in an effort to honor the three astronauts
Speaker 1: who lost their lives in this accident. Apollo seventeen would
Speaker 1: mark the last time a human would set foot on
Speaker 1: the Moon, and that stands true up to the date
Speaker 1: of this recording. No human has been back to the
Speaker 1: Moon since December nineteen seventy two. And that's what brings
Speaker 1: us to today's topic, because once again NASA and numerous
Speaker 1: partnering companies and organizations are looking to send people back
Speaker 1: to the Moon's surface. This time, the goal is to
Speaker 1: include women astronauts in the project, something that just did
Speaker 1: happen back in the sixties and seventies. The new program
Speaker 1: is called Artemis. Now, like Apollo, the name Artemis comes
Speaker 1: to us from Greek mythology, she's actually Apollo's twin sister,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. This is sort of the twin sister
Speaker 1: project to Apollo. Now. Frankly, I would argue Artemis is
Speaker 1: much better suited as a name for this project because
Speaker 1: she's the goddess of the Moon. She's also the goddess
Speaker 1: of the wilderness and hunting and other stuff. The Greek
Speaker 1: gods were famous multitaskers. As goddess of the Moon, she
Speaker 1: does have the perfect name for the NASA endeavor to
Speaker 1: put people up there. She did not just spring into being,
Speaker 1: either in mythology or in the space project. In space terms,
Speaker 1: Artemis follows some earlier attempts to get astronauts back to
Speaker 1: the Moon. She's sort of the evolution of some earlier
Speaker 1: programs that have since been either canceled or just transformed.
Speaker 1: So this means we need to look at a span
Speaker 1: of time between the Apollo missions and the upcoming Artemis missions.
Speaker 1: In the first decade of the twenty first century, NASA
Speaker 1: announced a program called Constellation. The scope of Constellation was
Speaker 1: pretty darned big. It laid out the many advances NASA
Speaker 1: identified as being pivotal for the most extensive missions to
Speaker 1: the Moon and beyond. It called for the retirement of
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle program. It was already on its way out.
Speaker 1: And so the reason for that was that the Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle program was limited in its ability. Really could only
Speaker 1: go into orbit. It can't go to the Moon or beyond.
Speaker 1: And also the Columbia disaster had brought up serious questions
Speaker 1: about the viability of the Space Shuttle program. In general,
Speaker 1: it was an aging fleet of spacecraft. So this particular
Speaker 1: Constellation program laid out requirements for a new type of
Speaker 1: spacecraft called Orion, also known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle,
Speaker 1: and it's similar to the old Apollo capsules, but it's
Speaker 1: actually larger and has a lot more features and could
Speaker 1: support a crew of astronauts on a mission to the
Speaker 1: Moon and back or extended trips to the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about the Orion in detail a little
Speaker 1: bit later. So the Constellation program, in turn was a
Speaker 1: response to a call from the US President, George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: and he was asking NASA to really shoot for these goals.
Speaker 1: He wanted something really aspirational and inspirational to kind of
Speaker 1: get people excited about this. Presidents tend to do this,
Speaker 1: by the way, when they need a kind of a
Speaker 1: boost in their own popularity. It's great that we benefit
Speaker 1: from it from a scientific perspective, but it does not
Speaker 1: always come from a genuine desire to push science. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that desire is more linked to the politics of the
Speaker 1: situation than the actual scientific goal of the situation. And
Speaker 1: in fact, there are plenty of people who argued that
Speaker 1: this whole approach was not the right thing for NASA
Speaker 1: to do, that putting people back on the Moon didn't
Speaker 1: really solve any big issues or didn't open up any
Speaker 1: other opportunities we had already been to the moon. People
Speaker 1: were arguing that maybe we wouldn't be able to learn
Speaker 1: anything new by going back to the Moon, that we
Speaker 1: should instead dedicate our efforts toward other things. But the
Speaker 1: Moon is one of those things that's easy to point
Speaker 1: at and say that is a big challenge, how do
Speaker 1: we get back there? And then you can worry about
Speaker 1: the other stuff later on down the line. I think
Speaker 1: that there is value going back to the moon. By
Speaker 1: the way, I don't want to dismiss it out of hand,
Speaker 1: but I can see the validity of arguments that state
Speaker 1: maybe we should look at other goals instead. Goals that
Speaker 1: might have a more obvious payout in either the benefits
Speaker 1: we get from technological advancement or the direct result of
Speaker 1: the missions themselves. So I could see both sides of
Speaker 1: both arguments, and so I haven't I guess I haven't
Speaker 1: really fully made up my mind of which side I
Speaker 1: really subscribed to anyway, So we get this deadline set
Speaker 1: for this idea of going back to the Moon. The vehicle,
Speaker 1: the Orion spacecraft, was supposed to be ready by twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and then you had the goal of actually getting people
Speaker 1: back on the Moon by twenty twenty. It is twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and spoiler alert, that ain't gonna happen this year. NASA
Speaker 1: Administrator Michael Griffin unveiled this plan in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and that included a plan for two new rocket systems
Speaker 1: that would provide the umph needed to get the Orion
Speaker 1: spacecraft out into space on its way to the Moon
Speaker 1: or the International Space Station. And those rockets were the
Speaker 1: Ares one and the Ares five launch vehicles No. Two
Speaker 1: and three just one in five, and they were or four,
Speaker 1: I should say, but one in five were also meant
Speaker 1: to kind of mirror the Saturn one and Saturn five
Speaker 1: rockets that were used in previous NASA programs. ARES one
Speaker 1: was the smaller of the two rockets. That one was
Speaker 1: intended to launch payloads like the Orion spacecraft and its
Speaker 1: crew into orbit. The ARES five would be a heavy
Speaker 1: lifting rocket and it would be used to launch significance
Speaker 1: amounts of a payload into space of cargo. So if
Speaker 1: you wanted to create, say a Moon station, you know,
Speaker 1: to actually build a station on the Moon, you would
Speaker 1: use a series of ARES five rockets to launch those
Speaker 1: payloads into space, and then presumably you would find a
Speaker 1: way of getting them to the Moon for construction. So
Speaker 1: it's not that different from models like SpaceX, where they
Speaker 1: have the Falcon nine rocket or launch vehicle that can
Speaker 1: send a capsule into space, or the Falcon nine heavy
Speaker 1: which is meant to push much heavier payloads into space.
Speaker 1: Developing the rockets would be another really big task on
Speaker 1: top of building this Orion spacecraft, But this was a
Speaker 1: thing that Griffin thought was necessary. Lunar missions are going
Speaker 1: to require a lot of support systems in order to
Speaker 1: make sure the astronauts can get to the Moon, they
Speaker 1: can land there, they can operate on the Moon, and
Speaker 1: then they can return from the Moon safely back to Earth.
Speaker 1: That requires a lot of work. So, according to NASA estimates,
Speaker 1: relying on older launch vehicles like the Delta or Atlas
Speaker 1: rockets would require many more launches to get the required
Speaker 1: equipment back into space. So that would drive up the
Speaker 1: cost of the program. And Griffin was saying, well, it's
Speaker 1: going to cost a huge amount of money to develop
Speaker 1: new rockets, but it will cost another huge amount of
Speaker 1: money if we rely on older rockets because we'll have
Speaker 1: to use more of them. And so he was weighing
Speaker 1: those two options and ultimately decided that it made more
Speaker 1: sense to push for brand new launch systems. Now, spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: this whole plan that was laid out in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five did not pan out, at least not as
Speaker 1: Constellation had laid it all out. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: spacecraft ready in time, nor are we ready to put
Speaker 1: anyone on the Moon this year. And one of the
Speaker 1: main contributors to the shortfall was down to budget. The
Speaker 1: original Apollo program had a budget of twenty five point
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars from nineteen sixty to nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: If we adjust that for inflation and look at it
Speaker 1: in today's money, that would come out to about two
Speaker 1: hundred sixty billion dollars, a truly princely sum. But that
Speaker 1: was across the entire lifespan of the Apollo program, not
Speaker 1: just one particular year. In nineteen sixty six, the peak
Speaker 1: year the Apollo program. From a vedgetary perspective, the agency
Speaker 1: spent the equivalent of forty seven point eight billion dollars
Speaker 1: in today's money, and that was just for the Apollo program.
Speaker 1: So the budget for all of NASA in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, not just Constellation, but all the programs that
Speaker 1: NASA oversees was fifteen point six billion dollars. That's a
Speaker 1: lot less than forty seven point eight billion. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I ran the math. Even adjusted for inflation, that comes
Speaker 1: out to just under seventeen billion dollars. It is an
Speaker 1: enormous amount less than what was spent in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: or the equivalent of what was spent in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: And yet Griffin was describing Constellation as Apollo on steroids.
Speaker 1: So that got a lot of people asking, can you
Speaker 1: really design Apollo on steroids if you're using a budget
Speaker 1: that's less than half of what Apollos program spent in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, So this was a question, and then
Speaker 1: a lot of people were asking, and ultimately the answer
Speaker 1: appears to be no, you can't really do it. So
Speaker 1: despite having access to less money, NASA still really tackled
Speaker 1: this challenge. I mean a lot of people poured a
Speaker 1: ton of work and effort into trying to make this happen.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, the agency released a statement
Speaker 1: saying the Orion would not be ready for a twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen launch. They were hoping that they could maybe make
Speaker 1: it a twenty fifteen deadline. But here's the thing. While
Speaker 1: on the surface that says, oh, it's a delay of
Speaker 1: just one year, that's actually not that bad, especially when
Speaker 1: you consider the budgetary restraints, it actually was three years
Speaker 1: later than what Griffin had been hoping for. He had
Speaker 1: hoped to have the Orion ready for launch by twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: So now they were sure it wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: ready till at least twenty fifteen. The agency was really
Speaker 1: trying to narrow a gap that was going to exist
Speaker 1: when the space shuttles retired and the USA would no
Speaker 1: longer have a spacecraft capable of launching and docking with
Speaker 1: the newly finished International Space Station. So the ISS gets
Speaker 1: finished around twenty ten at the same time the space
Speaker 1: Shuttle program retires. Now the USA is reliant on other
Speaker 1: countries and their space program in order to get astronauts
Speaker 1: to and from the space station, typically Russia, so that's
Speaker 1: not ideal, and they were waiting on commercial space companies
Speaker 1: like SpaceX to catch up, but that just hadn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: So the real hope was that the Orion spacecraft could
Speaker 1: take over those duties and make USA independent of other
Speaker 1: countries and also of commercial spacecraft companies, where NASA would
Speaker 1: be owning and operating these vehicles. But that just wasn't
Speaker 1: going to happen. That gap was going to get wider
Speaker 1: and wider, not narrower. NASA did have a cost overrun
Speaker 1: of three point one billion dollars, though again this was
Speaker 1: much less than what the agents he spent during the
Speaker 1: Apollo program years. But that delay of the program and
Speaker 1: the twenty six percent overrun in costs gave Constellation a
Speaker 1: really bad reputation. That was a reputation that President Barack
Speaker 1: Obama actually referenced back in two thousand and eight NASA
Speaker 1: also predicted that the program would continue to cost more
Speaker 1: than had been originally projected, with an increase of about
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty percent of the original budget marked
Speaker 1: out for the years between twenty ten and twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Not great news. On top of that, the focus of
Speaker 1: NASA was almost entirely on the Orion spacecraft and the
Speaker 1: Areas one launch vehicle. Again no big surprise here. The
Speaker 1: idea of sending people to the Moon is generally one
Speaker 1: that people really get excited about, and excitement translates into
Speaker 1: governments approving bigger budgets because you know, representatives want to
Speaker 1: support the things that their constituents are really excited about.
Speaker 1: But that meant that the ARES five rocket, the heavy
Speaker 1: lifting rocket, had a much smaller development budget. All the
Speaker 1: focus was on the crude stuff. The Orion crew doesn't crewed,
Speaker 1: the Orion spacecraft, and the ARES one launch vehicle, not
Speaker 1: the ARES five, but the Areas five was going to
Speaker 1: need a lot of money. I mean, this was a
Speaker 1: heavy lifting rocket concept. But that meant that because it
Speaker 1: didn't get that big budget, the development was getting delayed
Speaker 1: over and over again, and that led to a point
Speaker 1: where analysts believe that based on the budgetary trajectory at NASA,
Speaker 1: the earliest the ARES five rocket would be able to
Speaker 1: launch the lunar landing hardware that would be necessary to
Speaker 1: actually land on the Moon would be sometime in the
Speaker 1: twenty thirties, if that were at all possible even then,
Speaker 1: so that would delay that deadline of landing on the
Speaker 1: Moon by more than a decade. The idea here was
Speaker 1: that the Space Agency would put a lunar landing space
Speaker 1: into Earth orbit, and it was to be called the
Speaker 1: Lunar Surface Access Module or el SAM. Later it was
Speaker 1: renamed the Altair and an ARIS five would launch this
Speaker 1: Altair into Earth orbit. Because it was heavier than the
Speaker 1: Orion spacecraft, so you wouldn't want to use like an
Speaker 1: ARES one rocket, you need the heavy lifting rocket. There
Speaker 1: a separate AREAS one rocket would launch an Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: into Earth orbit, and then the Orion spacecraft would rendezvous
Speaker 1: with the orbiting Altair. The two would dock, and then
Speaker 1: together they would make the rest of the trip to
Speaker 1: the Moon. Upon entering lunar orbit, the two spacecraft could separate.
Speaker 1: The entire crew of the Orion could move over into
Speaker 1: the Altair Because the Orion would be automated and it
Speaker 1: would just remain in orbit around the Moon. Then the
Speaker 1: Altair would land on the Moon. The astronauts would go
Speaker 1: out and you know, do moon stuff. Then they would
Speaker 1: come back to the Altair, launch off the Moon, back
Speaker 1: into orbit, dock with the Orion, transferred back over to
Speaker 1: the Orion spacecraft, and then they could make the trip
Speaker 1: back to Earth. But because of these budget limitations, the
Speaker 1: focus on the Orion and the ares IE vehicles meant
Speaker 1: that all of this other stuff, the ARES five and
Speaker 1: the lunar module, all of that just remained hypothetical. It
Speaker 1: was a proposal, not an actual spacecraft. So while the
Speaker 1: agency might have produced an Orion spacecraft in time to
Speaker 1: get into space by twenty fifteen, there was just no
Speaker 1: hope of making enough progress to land on the Moon
Speaker 1: any earlier than the twenty thirties, and some people thought
Speaker 1: that even that was too ambitious. Meanwhile, NASA, the agency
Speaker 1: was struggling with budget constraints in general, not just for
Speaker 1: the Constellation program. Sometimes one project would have to siphon
Speaker 1: funds intended for a totally different project. You had a
Speaker 1: lot of internal battles in NASA as different project leads
Speaker 1: would kind of squirrel budgetary money away that was intended
Speaker 1: for some other project for their own. That did not
Speaker 1: help morale in the agency, And moreover, it was never
Speaker 1: enough to cover all the costs that were mounting up.
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, NASA received its new budget from the
Speaker 1: US government, and that budget listed zero for the Constellation project.
Speaker 1: I'll explain more in just a moment, but we'll take
Speaker 1: a quick break. So why did the US government pull
Speaker 1: the plug in twenty ten on the Constellation project? Well,
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty complicated to answer that, but it comes
Speaker 1: down to several factors. So, for one thing, the design
Speaker 1: specs or the various components in the Constellation project had
Speaker 1: changed over time. Some of them had changed a few
Speaker 1: times since two thousand and five. The team made various
Speaker 1: determinations that then led them down different paths, requiring NASA
Speaker 1: to invest more in new technologies and new designs and
Speaker 1: launch craft. And the initial plan would have seen using
Speaker 1: them using more components that already exist did right, that
Speaker 1: were already in production. But a lot of the decisions
Speaker 1: they made meant, oh no, we're going to have to
Speaker 1: actually make new stuff. So that meant that the process
Speaker 1: was going to take longer and also cost more. The
Speaker 1: prospects didn't look promising as far as achieving goals on time,
Speaker 1: so that was another strike against it. And you also
Speaker 1: had the case of a change in political administrations, which
Speaker 1: frequently shakes things up with government funded projects. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest challenges NASA faces with space travel.
Speaker 1: It's not just the incredibly difficult task of designing technology
Speaker 1: capable of bringing people into space safely and back home again.
Speaker 1: It's dealing with a changing political climate that may have
Speaker 1: vastly different priorities than the previous administration, which in turn
Speaker 1: could mean that the funding you were counting on early
Speaker 1: in the project disappears midway through the project, and that
Speaker 1: just means it's the end of your whole process. What
Speaker 1: a way to run a space railroad, right, So, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, when Obama won the presidency, one
Speaker 1: of the things that followed was a change in NASA administrators.
Speaker 1: He and his advisors had a different set of priorities
Speaker 1: than the previous administration, which included dedicating more money toward
Speaker 1: commercial space companies like SpaceX, rather than going down the
Speaker 1: traditional path in which NASA would contract with big companies
Speaker 1: like Boeing or Lockheed Griffin resigned upon Obama taking office,
Speaker 1: which in turn is not an unusual thing to happen
Speaker 1: when you have a change in administrations. It's not out
Speaker 1: of the realm of normal practice for administrators to resign.
Speaker 1: In those cases, it often happens. His replacement would eventually
Speaker 1: be Charles Bolden, himself a former astronaut, though it takes
Speaker 1: several months before Bolden would be appointed that position and
Speaker 1: confirmed as the new administrator of NASA. These challenges are
Speaker 1: part of why the private space industry was able to
Speaker 1: get a foothold. Private companies aren't beholden to a government
Speaker 1: for their budgets, although a private company might find itself
Speaker 1: burning through its startup cash before it can become a
Speaker 1: viable business, and private space companies like SpaceX were becoming
Speaker 1: prominent right around the same time, which in turn created
Speaker 1: a chance to rely on those companies for key components
Speaker 1: rather than having them all be designed or contracted through NASA.
Speaker 1: After a committee evaluated Constellation and determine that the program
Speaker 1: simply could not succeed given its very ambitious goals coupled
Speaker 1: with its very limited resources, the project got the axe
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily that the project was bad, just that
Speaker 1: its reach was further than its grasp. NASA was to
Speaker 1: shift money over to long range goals such as developing
Speaker 1: new heavy lift rockets and propulsion systems to be used
Speaker 1: in space, all with an eye toward powering missions to
Speaker 1: Mars in the future. The areas rockets and the air
Speaker 1: ryan were scrapped, at least temporarily. Congress reacted negatively to
Speaker 1: these changes because, well mostly because they weren't included in
Speaker 1: the decisions. Obama amended his decision after encountering intense opposition
Speaker 1: from certain members of Congress, and he brought Oryan back
Speaker 1: into the picture, so it no longer was scrapped. It
Speaker 1: was now back on the docket, and he set a
Speaker 1: deadline for a new launch system to be ready to
Speaker 1: go by twenty fifteen. Congress then took that plan and
Speaker 1: tweaked it by giving NASA the directive to repurpose the
Speaker 1: rocket designs for the Constellation project and have that ready
Speaker 1: to go by twenty sixteen. The new launch vehicle would
Speaker 1: be called the Space Launch System or SLS. One of
Speaker 1: Obama's advisors said it was it was pretty clear that
Speaker 1: members of Congress were doing their best to keep contracts
Speaker 1: with big companies that had been involved in constellation, indicating
Speaker 1: that this might have been some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: smoke key filled room politicking going on here rather than
Speaker 1: technical discussions. One other goal in this era was to
Speaker 1: develop a mission in which NASA would send astronauts to
Speaker 1: an asteroid, again as sort of a staging ground for
Speaker 1: an eventual mission to Mars. And that's where things mostly stayed.
Speaker 1: During Obama's administration, NASA was working on developing these initiatives,
Speaker 1: and the private space industry began to grow at the
Speaker 1: same time. Now, ultimately that asteroid mission would get scrapped,
Speaker 1: but it would stick around for quite some time. Now.
Speaker 1: When Donald Trump won the presidency, things would change again.
Speaker 1: So one thing you do often see with these changes
Speaker 1: in administrations is that a succeeding administration will attempt to
Speaker 1: set more ambitious goals than the preceding one. It's a
Speaker 1: way for presidents to kind of set themselves apart and
Speaker 1: to try and get the nation excited about some particular initiative.
Speaker 1: So Obama's administration was looking at the Moon and asteroids,
Speaker 1: with a further goal being Mars in the future. Trump's
Speaker 1: approach was similar in that it was Moon and then
Speaker 1: straight onto Mars. Now I'm not going to go into
Speaker 1: all the budget details here except to say, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that you kept seeing these lofty goals in place,
Speaker 1: you didn't necessarily see an enormous boost in budgets at NASA,
Speaker 1: certainly nothing close to the peak that was spent back
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six with the Apollo program. The budget
Speaker 1: fluctuated year to year. In twenty sixteen it was nineteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars, but a year later the budget had reduced
Speaker 1: down to eighteen point eight billion dollars. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: it would bounce back to nineteen point five billion, but
Speaker 1: it kind of hovered right around that area, just under
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars. And there's still political battles being fought
Speaker 1: around the subject of relying on commercial space companies like
Speaker 1: SpaceX versus going the traditional route where NASA lands contracts
Speaker 1: with specific big companies like Boeing and Lockheed in order
Speaker 1: to build spacecraft. These battles typically play out with congressional
Speaker 1: representatives from states that rely on big manufacturing jobs, with
Speaker 1: those companies like Boeing and Lockheed, arguing that the key
Speaker 1: elements of any mission should ultimately be owned and operated
Speaker 1: by NASA. Then others say that the financially responsible thing
Speaker 1: to do is to outsource this to commercial space companies,
Speaker 1: whom they argue can do the same work but for
Speaker 1: less money. And a lot of these arguments come down
Speaker 1: to financial and political matters, again, not technological decisions, and
Speaker 1: it gets really messy. Tech is way easier to explain.
Speaker 1: In April twenty nineteen, NASA announced that the Artemis program
Speaker 1: and its ambitious goal of putting a man and woman
Speaker 1: on the Moon by twenty twenty four would become a reality.
Speaker 1: Of course, we have to remember that elements of this
Speaker 1: plan had been in development since two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: but because the SLS is largely built upon the bones
Speaker 1: of the proposed Areas five rocket design. Heck, the Orion spacecraft,
Speaker 1: which will actually hold the crew of a NASA Artemis mission,
Speaker 1: has been the one piece that's been most consistently in
Speaker 1: development since George W. Bush was president. In February twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: the document titled Moon twenty twenty four Mission manifest made
Speaker 1: the rounds now. NASA has since disputed the contents of
Speaker 1: this document, saying that it does not accurately reflect the
Speaker 1: current state of the Artemis program. However, as of the
Speaker 1: time of this recording, it's the most recent version of
Speaker 1: the plan I can find. Everything else is kind of
Speaker 1: gone dark, So I'll explain the manifest version of the
Speaker 1: mission here with the caveat that things have already changed.
Speaker 1: But this plan kind of gives us a peek into
Speaker 1: the ambition surrounding the Artemis program, even if the subsequent
Speaker 1: plan that will get announced probably right around the time
Speaker 1: this episode publishes, might have more details. So here we go.
Speaker 1: In a twenty twenty one, according to this manifest, NASA
Speaker 1: would test a Block one SLS launch vehicle carrying an
Speaker 1: unmanned Orion spacecraft in a mission dubbed Artemis one. So
Speaker 1: that raises a question, what's a Block one SLS. Well,
Speaker 1: the SLS is designed in a way that will allow
Speaker 1: NASA to swap out elements further down the line to
Speaker 1: give it a boost in performance. Specifically, it will allow
Speaker 1: NASA to include more powerful boosters and rockets that are
Speaker 1: intended to get a crew to Mars. But those are
Speaker 1: still being designed and constructed, and so we don't even
Speaker 1: have an example to point at for the more advanced ones,
Speaker 1: and rather than wait on all of that to finish
Speaker 1: before making any other progress, NASA has placed a strategy
Speaker 1: in which an initial version of the Space Launch System
Speaker 1: Block one will be used to get the Orion into
Speaker 1: orbit or to send it to the Moon, and the
Speaker 1: future will get a more powerful Block two SLS that
Speaker 1: would be able to send the Orion and cargo to Mars.
Speaker 1: So how does all this play out? Well, keep in
Speaker 1: mind that the Block two doesn't really exist yet, so
Speaker 1: things could change dramatically by the time we actually have
Speaker 1: something built, if it even gets built. The Block one
Speaker 1: SLS is the version that's currently being finalized now, and
Speaker 1: it will have two boosters similar to the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: and it will also have a core stage like a
Speaker 1: central rocket tank with four engines. The pair of solid
Speaker 1: propellant rocket boosters are really similar to what the Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle used. In fact, some of the early SLS launch
Speaker 1: vehicles will be using unused Space Shuttle booster casings. Then
Speaker 1: in the future new casings will have to be made
Speaker 1: because we'll have run out of ones that weren't used
Speaker 1: in the Space Shuttle program. But the old Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: boosters had four segments of solid propellant rocket fuel. The
Speaker 1: Block one SLS boosters will have five segments the core stage.
Speaker 1: That central rocket will have four engines, and it will
Speaker 1: use liquid propellant. Once in space and the Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: separates from its launch vehicle, the Orion spacecraft will use
Speaker 1: what is called the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to travel
Speaker 1: to its destination, such as the Moon. This version of
Speaker 1: the SLS will be able to send fifty seven thousand
Speaker 1: pounds or twenty six metric tons of payload into space.
Speaker 1: In fact, it'll be able to deliver payloads of that
Speaker 1: size into orbits beyond the Moon. Now between Block one
Speaker 1: and Block two, NASA also plans a version of the
Speaker 1: SLS called Block one B. It'll have a little bit
Speaker 1: more oomph. The central core will have more fuel, it'll
Speaker 1: be a bigger fuel tank, and it will be able
Speaker 1: to put not just the Orion spacecraft into orbit, but
Speaker 1: an orbiting habitat up into space. It can lift a
Speaker 1: heavier payload up into space, creating opportunities for missions and
Speaker 1: more ambitious goals. Block two's goal is to create a
Speaker 1: launch vehicle capable of putting forty five tons of payload
Speaker 1: into deep space and will be used for missions that
Speaker 1: aim to go to Mars. All right, so let's get
Speaker 1: back to this timeline that has since been disputed by NASA.
Speaker 1: So according to that original timeline, or at least the
Speaker 1: manifest timeline, NASA planned for the first crude Orion mission.
Speaker 1: The first mission to have astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft,
Speaker 1: which would be called the Artemis two mission, would launch
Speaker 1: in January twenty twenty three. The mission will use a
Speaker 1: Block one SLS as the launch vehicle, and it would
Speaker 1: see the astronauts go on a path round the Moon
Speaker 1: and back to Earth, not landing on the Moon, but
Speaker 1: doing an orbit of the Moon and then returning or
Speaker 1: maybe not even a full orbit. I think it's just
Speaker 1: a flyby behind the Moon, similar to some of the
Speaker 1: earlier Apollo missions. In August twenty twenty four, NASA plans
Speaker 1: to launch the Artemis three mission. This mission's purpose is
Speaker 1: to send a lunar lander to the Moon on a
Speaker 1: Block one BSLS. More on the whole lunar lander thing
Speaker 1: in a bit, because that part of the plan has
Speaker 1: definitely changed a couple of times. October twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: is the big one. That would be a mission called
Speaker 1: Artemis four, and the purpose would be to send astronauts
Speaker 1: to actually set foot on the Moon, including at least
Speaker 1: one woman. This mission would use a Block one SLS
Speaker 1: to send the Orion to rendezvous with a thing around
Speaker 1: the Moon's orbit. We'll get back to that because it
Speaker 1: has changed. It originally was just going to be a
Speaker 1: lunar lander. Now it's slightly different. And this does not
Speaker 1: end the Artemis program, right The landing on the Moon
Speaker 1: is not the ultimate end of Artemis. NASA plans a
Speaker 1: few other missions. One would happen in September twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: This one is not technically an Artemis mission, but it
Speaker 1: will use the same spacecraft. It'll use the SLS Block
Speaker 1: one in order to launch a satellite called the Europa Clipper,
Speaker 1: and this one would fly over to Jupiter and get
Speaker 1: an orbit around Jupiter and do flybys of Jupiter's moon
Speaker 1: Europa to get a closer look. And part of the
Speaker 1: purpose of this mission is to see if Europa has
Speaker 1: environments that could potentially support life, So that's really exciting.
Speaker 1: Then in June twenty twenty six, NASA plans to send
Speaker 1: another mission to the Moon. This one designated Artemis five,
Speaker 1: with more astronauts visiting Old Luna, using a Block one
Speaker 1: B SLS to get there. So this is the lightly
Speaker 1: larger version of the SLS. The following June, NASA would
Speaker 1: launch a lander to head to Europa, giving us an
Speaker 1: even closer look at Jubiter's Moon because we'd have a
Speaker 1: lander setting foot, a lander uncrewed lander setting foot or
Speaker 1: landing on Europa. But that would be super cool. In
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty eight, NASA, according to this manifest, would
Speaker 1: plan to launch the Artemis six mission, which would once
Speaker 1: again take astronauts to the Moon, but this time aboard
Speaker 1: a Block one B SLS, and in February twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 1: Artemis seven would send cargo to the Moon and would
Speaker 1: be the first mission to rely on a Block two SLS.
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty nine also brings us to Artemis eight,
Speaker 1: and that is also using a block to SLS to
Speaker 1: send people astronauts aboard and orion mission. I have no
Speaker 1: idea where that one's specifically going. It might be a
Speaker 1: mission to test the Block two for a manned spaceflight
Speaker 1: mission in general, but maybe it's going to the Moon.
Speaker 1: I don't know the manifest was unclear, and the final
Speaker 1: two Artemist missions that were in that manifest included a
Speaker 1: twenty thirty one called Artomis nine that would be a
Speaker 1: cargo mission using an SLS block two and an Artemis
Speaker 1: ten that would also use a astronaut led mission on
Speaker 1: a block to SLS. So that's what the manifest had
Speaker 1: laid out, which NASA again has disputed, saying that there
Speaker 1: are numerous errors or discrepancies with their current plan. But
Speaker 1: that's the most information I have as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast. It gives us a general idea of
Speaker 1: what they were thinking. When we come back, I'll talk
Speaker 1: about some other things that have complicated this, But first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. As I record this, we're
Speaker 1: in a blackout on information about further details of the
Speaker 1: Artimist program, largely because NASA is in contract negotiations with
Speaker 1: multiple companies for different parts of this program. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of details that haven't been nailed down. There's
Speaker 1: nothing to share because they haven't decided which version they're
Speaker 1: going with on some of these things. Meanwhile, the clock
Speaker 1: is ticking, but while we don't have concrete facts to
Speaker 1: talk about, we can at least go over what NASA
Speaker 1: has in mind. Now, I've mentioned the Orion spacecraft several
Speaker 1: times without really going into any real detail about it. Again,
Speaker 1: out of all the pieces for the Artemis program, this
Speaker 1: one has had the most consistent support behind it. Since
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, the first Orion spacecraft has been
Speaker 1: completed in manufacturing. So it's something that we can actually
Speaker 1: talk about because there is one. It hasn't been used yet,
Speaker 1: but it exists. It has changed a few times since
Speaker 1: its original concept. The prime company responsible for building the
Speaker 1: Orion spacecraft is Lockheed. Now lots of folks call Orion
Speaker 1: a gum drop shaped spacecraft, and to me, it looks
Speaker 1: really similar in design of the old Apollo capsules, but
Speaker 1: it's larger and fancier than this old spacecraft. It could
Speaker 1: carry more people. The Apollo spacecraft would carry a crew
Speaker 1: of three. The Orion is designed to carry a crew
Speaker 1: of four. A lot of the documentation says they could
Speaker 1: carry a crew of up to six, but NASA consistently
Speaker 1: describes it as being a four person spacecraft. It is
Speaker 1: capable of traveling in space for twenty one days, or
Speaker 1: it can exist out in space for up to six
Speaker 1: months when docked with some other spacecraft like the International
Speaker 1: Space Station. NASA's plan is to crew the Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: with four astronauts, though as I said before, it could
Speaker 1: potentially hold as many a six, at least according to
Speaker 1: most documentation I've read. The crew module, which is the
Speaker 1: bit that the astronauts will actually be in, is the
Speaker 1: part that looks like an old Apollo capsule, but bigger.
Speaker 1: It has three hundred and sixteen cubic feet of habitable volume.
Speaker 1: The old Apollo spacecraft had numerous die switches, buttons and
Speaker 1: screens all over the place, but the Orion has just
Speaker 1: three computer screens, and it distills all of those various
Speaker 1: technologies that were represented by those buttons and dials and
Speaker 1: switches into a computer controlled system accessible through on screen commands,
Speaker 1: which in itself is a pretty big departure and a
Speaker 1: big bet. It's one of those things that makes some
Speaker 1: people nervous, the idea that you have these computerized systems,
Speaker 1: and you question, well, what happens if something goes wrong?
Speaker 1: How do you take manual control of the spacecraft. I've
Speaker 1: already talked about the SLS, but there's a third part
Speaker 1: of that that we need to mention really quickly, which
Speaker 1: is what NASA calls the Exploration Ground Systems or EGS.
Speaker 1: I would call that a launch pad. The SLS will
Speaker 1: use new ones constructed for that purpose, and the project
Speaker 1: will also make use of two new spacesuit designs. But
Speaker 1: rather than go into detail about those spacesuits, I'm going
Speaker 1: to save that for its own podcast to talk about
Speaker 1: the evolution of the space suit and how that has
Speaker 1: changed over the past few decades. To actually visit the Moon,
Speaker 1: NASA does have some other plans, and one of those
Speaker 1: now is the Lunar Gateway. Before I was talking about
Speaker 1: a lunar lander that the Orion would have presumably rendezvous
Speaker 1: with around orbit in the Moon and then gone down
Speaker 1: to the surface. But things have changed since then. So
Speaker 1: here's how it's supposed to work. You have what is
Speaker 1: essentially a lunar satellite or lunar space station. This not
Speaker 1: as big as the International Space Station, but a station
Speaker 1: in orbit around the Moon itself, and NASA would launch
Speaker 1: this in parts in several launches, and then construct it
Speaker 1: in space around lunar orbit, and when finished, it should
Speaker 1: be the size of a studio apartment. According to NASA,
Speaker 1: capable of supporting astronauts for several months at a time
Speaker 1: if necessary. Orion would be docking with this gateway satellite
Speaker 1: or gateway station in order to go to Moon missions,
Speaker 1: and astronauts would not stay aboard the Lunar Gateway all
Speaker 1: year round. Instead, they would just be there for the
Speaker 1: duration of a mission before departing in the Orion capsule
Speaker 1: to come back home, and you would have to occasionally
Speaker 1: or frequently send cargo up to replenish the Lunar Gateway.
Speaker 1: From the gateway, astronauts would board a spacecraft that would
Speaker 1: be a type of transfer module, so they would dock
Speaker 1: their Orion capsule with the Lunar Gateway, transfer over into
Speaker 1: the Lunar Gateway, get stuff ready for their Moon adventures.
Speaker 1: Then they would go over into this transfer module and
Speaker 1: that would detach from the Lunar Gateway. It would make
Speaker 1: its way to the descent point for the Moon's surface.
Speaker 1: It would then separate so that you would have a
Speaker 1: descent stage, a descent module that would go down and
Speaker 1: land on the surface of the Moon. Astronauts would then
Speaker 1: do their thing on the lunar surface, using the descent
Speaker 1: stage as sort of a base of operations for up
Speaker 1: to two weeks. Then they would board the part of
Speaker 1: that module that would be the ascent module. So this
Speaker 1: is the part that actually launches back off of the
Speaker 1: Moon's surface, leaving part of it behind, right, So everyone
Speaker 1: piles into the Ascent Module, they launch, and then that
Speaker 1: puts them into a trajectory where they can rendezvous with
Speaker 1: the Lunar Gateway, dock with it, and come back to
Speaker 1: that studio apartment floating around the surface of the Moon.
Speaker 1: They could then continue work in the Lunar Gateway, or
Speaker 1: they could transfer over to the Orion spacecraft for the
Speaker 1: journey home. Now that part of the plan is largely
Speaker 1: being left to commercial space programs, so this is really
Speaker 1: not a description of a specific piece of technology. It's
Speaker 1: more of a description of what NASA wants in order
Speaker 1: for them to be able to have these missions work.
Speaker 1: So it's more like, this is what the technology needs
Speaker 1: to be able to do, but we're leaving it up
Speaker 1: to various companies to present proposals on how they want
Speaker 1: to do that. So while there's some concept art, it's
Speaker 1: all just a placeholder. These companies could each come up
Speaker 1: with very different proposals on how to achieve the same goal,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately NASA will select whichever one the agency
Speaker 1: feels as the most the perfect one for their mission.
Speaker 1: Hard to say the best, because things like not just
Speaker 1: the technological capability, but also the price factor into this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Anyway, honestly, that's pretty much where Artemis
Speaker 1: shakes out today. It's a lot of placeholders. Even to
Speaker 1: this day that still blows my mind considering that the
Speaker 1: goal is to get boots on the Moon by twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. But then we've moved pretty quickly in the
Speaker 1: past in the space race, and honestly, this might be
Speaker 1: exactly what we need to drive innovation. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more about the Artemis program after these short messages.
Speaker 1: So there are generally two paths you can take when
Speaker 1: you're making these sort of big, big programs. One is
Speaker 1: you can work on the technology that you're gonna need
Speaker 1: for space exploration, and then you can set a timeline
Speaker 1: based on your progress as you produce these pieces of technology.
Speaker 1: But that opens up the chance for projects to fall
Speaker 1: into an observation called Parkinson's law that's named after Cyril
Speaker 1: Northcote Parkinson, a British author and Parkinson observed that work
Speaker 1: tends to expand to fill the time available for it
Speaker 1: to be completed. So, for example, let's say I'm researching
Speaker 1: a podcast, and initially I have a deadline of four
Speaker 1: hours to finish my research before I have to go
Speaker 1: into the studio, and that means it's going to take
Speaker 1: me four hours to complete that research. I've got it
Speaker 1: all planned out, I'm ready to go. I'm hitting the
Speaker 1: ground running. I'll be done in four hours. But let's
Speaker 1: say that something happens. Let's say that there's another podcast
Speaker 1: in the studio where I was supposed to go in
Speaker 1: they're running late. Then I'm told, hey, it's actually going
Speaker 1: to be two hours later than what you thought. Now
Speaker 1: you have six hours to finish that research. Well, according
Speaker 1: to Parkinson's law, the work of that research will actually
Speaker 1: expand for that six hours. That does not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that the podcast I record is going to be longer
Speaker 1: than it would have been if it had stated its
Speaker 1: original studio time, or that'll even be better than it
Speaker 1: would have been when I was supposed to go in,
Speaker 1: rather than just the work itself expanded to fill in
Speaker 1: those extra two hours. So let's say we're working on
Speaker 1: a project, and we're not sure how long it's going
Speaker 1: to take us to complete this project, but we're supposed
Speaker 1: to give an estimate. So if we're conserv then we'll
Speaker 1: give an estimate that's further out than what we think
Speaker 1: we actually need. And the idea being well, things are
Speaker 1: gonna pop up, we're gonna have to deal with them,
Speaker 1: so let's plan for it to take twenty days, but
Speaker 1: we think it's really gonna only take ten. Well, according
Speaker 1: to Parkinson's law, the work we're doing is actually going
Speaker 1: to expand to fill up those extra ten days. So
Speaker 1: at the end we're going to say, boy, aren't we
Speaker 1: glad we said twenty days because it turned out that's
Speaker 1: how long we needed. But there's also the possibility that
Speaker 1: you could have completed it in ten days, and that
Speaker 1: you really just allowed the work to expand to fill
Speaker 1: that space, that if you had given a ten day deadline,
Speaker 1: you still have gotten the work done. There is a
Speaker 1: diminishing return here, though. There is a point where you
Speaker 1: might give a deadline that's just too aggressive, right that
Speaker 1: maybe you say, oh, it's going to take us five days,
Speaker 1: when you really think it's going to take you ten,
Speaker 1: and you're doing it so that you motivate yourself, but
Speaker 1: it turns out you've sabotaged the whole project because there's
Speaker 1: just no way to get it all done in five days.
Speaker 1: That can also happen. So it's a delicate line you
Speaker 1: have to walk right. So Parkinson's law is really more
Speaker 1: about how we let time get away from us, or
Speaker 1: how we allow bureaucracy to play a large role in things,
Speaker 1: or otherwise bog ourselves down in the stuff that keeps
Speaker 1: us from getting the core work done. However, it does
Speaker 1: not mean we can set these arbitrarily short deadlines and
Speaker 1: then magically get things done faster. As I said, there
Speaker 1: is that tipping point that you have to look at.
Speaker 1: NASA's approach is to set aggressive but potentially achievable deadlines
Speaker 1: that in turn sets expectations and the pace of work.
Speaker 1: It also gets people into the habit of looking at
Speaker 1: practical approaches. If the goal is to get people back
Speaker 1: on the Moon by twenty twenty four, what are the
Speaker 1: things that have to happen in order to achieve that goal.
Speaker 1: If we're going to send people to Mars in the
Speaker 1: following decade in twenty thirties, what do we absolutely have
Speaker 1: to have nailed down to make that happen, rather than
Speaker 1: just having feature creep come in where we say, oh,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be nice if we also added this. By
Speaker 1: saying these aggressive goals, you kind of push feature creep
Speaker 1: to the side because you say, listen, our main concern
Speaker 1: is getting this to happen by this date. The things
Speaker 1: that would be nice are out of the discussion because
Speaker 1: that doesn't contribute to what we actually have as our goal.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what happened in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: to a large extent, and it does work as a
Speaker 1: motivating factor to a certain level. Now. Besides, these timelines
Speaker 1: have to be aggressive anyway, because NASA can't count on
Speaker 1: having a budget sufficient for achieving its goals from one
Speaker 1: year to the next, definitely not between presidential administrations, and
Speaker 1: there's the potential for the presidential administration to make a
Speaker 1: big change in twenty twenty, So who knows what the
Speaker 1: next president might prioritize when it comes to budgets. So
Speaker 1: if they set longer timelines, if NASA said, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna give ourselves more space, no pun intended, to get
Speaker 1: this stuff done, there'd be a lot more chances for
Speaker 1: things like budget cutbacks which would sabotage emission just as
Speaker 1: effectively as hitting some sort of technical or design challenge
Speaker 1: that would become harder to solve than you thought. NASA
Speaker 1: is moving forward with their goals that we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to wait and see if they actually are achievable. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, the agency has opened up the application
Speaker 1: process for people who are interested in becoming astronauts. Right now,
Speaker 1: the US Astronaut program has about forty eight people in it.
Speaker 1: NASA needs more for this program to be workable, so
Speaker 1: it's possible someone listening to this podcast could be the
Speaker 1: first woman or the next man to set foot on
Speaker 1: the moon. To apply, you have to meet some pretty
Speaker 1: high standards, which again is understandable. There are three general
Speaker 1: types of folks that NASA's looking for during this application process.
Speaker 1: They're looking for people who hold at least a master's
Speaker 1: degree in a STEM related field, so like engineering or
Speaker 1: astrophysics or something like that. They are also looking for
Speaker 1: people who are medical doctors. It gets more specific than that,
Speaker 1: but that's one of the three types, and the third
Speaker 1: are people who are certified test pilots. Those are the
Speaker 1: three types that NASA's looking for. So if you belong
Speaker 1: to one of those three groups, you can look into
Speaker 1: the requirements that NASA has in place to see if
Speaker 1: you meet all the criteria. The application process includes an
Speaker 1: online component for the very first time, which, as I understand,
Speaker 1: it takes a couple of hours to complete. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: know because I don't meet the initial criteria, but maybe
Speaker 1: one of you guys can find out, and we'll have
Speaker 1: to wait and see if Artemis actually gets people to
Speaker 1: the Moon. We just don't know if it's going to
Speaker 1: be possible, yet I have high hopes. I would love
Speaker 1: to see it happen. I don't know how useful it
Speaker 1: will be in the long term unless we're actually able
Speaker 1: to to use the stuff we learn on the Moon
Speaker 1: as a platform for learning how we can get to Mars.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely something that is inspirational and that alone
Speaker 1: has value. You just have to weigh that value against
Speaker 1: other considerations, like risk and the other goals that you
Speaker 1: have with the agency, because NASA is doing obviously a
Speaker 1: lot more than just these programs, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to have a big, high risk, high payoff project fail
Speaker 1: like the Constellation project did, and potentially set the agency backward.
Speaker 1: So it's a complicated thing, but we'll have to keep
Speaker 1: our eyes open. I'm sure I'll do an update on
Speaker 1: this in the future, once we know more about what
Speaker 1: the Artemis program is going to be moving forward, and
Speaker 1: whether those deadlines stay in place or if they shift around.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, if you guys have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics, whether they're space related or a tech
Speaker 1: company or some trend in technology you want to know
Speaker 1: more about out send me a message. You can contact
Speaker 1: me on social media at Facebook or Twitter. We are
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