Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to sign stuff the production of our heart
Speaker 1: Radio I'm more a champ and today we're talking about
Speaker 1: the Artemis Moon Missions. That's the NASA program that's aiming
Speaker 1: to send humans back to the Moon. I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk to three scientists work on the program, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask them three questions. Why are we going
Speaker 1: back to the Moon, What kind of science are we
Speaker 1: hoping to get out of it, and what's the future
Speaker 1: of moon exploration. Are we gonna set up camp there
Speaker 1: or build an observatory for looking at the stars or
Speaker 1: is it going to be a jumping off point for
Speaker 1: going to Mars. We're going to cover a lot about
Speaker 1: going to the Moon, So strap in and get ready
Speaker 1: to launch as we take another giant leap for humankind
Speaker 1: the new Artemis Moon Missions. Enjoy. Hey everyone, you might
Speaker 1: have seen in the news that we're going back to
Speaker 1: the Moon. Just this week, NASA is scheduled to launch
Speaker 1: the Artemis two mission, which, for the first time in
Speaker 1: over fifty years, will send humans to go take a
Speaker 1: closer look at the Moon. Now, this one is not
Speaker 1: going to land on the Moon, as we'll explain later,
Speaker 1: there's a whole series of missions under the Artemis program,
Speaker 1: and this one is only scheduled to loop around the Moon.
Speaker 1: It's like the Apollo missions back in the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: you know, Apollo one, a Polo two, Apollo three, all
Speaker 1: the way up to Apollo eleven, which was the one
Speaker 1: that first landed on the Moon. And I say only
Speaker 1: going to loop around the Moon like it's easy. But
Speaker 1: clearly it's a huge deal that we're sending people back there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's literally rocket science. So the big question
Speaker 1: for me was why are we doing this? It's super cool,
Speaker 1: but why now? And what are we hoping to get
Speaker 1: out of it? To answer these questions, I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to talk to three NASA scientists who all work
Speaker 1: on the Artemis program. The first one is doctor Jose Udalo. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you doctor Rudala for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you Hodi here for having me. So my name
Speaker 2: is Hose Dalo and I serve in various capacities on
Speaker 2: the Artemis science team.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about what do you do for
Speaker 1: the Artemist mission.
Speaker 2: So right now I'm on both the Artemis two operations
Speaker 2: team and the first Artemist Geology team. I'm helping with
Speaker 2: defining science objectives and also for executing those objectives during
Speaker 2: the mission.
Speaker 1: So we went to the Moon in the late sixties seventies,
Speaker 1: and then there was a long period where we didn't
Speaker 1: seem to want to go to the Moon. What do
Speaker 1: you think has reawakened this interest in the Moon?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great question. I think a couple things.
Speaker 2: So One, we've reevaluated our knowledge of the Moon in
Speaker 2: ways that have been enabled by use science technologies since
Speaker 2: the sixties. You know, we have new insights into things
Speaker 2: like water that we weren't able to make those insights
Speaker 2: back in the sixties. I think that's driven a lot
Speaker 2: of the renewed interest, especially in the polar areas of
Speaker 2: the Moon. We've got great new data sets from orbiters
Speaker 2: that have flown around the Moon. Not just the US,
Speaker 2: but other nations have contributed to the wealth of remotely
Speaker 2: set data, and so now we have new eyes on
Speaker 2: the lunar surface. And I think that sort of generated
Speaker 2: lots of new questions and excitement. Oh and I think
Speaker 2: another part of it is sort of the pool of
Speaker 2: space explorers now is a little bit different than it
Speaker 2: was in the sixties. It is no longer just nation
Speaker 2: states and it's not the same nation states, you know.
Speaker 2: So we have companies now that are able to launch
Speaker 2: and develop their own spacecraft for their own purposes, you know,
Speaker 2: some commercial, some scientific, and you know, we've got new
Speaker 2: competitors on the global scene. You know, China is the
Speaker 2: one everybody talks about. India is another big player in
Speaker 2: space that's talking about sending crew to the Moon and
Speaker 2: eventually to Mars. So I think the field is much
Speaker 2: wider open now than it was in the sixties, huh.
Speaker 2: And I see that as a good thing. I think
Speaker 2: the more people go to the Moon, the better. I'll
Speaker 2: be cheering them all on, no matter which flag they
Speaker 2: were on their spacesuit.
Speaker 1: Interesting part of it is looking back at the Moon
Speaker 1: and learning new things and going like, oh hey, I
Speaker 1: didn't know about this, Let's take another look at the moon. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And the other part of it is sort of like
Speaker 1: other people are interested in now going to the Moon,
Speaker 1: so we should stay ahead a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always a little bit of competitiveness in human nature, right,
Speaker 2: but I think if we can harness that to further
Speaker 2: the scientific and really deeply human ambitions that can be
Speaker 2: sort of brought out in a positive way. I think
Speaker 2: that'll be really fabulous.
Speaker 1: That's great. More science is always good, Yeah, it's a unifier.
Speaker 1: More a space exploration is always exciting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: What are some of the things we've learned about the
Speaker 1: Moon that we didn't know before.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the big things has to do with
Speaker 2: the water on the moon.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is water on the Moon. And if you
Speaker 1: remember from our last episode about asteroids, you'll know that
Speaker 1: water is hugely important or space travel. You can drink it,
Speaker 1: you can turn it into oxygen to breathe, you can
Speaker 1: make rocket fuel out of it, and you can even
Speaker 1: use it as radiation shielding when you're in space. But
Speaker 1: for a long time, according to or Udaldo, we didn't
Speaker 1: think the Moon had any water on it.
Speaker 2: You know, we go back to the sixties, you know,
Speaker 2: the few of the Moon coming out of the Apollo
Speaker 2: samples was the Moon was very dry, which in some
Speaker 2: ways was surprising given our models for how the Moon formed.
Speaker 2: Why was this surprising, Well, you might imagine, you know,
Speaker 2: if you subscribe to the idea that the Moon and
Speaker 2: the Earth sort of formed close together.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The current hypothesis is that the early Earth was hit
Speaker 2: by a large object something the size of Mars, and
Speaker 2: the results of that collision, that leftover material formed the Moon.
Speaker 1: And so you might.
Speaker 2: Imagine that the Moon and the Earth should have some similarities,
Speaker 2: perhaps in the abundance of water, but if you look
Speaker 2: at the details of the geochemistry, that doesn't really fit,
Speaker 2: or at least not as neatly as you might expect. But
Speaker 2: now we've got sort of new ways of analyzing these
Speaker 2: samples from Apollo that give us better insights, and so
Speaker 2: now we have this view that there's probably lots of
Speaker 2: water on the Moon, some of which was brought to
Speaker 2: the Moon by asteroids comets impacting, some of which might
Speaker 2: have been brought out from the interior of the Moon
Speaker 2: early on in the Moon's history by volcanoes, and some
Speaker 2: of that water might be delivered to the Moon today,
Speaker 2: some in the form of little, tiny impacts, but a
Speaker 2: lot in the form of the solar wind.
Speaker 1: What okay, when I rewind a little bit, you said
Speaker 1: that there's water coming to the Moon from the Sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the solar wind. So the Sun's constantly sort of
Speaker 2: bombarding the lunar surface with particles protons, which, if you
Speaker 2: remember your chemistry, is basically a hydrogen nucleus and hydrogen
Speaker 2: plus oxygen, and there's plenty of it in the lunar surface,
Speaker 2: makes water least the building blocks for water.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. I hadn't thought about it. It's like it's raining
Speaker 1: water almost from the Sun. Yeah, it's a interesting way
Speaker 1: to think about it. Yeah, or's training I guess hydrogen
Speaker 1: braining hydrogen that then gets converted to water on the Moon.
Speaker 2: Yep. And our understanding of that story, which is so
Speaker 2: important for understanding the early history there at the Moon.
Speaker 2: That's really changed a lot since the sixties, and that's
Speaker 2: driving a lot of what we're doing at the Moon now.
Speaker 1: That's right. Water is a big motivation for this new
Speaker 1: push to go back to the Moon. Basically, the scientists
Speaker 1: have figured out that the Moon is wetter than we thought.
Speaker 1: They reanalyzed the moon rock samples that Apollo brought back.
Speaker 1: They found water molecules they hadn't seen before. Also, the
Speaker 1: satellites we've put around the Moon since then have also
Speaker 1: seen hints of water and the moondust that's on the surface.
Speaker 1: But the most tantalizing idea is that there could be
Speaker 1: huge amounts of water in the north and south poles
Speaker 1: of the Moon, and there's the possibility that there's water
Speaker 1: deposits on the poles, right, that's right.
Speaker 2: What's really interesting about the poles of the Moon is
Speaker 2: that there are craters that are deep enough at the
Speaker 2: poles that have never seen sunlight in their interiors. If
Speaker 2: you are standing at the south pole of the Moon,
Speaker 2: the sun would be continuously low on the horizon, and
Speaker 2: that's because the Moon is essentially not tilted in the
Speaker 2: same way the Earth is relative to the Sun. Right,
Speaker 2: so the Earth is tilted at twenty three and a
Speaker 2: half degrees, that's why we have seasons. The Moon's not
Speaker 2: like that. The Moon is essentially not tilted with respect
Speaker 2: to the Sun, and so the poles have this strange
Speaker 2: illumination condition where the sun is barely grazing the horizon.
Speaker 2: So you can imagine deep enough craters their interiors will
Speaker 2: never be illuminated, and that makes them very cold. Some
Speaker 2: of the coldest places that we know of and the
Speaker 2: whole Solar system, in fact, the known universe, are on
Speaker 2: the Moon. These shadowed areas, and these permanently shadowed craters
Speaker 2: have temperatures that are close to absolute zero. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like in your freezer, right, you have like ice
Speaker 2: that builds up on the walls of your freezer. That's
Speaker 2: why you get to frost your refrigerator right now.
Speaker 1: And then uh huh. Any water that is floating around
Speaker 1: and eventually gets the poles will suddenly freeze into.
Speaker 2: Spots exactly exactly. So these are cold traps. And so
Speaker 2: the idea is that some of these craters might have
Speaker 2: ancient ice, you know that maybe it was delivered early
Speaker 2: on in the Moon's history by impacts or by volcanoes.
Speaker 2: So there's a whole history there to understand as well.
Speaker 1: Wow, there could be a whole ice skating rinks in
Speaker 1: the poles of the Moon.
Speaker 2: Potentially that would be a great thing, wouldn't it. Right,
Speaker 2: you have like the Winter Olympics on the Moon.
Speaker 1: Someday they could do not a triple LUTs, but like
Speaker 1: a quint triple lutz exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm sure curling on the Moon would be really popular too.
Speaker 1: Oh even slower, yeah, exactly, even less exciting perhaps. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing with the ice though, we're not sure what
Speaker 2: form it has, so it could be you know, sheets
Speaker 2: of that are interlayered with the lunar soil. It could
Speaker 2: be just ice disseminated throughout the soil, kind of like
Speaker 2: it is in perma frost here on Earth. It could
Speaker 2: be veins. We're not sure what format has. That's one
Speaker 2: of the things we'll find out, hopefully when we have
Speaker 2: astronauts and robots on the Moon in the South Pole
Speaker 2: in the coming years.
Speaker 1: Yes, you heard that right. There aren't going to be
Speaker 1: people and robots and maybe also cars and a moon
Speaker 1: base on the Moon in the coming years. There's even
Speaker 1: plans for a moon delivery service. We'll get to that
Speaker 1: later in the program. But when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk to one of the chief scientists of
Speaker 1: the Artemist mission who's going to step us through the
Speaker 1: big picture here. Why exactly are we setting up camp
Speaker 1: on the Moon and what do we hope to gain
Speaker 1: by actually being there, I mean, besides potentially curling and
Speaker 1: ice skating in the South Pole. So chill out and
Speaker 1: stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about NASA's Artemis program and why we're going
Speaker 1: back to the Moon. We just talked about why there's
Speaker 1: a renewed interest in going back there, and now we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about what science we're hoping to get
Speaker 1: out of revisiting our closest neighbor to give us an overview.
Speaker 1: I talked to doctor Renee Weber, one of the chief
Speaker 1: scientists who works on the mission. So here's my conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Weber. Well, thank you, doctor Weber for joining us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Can you please tell us what you do? Yeah.
Speaker 4: I work for NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center, where
Speaker 4: I am the chief scientist.
Speaker 1: It's like you have a tribe of scientist there and
Speaker 1: you're the chief.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I'm also a member of the Artemis Internal
Speaker 4: Science Team, and we're a team of lunar scientists who
Speaker 4: are helping the agency to define the science objectives and
Speaker 4: activities that astronauts will do when we return to the Moon.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Well, today we're trying to learn what the Artemist
Speaker 1: missions are all about. How would you describe the overall
Speaker 1: objective of the Artemist missions? What's the big picture? Plant?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know, NASA's mission as an agency is
Speaker 4: to explore the unknown, to go places that we haven't
Speaker 4: gone before, to make new discoveries, to share those discoveries
Speaker 4: with the world, to inspire people and you know, the
Speaker 4: Moon is sort of a distant frontier and it really
Speaker 4: touches on that exploration craving that I guess all humans have,
Speaker 4: and specifically to go to the Moon. You can sort
Speaker 4: of think about three big camps of science. The first
Speaker 4: is actually studying the Moon itself, and the second is
Speaker 4: using the Moon as a platform to explore other areas.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And the third is doing science that helps us understand
Speaker 4: how to live and work in that environment, so like
Speaker 4: a Moon base, and even going farther forward than that,
Speaker 4: thinking about sending humans to Mars. So understanding how to
Speaker 4: live and work in space is really really important when
Speaker 4: you think about expanding that human frontier.
Speaker 1: Wow. Oh that's amazing. I had I heard it broken
Speaker 1: down like that. Can we go through them one by one? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: So the first one you said was to understand the
Speaker 1: Moon better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just to learn about the Moon, how it formed
Speaker 4: and evolved over time, and in that sense, we can
Speaker 4: sort of use the Moon as a laboratory for understanding
Speaker 4: how all planets form and evolve over time.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the first overall size goal of the Artemis
Speaker 1: program is to understand more about the Moon, not just
Speaker 1: about the water on it, like we talked about in
Speaker 1: the last segment, but also it's geology. This is important because,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, the Moon has older rocks than
Speaker 1: the Earth. Even though the Moon and the Earth formed
Speaker 1: at the same time, the Earth is still hot and
Speaker 1: so the rocks keep melting and churning and recycling between
Speaker 1: the crust and the inside of the Earth. But the
Speaker 1: Moon cooled off faster because it's smaller, and so it's
Speaker 1: rocks frose in place a long time ago, which lets
Speaker 1: us look further back in time.
Speaker 4: Understanding the composition of the materials on the Moon is
Speaker 4: another way that we can understand planetary processes and how
Speaker 4: planetary surfaces form and evolve. And that's a big thing
Speaker 4: that we want astronauts to do when they go to
Speaker 4: the Moon. We want them to pick up rocks and
Speaker 4: bring them back so that we can analyze the men
Speaker 4: laboratories on Earth.
Speaker 1: And here's another cool thing about understanding the geology of
Speaker 1: moon rocks. We want to know if we can build
Speaker 1: things with them.
Speaker 4: And it's also important for a field of science called
Speaker 4: in schi resource utilization, which is basically figuring out how
Speaker 4: to live using the materials that you have where you are,
Speaker 4: And so can we use the soil on the Moon
Speaker 4: to create concrete? Can we build structures with it? Can
Speaker 4: we build roads? Can we build landing pads? Can we
Speaker 4: you know, use it to shield us against radiation? So
Speaker 4: those are all things that we would want to go
Speaker 4: and do geology to understand those.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. Can
Speaker 1: you make roads and houses from moon rocks? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are actually some programs here at Marshall looking
Speaker 4: at a process which is essentially three D printing using
Speaker 4: lunar materials.
Speaker 1: Wow, that would be the ultimate flex. It's like, not
Speaker 1: only might living in a three D printed house, it's
Speaker 1: on the Moon. Okay. So that's signs goal number one,
Speaker 1: which is doing signs about the Moon. It's water, it's rocks,
Speaker 1: it's history signs. Goals number two and number three are
Speaker 1: even cooler. Number two is to use the Moon as
Speaker 1: a testing ground for learning how to live in another planet.
Speaker 4: The science of using the Moon as a platform is
Speaker 4: particularly interesting because the Moon's environment is so unique compared
Speaker 4: to Earth, and it's also what makes it a challenge
Speaker 4: to be there. Yeah, so there's no atmosphere on the Moon,
Speaker 4: So figuring out how to build a suit that will
Speaker 4: sustain you for short visits, all the way up to
Speaker 4: how do you build a habitat that will sustain you
Speaker 4: for long visits, and then how do we grow plants?
Speaker 4: And sort of like the practical things having to do
Speaker 4: with just being there. It's just trying to understand the
Speaker 4: lunar environment basically what hazards are there. There are moonquakes
Speaker 4: really yeah, they're not the same as earthquakes. They don't
Speaker 4: occur for the same reasons, but they do occur, and
Speaker 4: so understanding how, why, when, how often, how big you know,
Speaker 4: could a moonquake knock a building down for example? Those
Speaker 4: are questions that we need to answer. The radiation environment
Speaker 4: is another big one. The surface of the Moon is
Speaker 4: just getting blasted with that all the time, and so
Speaker 4: it is a kind of more dangerous environment if you're
Speaker 4: going there to spend a long time, and so if
Speaker 4: you want to build a habitat, it needs to be
Speaker 4: able to protect you from that radiation.
Speaker 1: So I think you're saying that this is sort of
Speaker 1: like a practice run to going to Mars or to
Speaker 1: going to other planets. Just like how do we study
Speaker 1: an environment and learn to live there.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, Like I said, it's more about testing the
Speaker 4: systems and the technologies than it is for being a
Speaker 4: physical waypoint. So I don't think, at least in the
Speaker 4: near term, we're not going to be launching off from
Speaker 4: the Moon to go to Mars. We're going to launch
Speaker 4: from Earth to go to Mars. But understanding the space
Speaker 4: environment and building systems that are robust to the space
Speaker 4: environment is something that we can apply to other planets.
Speaker 1: Okay, And the last scientific goal of the Artemis missions
Speaker 1: is so basically turned the Moon into a really cool
Speaker 1: science lab.
Speaker 4: So the science objectives, the last one was about taking
Speaker 4: advantage of the unique lunar environment to do science that
Speaker 4: we can't do on Earth. And so we can do
Speaker 4: a lot of really cool material science research, So things
Speaker 4: like growing crystals or creating microfilament, those types of materials
Speaker 4: behave much differently in microgravity than they do in Earth gravity.
Speaker 4: The other ones are growing plants or any kind of
Speaker 4: biological experiment, which could include looking at human cells and
Speaker 4: how they react to the lunar environment, doing things that
Speaker 4: are beneficial for human health.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 4: And then also okay, if you're in an exploration atmosphere, right,
Speaker 4: it's likely going to be different than just the ambient
Speaker 4: Earth atmosphere, and materials can behave differently in those environments.
Speaker 4: So understanding the flammability of materials or how how plastics
Speaker 4: can degrade over time, those are going to be different
Speaker 4: on the Moon than they're going to be on Earth.
Speaker 1: REALI, is there any special consideration that you have to
Speaker 1: take into account for when doing experiments on the Moon?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the experiments themselves, you know, the hardware or
Speaker 4: whatever the instrument is needs to be designed with dust
Speaker 4: in mind. So you're walking around on the Moon, You're
Speaker 4: going to get some dust on you. It's inevitable. And
Speaker 4: so you know, they're looking at different ways of how
Speaker 4: can we get the dust off of us before we
Speaker 4: go back inside our fancy spaceship that we want to
Speaker 4: keep clean.
Speaker 1: A simple floor MAT's not going to cut it. Nope,
Speaker 1: it's like particle number one, wipe your feet before you
Speaker 1: enter the lunar capsule. Yes, So those are the main
Speaker 1: scientific goals of going back to the Moon, and they
Speaker 1: are pretty ambitious, which brings us to the next big question,
Speaker 1: what is all of this going to look like in
Speaker 1: the future? Are we really going to set up moon
Speaker 1: bases and live there. How do you bring stuff there
Speaker 1: and back? And more importantly, can you still get Amazon
Speaker 1: delivery on the Moon? Well, believe it or not, NASA
Speaker 1: actually has a plan for that. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about all of these things. So stay with us.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking to
Speaker 1: scientists who work on the new Artemis program to take
Speaker 1: astronauts back to the Moon. The last time you sent
Speaker 1: people there was in the Apollo missions in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and early seventies. Now you might be wondering
Speaker 1: what are we doing differently this time, and what's the
Speaker 1: long term plan for this? Are we actually going to
Speaker 1: set up camp at the Moon? To step us through
Speaker 1: these questions, I talked to doctor Marie Henderson, one of
Speaker 1: the deputy lunar science leads for Artemis too. Thank you,
Speaker 1: doctor Henderson for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm doctor Marie Henderson.
Speaker 3: I am a planetary scientist who specializes in lunar science
Speaker 3: and lunar volcanology, and I work at NASA Goddard Sweet
Speaker 3: Flight Center and also the University of Maryland, Baltimore County amazing.
Speaker 1: So there's no word for someone who just studies the moon.
Speaker 3: So there's so many different ways to say the moon.
Speaker 3: So you could be a lunar geologist, there could be
Speaker 3: someone who's a lunar spectroscopist. We sort of keep it
Speaker 3: sort of broad.
Speaker 1: I see, So there's many flavors of lunatics.
Speaker 5: Yes, Benny, all right, Well, I guess to start us off,
Speaker 5: what's different about how we're going to the Moon this time, Like,
Speaker 5: why can't we just blow off the cob webs from
Speaker 5: the Apollo missions, you know, dust of off and do again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, technology has changed significantly since the Apollo.
Speaker 3: The computing power during the Apollo program. I've heard inside
Speaker 3: the lunar module is less than what's in our cell phone.
Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of things that we're able
Speaker 3: to expand upon and also change as we go forward.
Speaker 3: And so it's not just brushing the dust off, but
Speaker 3: we're also creating off lan for going back to the Moon,
Speaker 3: because we're not just hoping to go for one off missions.
Speaker 3: We are also hoping to go and potentially stay for
Speaker 3: longer periods of time, And along with that, science is
Speaker 3: also playing a much larger role in this round of
Speaker 3: going back to the Moon. During the Apollo program, it
Speaker 3: was focused on getting humans onto the surface of the Moon,
Speaker 3: and over the past fifty years, lunar science has really
Speaker 3: expanded with our more detailed time to study it, and
Speaker 3: so we are going to be able to go to
Speaker 3: much more interesting areas of the Moon and places that
Speaker 3: are also more difficult to land.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to different places in the Moon.
Speaker 1: Mm hm oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So during the Apollo most of where we landed were
Speaker 3: equatorial regions, so they were well lit, good for communication.
Speaker 3: And as we've been able to expand our knowledge, that
Speaker 3: allows us to go somewhere, you know, to the South
Speaker 3: Pole the Moon that has a more extreme lighting conditions
Speaker 3: and also a very different terrain.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Is there a bucket list of places to
Speaker 1: visit for the Moon.
Speaker 3: I think if you talk to every lunar signed as,
Speaker 3: they have their own bucket list.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right now, for the first landed missions, it's been narrowed
Speaker 3: down to I think it's like thirteen or fourteen landing
Speaker 3: regions in the South Pole, and within that there are
Speaker 3: still many different sites available.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, and you mention we're going to land on
Speaker 1: the far side of the Moon also, Oh no.
Speaker 3: Just the South Pole, okay for now, but eventually it
Speaker 3: would be amazing to land on the far side of
Speaker 3: the Moon.
Speaker 1: I see. There's no Pink Floyd concert plan for the other.
Speaker 3: Side of the Moon, unfortunately not.
Speaker 1: And you said there's been a lot of obviously changes
Speaker 1: in technology since the Apollo mission. What is all this
Speaker 1: technology going to give us this time we're out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're going to be able to start to
Speaker 3: really choreograph a lot of different scientific operations and also
Speaker 3: thinking about how we communicate, being able to potentially send
Speaker 3: images back from you know, multiple cameras on the lunar surface,
Speaker 3: so like different ways to be able to send back
Speaker 3: data in real time. And we see those videos that
Speaker 3: are sort of grainy from the Apollo program, and that's
Speaker 3: one of the things we're really going to be able
Speaker 3: to expand on as we continue to Artemiss is taking
Speaker 3: the entire world with us as we go back to
Speaker 3: the Moon.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome. Are we going to be able to
Speaker 1: like face time with the astronauts kind of the idea?
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 1: So now, according to doctor Henderson, these upgrades in how
Speaker 1: we can talk to the astronauts as they go to
Speaker 1: the Moon is important because even though we have high
Speaker 1: definition cameras, there's nothing quite like what a person can see.
Speaker 3: A lot of their training goes into telling us what
Speaker 3: they are seeing. So they'll be hooked up to a
Speaker 3: computer sort of like we both die right now, and
Speaker 3: making a recording of what they are seeing. And even
Speaker 3: though we have had orbiters around the Moon for a
Speaker 3: long time, the human eyeballs connected to a human brain
Speaker 3: is a really impressive system and it can pick up
Speaker 3: different nuances that not always orbiters can pick up. And
Speaker 3: so we're looking for those, like differences in color across
Speaker 3: the surface. How do surfaces change, especially with changing lighting conditions.
Speaker 3: That's something we need a human to do.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Like it helps to be there, I know
Speaker 1: it really does.
Speaker 3: I'm very jealous but also very.
Speaker 1: Exciting for them. And so what will you be doing
Speaker 1: in mission control? You'll be wearing the headphones, you'll be
Speaker 1: in front of the screen. What's your world there?
Speaker 3: So I'm actually one of the science leaves and also
Speaker 3: the Science Evaluation room, and so this is the room
Speaker 3: where we're going to be building the plan for what
Speaker 3: the astronauts will be looking at during this mission and
Speaker 3: then evaluating the data that comes down amazing.
Speaker 1: That sounds super exciting. Is that a high pressure situation
Speaker 1: or are you.
Speaker 3: We've been training a lot, so we've gone and helped
Speaker 3: prepare the crew for what they're going to see and
Speaker 3: how they're going to describe it.
Speaker 1: It's the most important job to remind them to hit
Speaker 1: the record button.
Speaker 3: That is definitely. They know the importance of how their
Speaker 3: words may tell us more things than they may even
Speaker 3: realize they're telling us. And so every little details something
Speaker 3: they may describe could actually be that sort of epiphany
Speaker 3: or that light bulb moment that could really help us.
Speaker 3: And so we're really excited to hear their perspectives and
Speaker 3: the fact that there are multiple sets of eyes looking
Speaker 3: at the Moon.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's fascinating. And I heard also that part of
Speaker 1: the Artemis program is to establish kind of a long
Speaker 1: term presence on the Moon. Can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the goal is to continue to potentially build
Speaker 3: a Moon base and sort of the longer that you
Speaker 3: can stay and learn in a space environment, it helps
Speaker 3: us to prepare to go explore other places in our
Speaker 3: Solar system.
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to the future of
Speaker 1: the artemis missions as it happens. Right as we were
Speaker 1: making this episode, NASA made a big announcement about what
Speaker 1: the long term goals are. Here's how doctor Rutalo describes it.
Speaker 2: Actually, just in the last couple of hours, there's a
Speaker 2: big thing happening Washington, d C. Today where the NASA
Speaker 2: administrator is outlining sort of the vision for the Artemist program,
Speaker 2: and one of the ambitions is to land landers at
Speaker 2: the Moon at a monthly cadence in the next few years. Wow,
Speaker 2: that blows me away.
Speaker 1: That's super exciting, Like everyone will be sending rockets and landers.
Speaker 2: And exactly you know, if that pans out, we'll have
Speaker 2: you know, monthly delivery of robots with science instruments to
Speaker 2: the Moon. That's just fantastic.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. And I read the it's going to be
Speaker 1: partially private, Like it's not just NASA, it's maybe private
Speaker 1: contractors making these landers and robots. It is.
Speaker 2: That's something that's quite different with space exploration today compared
Speaker 2: to you know, back in the Apollo era. Private companies
Speaker 2: now are really important players, and NASA is seeing that
Speaker 2: as a benefit. You know, we've got all these companies
Speaker 2: like Blue Origin and SpaceX and there's others that are
Speaker 2: going to be providing launch and landing services, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like you know, buying like a service
Speaker 2: to do like a lunar delivery. NASA has this program
Speaker 2: called CLIPS Commercial Lunar Payloads Services. So this is a
Speaker 2: program where NASA is essentially buying lander services from private companies.
Speaker 2: So these companies build their own landers, they secure sort
Speaker 2: of a launch on a rocket, you know, SpaceX or
Speaker 2: Blue Origin or what have you, and those landers will
Speaker 2: carry payloads to the Moon. And those payloads could include
Speaker 2: NASA instruments, but these landers could be carrying other stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, for company, some company wants to test some
Speaker 2: technology on the lunar surface and they can sort of
Speaker 2: buy room on that lander to send their technology.
Speaker 1: I see, like established kind of infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Yes, infrastructure, and just sort of economic motivations for doing this,
Speaker 2: beyond science and beyond the other motivations that have taken
Speaker 2: us as far as we are now.
Speaker 1: So like if you're on the Moon, you can go
Speaker 1: on Amazon dot com and order I don't know what
Speaker 1: would you need on the.
Speaker 2: Moon, Oh, stuff that you can't find in seech you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it would not surprise me that someday we'll
Speaker 2: have Amazon deliveries on the lunar surface.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty I guess that's kind of the dream, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a sustained lunar presence I think will
Speaker 2: look like.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the dream of the Artemis program
Speaker 1: to make going to the Moon as easy and common
Speaker 1: as calling an Uber or scheduling an Amazon delivery, and
Speaker 1: so we can do awesome signs about how the Earth
Speaker 1: wares and what it takes to live in space and
Speaker 1: other planets. Okay, I just had one more question for
Speaker 1: our scientists, which was would they go to the moon? Okay,
Speaker 1: last question. Doctor. If NASA said we need you to
Speaker 1: go to the Moon tomorrow and live there, would you
Speaker 1: go oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely and heartbeat.
Speaker 1: Absolutely okay, yeah, no second thought, no, no second thought,
Speaker 1: you're going I would go, Yeah, but this is to
Speaker 1: move to the Moon and live there. I would you
Speaker 1: would do it? I would yeah, amazing. What would you
Speaker 1: bring with you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, I'm a geologist, so I would probably bring
Speaker 2: my rock hammer along. I'm sure there's some of those
Speaker 2: beautiful vistas that haven't been seen yet and that's because
Speaker 2: they're on the Moon, and I'd love to be able
Speaker 2: to see that firsthand.
Speaker 1: If NASA called you today and said, doctor Weber, we
Speaker 1: need you to be on the next slide out to
Speaker 1: the Moon, would you go.
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I really like Earth. Earth is
Speaker 4: my favorite planet. But you know, one of the visions
Speaker 4: that I've had in my head ever since I was
Speaker 4: a kid was making Star Trek be real, making there
Speaker 4: be people living and working in space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to help enable that from the comfort and
Speaker 4: safety of our home planet.
Speaker 1: Last question, So in the movie Hell Mary, they asked
Speaker 1: scientists working on the mission at the last minute to
Speaker 1: join the mission. Doctor Henderson, if NASA said right now
Speaker 1: we needed to go to the Moon on the next rocket,
Speaker 1: would you go, Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I would be so ready. Just drab me in,
Speaker 3: put me in, coach. I'm here.
Speaker 1: What would it mean to you if to go and
Speaker 1: see the Moon closer with your own eyes?
Speaker 3: It would just it takes it out of your own head.
Speaker 3: It's almost like every single night you look up at
Speaker 3: the Moon and you see it. And I've spent so
Speaker 3: much in my life thinking about the Moon, but to
Speaker 3: actually have it turned from something that I I've only
Speaker 3: seen really in like two dimensions to actually something to
Speaker 3: be a part of in like a three dimensional space.
Speaker 3: It would just blow my mind and I would probably
Speaker 3: have eight thousand more questions in my head than I
Speaker 3: already have right now. And you can leave me there
Speaker 3: for a while because I've got a lot of The
Speaker 3: moon was always the goal for me, and I'm so
Speaker 3: fortunate to be a part of the generation that gets
Speaker 3: to do this again.
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Hey. The launch for the Artemis two
Speaker 1: mission scheduled for this week, and it's programmed to be
Speaker 1: live streamed on NASA TV and several other platforms like
Speaker 1: Netflix in Amazon Prime, so be sure to check it out.
Speaker 1: A big thanks to the scientist we spoke to today
Speaker 1: and to NASA for helping make it happen. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. See you next time you've been listening to
Speaker 1: science stuff. Production of iHeartRadio written and produced by me
Speaker 1: Or hitch Ham, edited by Rose Seguda, executive producer Jerry Rowland,
Speaker 1: and audio engineer and mixer Ksey Pegram and you can
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