Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and a love of
Speaker 1: all things tech. And for today's show, we're actually going
Speaker 1: to listen to a podcast I recorded last year about
Speaker 1: the Artemis Project, a NASA project to return American astronauts
Speaker 1: to the Moon. Because the Office of the Inspector General,
Speaker 1: a department within NASA, conducted an audit and discovered that
Speaker 1: there is really no way NASA is going to have
Speaker 1: space suits ready for a twenty twenty four return to
Speaker 1: the Moon. That was the proposed deadline. We are not
Speaker 1: going to make that. According to the audit, the earliest
Speaker 1: those space suits would be ready with be sometime in
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty twenty five. So according to that,
Speaker 1: and that's just one piece, obviously, of a very complicated
Speaker 1: series of pieces necessary for us to return to space,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be back on the Moon by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, which even at the you know, when
Speaker 1: I recorded the episode last year, I thought was an
Speaker 1: incredibly aggressive target in the first place. So I thought
Speaker 1: it would be good to go back and listen to
Speaker 1: that episode about the Artemis project and to understand what
Speaker 1: the parameters are, what the purpose is, and then at
Speaker 1: the end I'll talk a little bit more about space suits.
Speaker 1: So let's get to it today. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about space and NASA's most recent program intended to put
Speaker 1: American astronauts back on the Moon and eventually to go
Speaker 1: beyond the Moon. But first let's do a wick look
Speaker 1: back into the history of the space program. So back
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties, the United States was in
Speaker 1: a fierce competition with the then Soviet Union. The Soviets
Speaker 1: had shocked Americans upon the launch of the satellite Sputnik
Speaker 1: that was the first man made object launched into orbit
Speaker 1: around the Earth. Sputnik didn't really do a whole lot
Speaker 1: other than send out a little beep of a radio
Speaker 1: signal as it traveled miles above the Earth's surface, but
Speaker 1: the implications of that launch were enormous. First, the fact
Speaker 1: that the Soviets could launch an object into orbit suggested
Speaker 1: that the USSR also had the capability of launching, say,
Speaker 1: you know, a missile somewhere else, like across the world
Speaker 1: at the United States. Coupled with a nuclear warhead. That
Speaker 1: was a chilling thought. The US and the USSR held
Speaker 1: a great deal of animal aimosity for each other, which
Speaker 1: is putting it lightly, or at least the governments of
Speaker 1: those countries did, and each government supported an awful lot
Speaker 1: of propaganda aimed at vilifying the other side. As a
Speaker 1: child of the eighties, I remember a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of anti Soviet, anti Russian kind of messaging in pop
Speaker 1: culture and beyond well. Anyway, the second part of this
Speaker 1: is that the world is a stage, as Shakespeare once wrote,
Speaker 1: and on that stage, the Soviets were poised to take
Speaker 1: on the role of most technologically and scientifically advanced nation
Speaker 1: on the planet. And that was something that the US
Speaker 1: government wasn't too keen on either, and so there was
Speaker 1: a very strong incentive to give the US space industry
Speaker 1: its own shot in the arm to catch up and
Speaker 1: then ultimately to pass the Soviet space program. The space
Speaker 1: race would showcase the best and worst of human traits.
Speaker 1: Among the best were ingenuity, problems, solving, collaboration, exploration, and curiosity.
Speaker 1: Among the worst, you had pride, you had boasting not
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that the finish line kept getting
Speaker 1: pushed back whenever one side would achieve something notable, like
Speaker 1: you might say, oh, well, really, the real test is
Speaker 1: to put the first person up in space, And then
Speaker 1: 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,
Speaker 1: really it's and so they kept pushing that back until
Speaker 1: finally it got to the real goal isn't to put
Speaker 1: something into orbit, but to get to the moon, and
Speaker 1: that 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, an 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 didn't
Speaker 1: happen back in the sixty 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 mission 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 darn 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 CAP 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 directors of the
Speaker 1: missions themselves. So I could see both sides of both arguments,
Speaker 1: and so I haven't I guess I haven't really fully
Speaker 1: made up my mind of which side I really subscribed to. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So we get this deadline set for this idea of
Speaker 1: going back to the moon. The vehicle, the Orion spacecraft,
Speaker 1: was supposed to be ready by twenty fourteen, and then
Speaker 1: you had the goal of actually getting people back on
Speaker 1: the Moon by twenty twenty. It is twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, that ain't gonna happen this year. NASA Administrator
Speaker 1: 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: in 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 we'll
Speaker 1: have to use more of them. And so he was
Speaker 1: weighing those two options and ultimately decided that it made
Speaker 1: more sense to push for brand new launch systems. Now
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, this whole plan that was laid out in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five did not pan out, at least
Speaker 1: not as Constellation had laid it all out. We didn't
Speaker 1: have a spacecraft ready in time, nor are we ready
Speaker 1: to put anyone on the Moon this year. And one
Speaker 1: of the main contributors to the shortfall was down to budget.
Speaker 1: The original Apollo program had a budget of twenty five
Speaker 1: point 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 that a
Speaker 1: lot of people were asking, and ultimately the answer appears
Speaker 1: to be no, you can't really do it. So despite
Speaker 1: having access to less money, NASA still really tackled this challenge.
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of people poured a ton of
Speaker 1: work and effort into trying to make this happen. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, the agency released a statement saying
Speaker 1: the Orion would not be ready for a twenty fourteen launch.
Speaker 1: They were hoping that they could maybe make it a
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen deadline. But here's the thing. While on the
Speaker 1: surface that says, oh, it's a delay of just one year.
Speaker 1: That's actually not that bad, especially when you consider the
Speaker 1: budgetary restraints. It actually was three years later than what
Speaker 1: Griffin had been hoping for. He had hoped to have
Speaker 1: the Orion ready for launch by twenty twelve, so now
Speaker 1: they were sure it wasn't going to be ready till
Speaker 1: at least twenty fifteen. The agency was really trying to
Speaker 1: narrow a gap that was going to exist when the
Speaker 1: space shuttles retired and the USA would no longer have
Speaker 1: a spacecraft capable of launching and docking the newly finished
Speaker 1: International Space Station, So the ISS gets finished around twenty
Speaker 1: ten at the same time the space shuttle program retires.
Speaker 1: Now the USA is reliant on other countries and their
Speaker 1: space program in order to get astronauts to and from
Speaker 1: the space station, typically Russia, so that's not ideal, and
Speaker 1: they were waiting on commercial space companies like SpaceX to
Speaker 1: catch up, but that just hadn't happened yet. So the
Speaker 1: real hope was that the Orion spacecraft could take over
Speaker 1: those duties and make USA independent of other countries and
Speaker 1: also of commercial spacecraft companies, where NASA would be owning
Speaker 1: and operating these vehicles. But that just wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: That gap was going to get wider and wider, not narrower.
Speaker 1: NASA did have a cost overrun of three point one
Speaker 1: billion dollars, though again this was much less than what
Speaker 1: the agency spent during the Apollo program years. But that
Speaker 1: delay of the program and the twenty six percent overrun
Speaker 1: in costs gave Constellation a really bad reputation. That was
Speaker 1: a reputation that President Barack Obama actually referenced back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. NASA also predicted that the program
Speaker 1: would continue to cost more than had been originally projected,
Speaker 1: with an increase of about one hundred and forty percent
Speaker 1: of the original budget marked out for the years between
Speaker 1: twenty ten and twenty fourteen, not great news. On top
Speaker 1: of that, the focus of NASA was almost entirely on
Speaker 1: the Orion spacecraft and the Areas One launch vehicle. Again
Speaker 1: no big surprise here. The idea of sending people to
Speaker 1: the moon is generally one that people really get excited about,
Speaker 1: and excitement translates into governments approving bigger budgets because you know,
Speaker 1: representatives want to support the things that their constituents are
Speaker 1: really excited about. But that meant that the ARES five rocket,
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting rocket, had a much smaller development budget.
Speaker 1: All the focus was on the crude stuff the Orion
Speaker 1: crew doesn't see rewed the Orion spacecraft and the ARES
Speaker 1: one launch vehicle, not the ARES five, but the AREAS
Speaker 1: five was going to need a lot of money. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a heavy lifting rocket concept. But that meant
Speaker 1: that because it didn't get that big budget, the development
Speaker 1: was getting delayed over and over again, and that led
Speaker 1: to a point where analysts believe that based on the
Speaker 1: budgetary trajectory at NASA, the earliest the ARES five rocket
Speaker 1: would be able to launch the lunar landing hardware that
Speaker 1: would be necessary to actually land on the Moon would
Speaker 1: be sometime in the twenty thirties, if that were at
Speaker 1: all possible even then, so that would delay that deadline
Speaker 1: of landing on the Moon by more than a decade.
Speaker 1: The idea here was that the Space Agency would put
Speaker 1: a lunar landing spacecraft into Earth orbit, and it was
Speaker 1: to be called the Lunar Surface Access Module or el SAM.
Speaker 1: Later it was renamed the Altair, and an ARIS five
Speaker 1: would launch this Altair into Earth orbit. Because it was
Speaker 1: heavier than the Orion spacecraft, so you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: use like an ARES one rocket, you need the heavy
Speaker 1: lifting rocket. There a separate areas. One rocket would launch
Speaker 1: an Orion spacecraft into Earth orbit, and then the Orion
Speaker 1: spacecraft would rendezvous with the orbiting Altair. The two would
Speaker 1: dock and then together they would make the rest of
Speaker 1: the trip to the Moon. Upon entering lunar orbit, the
Speaker 1: two spacecraft could separate. The entire crew of the Orion
Speaker 1: could move over into the Altair because the Orion would
Speaker 1: be automated and it would just remain in orbit around
Speaker 1: the Moon. Then the Altair would land on the Moon.
Speaker 1: The astronauts would go out and you know, do moon stuff.
Speaker 1: Then they would come back to the Altair, launch off
Speaker 1: the Moon, back into orbit, dock with the Orion, transfer
Speaker 1: back over to the R spacecraft, and then they could
Speaker 1: make the trip back to Earth. But because of these
Speaker 1: budget limitations, the focus on the Orion and the ARES
Speaker 1: IE vehicles meant that all of this other stuff, the
Speaker 1: ARES five and the lunar module, all of that just
Speaker 1: remained hypothetical. It was a proposal, not an actual spacecraft.
Speaker 1: So while the agency might have produced an Orion spacecraft,
Speaker 1: in time to get into space. By twenty fifteen, there
Speaker 1: was just no hope of making enough progress to land
Speaker 1: on the Moon any earlier than the twenty thirties, and
Speaker 1: some people thought that even that was too ambitious. Meanwhile, NASA,
Speaker 1: the agency was struggling with budget constraints in general, not
Speaker 1: just for the Constellation program. Sometimes one project would have
Speaker 1: to siphon funds intended for a totally different project. You
Speaker 1: had a lot of internal battles in NASA as different
Speaker 1: project leads would kind of squirrel budgetary money away that
Speaker 1: was intended for some other project for their own. That
Speaker 1: did not help morale in the game agency. And moreover,
Speaker 1: it was never enough to cover all the costs that
Speaker 1: were mounting up. In twenty ten, NASA received its new
Speaker 1: budget from the US government, and that budget listed zero
Speaker 1: for the Constellation project. I'll explain more in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but we'll take a quick break. So why did the
Speaker 1: US government pull the plug in twenty ten on the
Speaker 1: Constellation project? Well, it's actually pretty complicated to answer that,
Speaker 1: but it comes down to several factors. So, for one thing,
Speaker 1: the design specs or the various components in the Constellation
Speaker 1: project had changed over time, some of them had changed
Speaker 1: a few times since two thousand and five. The team
Speaker 1: made various determinations that then led them down different paths,
Speaker 1: requiring NASA to invest more in new technologies and new
Speaker 1: designs and launch craft. And the initial plan would have
Speaker 1: seen using them using more components that already existed right,
Speaker 1: that were already in production. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: decisions they made meant, oh, no, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to actually make new stuff. So that meant that the
Speaker 1: process was going to take longer and also cost more.
Speaker 1: The prospects didn't look promising as far as achieving goals
Speaker 1: on time, so that was another strike against it. And
Speaker 1: you also had the case of a change in political administrations,
Speaker 1: which 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: can 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, not
Speaker 1: a way to run a space railway. 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 determined 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 Orion
Speaker 1: were scrapped, at least temporarily. Congress reacted negatively to these
Speaker 1: changes because, well mostly because they weren't included in the decisions.
Speaker 1: Obama amended his decision after encountering intense opposition from certain
Speaker 1: members of Congress, and he brought Oriyan back into the
Speaker 1: picture so it no longer was scrapped, it was now
Speaker 1: back on the docket, and he set a deadline for
Speaker 1: a new launch system to be ready to go by
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. Congress then took that plan and tweaked it
Speaker 1: by giving NASA the directive to repurpose the rocket designs
Speaker 1: for the Constellation project and have that ready to go
Speaker 1: by twenty sixteen. The new launch vehicle would be called
Speaker 1: the Space Launch System or SLS. One of Obama's advisors
Speaker 1: said it was it was pretty clear that members of
Speaker 1: Congress were doing their best to keep contracts with big
Speaker 1: companies that had been involved in Constellation, indicating that this
Speaker 1: might have been some sort of you know, smokey filled
Speaker 1: room politics going on here rather than technical discussions. One
Speaker 1: other goal in this era was to develop a mission
Speaker 1: in which NASA would send astronauts to an asteroid, again
Speaker 1: as sort of a staging ground for an eventual mission
Speaker 1: to Mars, and that's where things mostly stayed. During Obama's administration,
Speaker 1: NASA was working on developing these initiatives, and the private
Speaker 1: space industry began to grow at the same time. Now,
Speaker 1: ultimately that asteroid mission would get scrapped, but it would
Speaker 1: stick around for quite some time. Now, when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: won the presidency, things would change again. So one thing
Speaker 1: you do often see with these changes in administrations is
Speaker 1: that a succeeding administration will attempt to set more ambitious
Speaker 1: goals than the preceding one. It's a way for presidents
Speaker 1: to kind of set themselves apart and to try and
Speaker 1: get the nation excited about some particular initiative. So Obama's
Speaker 1: administration was looking at the moon and asteroids, with a
Speaker 1: further goal being Mars in the future. Trump's approach was
Speaker 1: similar in that it was Moon and then straight on
Speaker 1: to Mars. Now. I'm not going to go into all
Speaker 1: the budget details here except to say, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that you kept seeing these lofty goals in place, you
Speaker 1: 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. Wells typically play out with congressional representatives
Speaker 1: from states that rely on big manufacturing jobs, with those
Speaker 1: companies like Boeing and Lockheed arguing that the key elements
Speaker 1: of any mission should ultimately be owned and operated by NASA.
Speaker 1: Then others say that the financially responsible thing to do
Speaker 1: is to outsource this to commercial space companies, whom they
Speaker 1: argue can do the same work but for less money.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these arguments come down to financial
Speaker 1: and political matters, again, not technological decisions, and it gets
Speaker 1: really messy. Tech is way easier to explain. In April
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, NASA announced that the Artemis program and its
Speaker 1: ambitious goal of putting a man and woman on the
Speaker 1: Moon by twenty twenty four would become a reality. Of course,
Speaker 1: we have to remember that elements of this plan had
Speaker 1: been in development since two thousand and five, But because
Speaker 1: the SLS is largely built upon the bones of the
Speaker 1: proposed Ares five rocket design. Heck, the Orion spacecraft, which
Speaker 1: 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 April 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 orbit,
Speaker 1: or to say, it to the Moon, and the future
Speaker 1: will get a more powerful Block two SLS that would
Speaker 1: 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 program. But the old Space Shuttle boosters
Speaker 1: had four segments of solid propellant rocket fuel. The Block
Speaker 1: 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 will have a little
Speaker 1: bit more oomph. The central core will have more fuel,
Speaker 1: it'll be a bigger fuel tank, and it will be
Speaker 1: able to put not just the Orion spacecraft into orbit,
Speaker 1: but an orbiting habitat up into space. It can lift
Speaker 1: a heavier payload up into space, creating opportunities for missions
Speaker 1: and more ambitious goals. Block two's goal is to create
Speaker 1: a launch vehicle capable of putting forty five tons of
Speaker 1: payload into deep space and will be used for missions
Speaker 1: that aim to go to Mars. All right, so let's
Speaker 1: get back to this timeline that has since been disputed
Speaker 1: by NASA. So, according to that original timeline, or at
Speaker 1: least the manifest timeline, NASA planned for the first crude
Speaker 1: Orion mission, The first mission to have astronauts aboard the
Speaker 1: Orion spacecraft, which would be called the Artemis two mission,
Speaker 1: would launch in January twenty twenty three. The mission will
Speaker 1: use a Block one SLS as the launch vehicle, and
Speaker 1: it would see the astronauts go on a path around
Speaker 1: the Moon and back to Earth, not landing on the Moon,
Speaker 1: but doing an orbit of the Moon and then returning
Speaker 1: or maybe not even a full orbit. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a flyby behind the Moon, similar to some of
Speaker 1: the earlier Apollo missions. In August twenty twenty four, NASA
Speaker 1: plans to launch the Artemis three mission. This mission's purpose
Speaker 1: is to send a lunar lander to the Moon on
Speaker 1: a Block one bsls. More on the whole lunar lander
Speaker 1: thing in a bit, because that part of the plan
Speaker 1: has definitely changed a couple of times. October twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four is the big one. That would be a mission
Speaker 1: called Artemis four, and the purpose would be to send
Speaker 1: astronauts to actually set foot on the Moon, including at
Speaker 1: least one woman. This mission would use a Block one
Speaker 1: SLS to send the Orion to rendezvous with a thing
Speaker 1: around the Moon's orbit. We'll get back to that because
Speaker 1: it has changed. It originally was just going to be
Speaker 1: a lunar lander. Now it's slightly different. And this does
Speaker 1: not end the Artemis program right The landing on the
Speaker 1: Moon is not the ultimate end of Artemis. NASA plans
Speaker 1: a few other missions. One would happen in September twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. This one is not technically an Artemis mission,
Speaker 1: but it will use the same spacecraft it'll use the
Speaker 1: SLS Block one in order to launch a satellite called
Speaker 1: the Europa Clipper, and this one would fly over to
Speaker 1: Jupiter and get an orbit around Jupiter and do flybys
Speaker 1: of Jupiter's moon Europa to get a closer look. And
Speaker 1: part of the purpose of this mission is to see
Speaker 1: if Europa has environments that could potentially support life, so
Speaker 1: that's really exciting. Then in June twenty twenty six, NASA
Speaker 1: plans to send another mission to the Moon, this one
Speaker 1: designated Artemis five, with more astronauts visiting Old Luna, using
Speaker 1: a Block one B SLS to get there, so this
Speaker 1: is the slightly larger version of the SLS. The following June,
Speaker 1: NASA would launch a lander to head to Europa, giving
Speaker 1: us an even closer look at Jubiter's Moon because we'd
Speaker 1: have a lander setting foot, a lander uncrewed lander setting
Speaker 1: foot or landing on Europa. But that would be super cool.
Speaker 1: In August twenty twenty eight, NASA, according to this manifest
Speaker 1: would plan to launch the Artemis six mission, which would
Speaker 1: once again take astronauts to the Moon, but this time
Speaker 1: aboard a Block one B SLS, And in February twenty
Speaker 1: twenty nine, Artemis seven would send cargo to the Moon
Speaker 1: and would be the first mission to rely on a
Speaker 1: Block two SLS. August twenty twenty nine also brings us
Speaker 1: to Artemis eight, and that is also using a block
Speaker 1: to SLS to send people astronauts aboard and orion mission.
Speaker 1: I have no idea where that one's specifically going. It
Speaker 1: might be a mission to test the block two for
Speaker 1: a manned spaceflight mission in general, but maybe it's going
Speaker 1: to the Moon. I don't know. The manifest was unclear,
Speaker 1: and the final two Artemist missions that were in that
Speaker 1: manifest included a twenty thirty one called Artomus nine that
Speaker 1: would be a cargo mission using an SLS Block two
Speaker 1: and an Artomis ten that would also use a astronaut
Speaker 1: led mission on a block to SLS. So that's what
Speaker 1: the manifest had laid out, which NASA again has disputed,
Speaker 1: saying that there are numerous errors or discrepancies with their
Speaker 1: current plan. But that's the most information I have as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast. It gives us a
Speaker 1: general idea of what they were thinking. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I'll talk about some other things that have complicated this
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. As I record this,
Speaker 1: we're in a blackout on information about further details of
Speaker 1: the Artimist program, largely because NASA is in contract negotiations
Speaker 1: with multiple companies for different parts of this program. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of details that haven't been nailed down.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to share because they haven't decided which version
Speaker 1: they're going with on some of these things. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. But while we don't have concrete facts
Speaker 1: to talk about, we can at least go over what
Speaker 1: NASA has in mind. Now, I've mentioned the Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: several 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 those 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 dials, 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 a 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 spacesuit and how that has changed
Speaker 1: 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 descent module that would go down and land
Speaker 1: on the surface of the Moon. Astronauts would then do
Speaker 1: their thing on the lunar surface, using the descent stage
Speaker 1: as sort of a base of operations for up to
Speaker 1: two weeks. Then they would board the part of that
Speaker 1: module that would be the ascent module. So this is
Speaker 1: the part that actually launches back off of the Moon's surface,
Speaker 1: leaving part of it behind. Right, So everyone piles into
Speaker 1: the ascent module, they launch, and then that puts them
Speaker 1: into a trajectory where they can rendezvous with the Lunar Gateway,
Speaker 1: dock with it, and come back to that studio apartment
Speaker 1: floating around the surface of the Moon. They could then
Speaker 1: continue work in the Lunar Gateway, or they could transfer
Speaker 1: over to the Orion spacecraft for the journey home. Now
Speaker 1: that part of the plan is largely being left to
Speaker 1: commercial space programs. So this is really not a description
Speaker 1: of a specific piece of technology. It's more of a
Speaker 1: description of what NASA wants in order for them to
Speaker 1: be able to have these missions work. So it's more like,
Speaker 1: this is what the technology needs to be able to do,
Speaker 1: but we're leaving it up to various companies to present
Speaker 1: proposals on how they want to do that. So while
Speaker 1: there's some concept art, it's all just a placeholder. These
Speaker 1: companies could each come up with very different proposals on
Speaker 1: how to achieve the same goal, and then ultimately NASA
Speaker 1: will select whichever one the agency feels is the most
Speaker 1: the perfect one for their mission. Hard to say the best,
Speaker 1: because things like not just the technological capability, but also
Speaker 1: the price factor into this sort of stuff. Anyway, honestly,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much where Artemis shakes out today. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of placeholders. Even to this day that still blows
Speaker 1: my mind considering that the goal is to get boots
Speaker 1: on the Moon by twenty twenty four. But then we've
Speaker 1: moved pretty quickly in the past in the space race,
Speaker 1: and honestly, this might be exactly what we need to
Speaker 1: drive innovation. We'll be right back with more about the
Speaker 1: Artemis program after these short messages. So there are generally
Speaker 1: two paths you can take when you're making these sort
Speaker 1: of big, big programs. One is you can work on
Speaker 1: the technology that you're going to need for space exploration,
Speaker 1: and then you can set a timeline based on your
Speaker 1: progress as you produce these pieces of technology. But that
Speaker 1: opens up the chance for projects to fall into an
Speaker 1: observation called Parkinson's law that's named after Cyril Northcote Parkinson,
Speaker 1: a British author, and Parkinson observed that work tends to
Speaker 1: expand to fill the time available for it to be completed. So,
Speaker 1: for example, let's say I'm researching a podcast and initially
Speaker 1: I have a deadline of four hours to finish my
Speaker 1: research before I have to go into the studio, and
Speaker 1: that means it's going to take me four hours to
Speaker 1: complete that research. I've got it all planned out, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go. I'm hitting the ground running. I'll be
Speaker 1: done in four hours. But let's say that something happens.
Speaker 1: Let's say that there's another podcast in the studio where
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go in they're running late. Then
Speaker 1: I'm told, hey, it's actually going to be two hours later.
Speaker 1: Than what you thought. Now you have six hours to
Speaker 1: finish that research. Well, according to Parkinson's law, the work
Speaker 1: of that research will actually expand for that six hours.
Speaker 1: That does not necessarily mean that the podcast I record
Speaker 1: is going to be longer than it would have been
Speaker 1: if it had stated its original studio time, or that'll
Speaker 1: even be better than it would have been when I
Speaker 1: was supposed to go in, rather than just the work
Speaker 1: itself expanded to fill in those extra two hours. So
Speaker 1: let's say we're working on a project and we're not
Speaker 1: sure how long it's going to take us to complete
Speaker 1: this project, but we're supposed to give an estimate. So
Speaker 1: if we're conservative, then we'll give an estimate that's further
Speaker 1: out than what we think we actually need, and the
Speaker 1: idea being well, things are going to pop up, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with them. So let's plan for
Speaker 1: it to take twenty days, but we think it's really
Speaker 1: going to only take ten. Well, according to Parkinson's law,
Speaker 1: the work we're doing is actually going to expand to
Speaker 1: fill up those extra ten days. So at the end
Speaker 1: we're going to say, boy, aren't we glad we said
Speaker 1: twenty days? Because it turned out that's how long we needed.
Speaker 1: But there's also the possibility that you could have completed
Speaker 1: it in ten days, and that you really just allowed
Speaker 1: the work to expand to fill that space. That if
Speaker 1: you had given a ten day deadline, you still have
Speaker 1: gotten the work done. There is a diminishing return here, though.
Speaker 1: There is a point where you might give a deadline
Speaker 1: that's just too aggressive, right that maybe you say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's going to take us five days when you really
Speaker 1: think it's going to take you ten, and you're doing
Speaker 1: it so that you motivate yourself, but it turns out
Speaker 1: you've sabotaged the whole project because there's just no way
Speaker 1: to get it all done in five days. That can
Speaker 1: also happen. So it's a delicate line you have to walk, right. So,
Speaker 1: Parkinson's law is really more about how we let time
Speaker 1: get away from us, or how we allow bureaucracy to
Speaker 1: play a large role in things, or otherwise bog ourselves
Speaker 1: down in the stuff that keeps us from getting the
Speaker 1: core work done. However, it does not mean we can
Speaker 1: set these arbitrarily short deadlines and then magically get things
Speaker 1: done faster. As I said, there is that tipping point
Speaker 1: that you have to look at. NASA's approach is to
Speaker 1: set aggressive but potentially achievable deadlines that in turn sets
Speaker 1: expectations and the pace of work. It also gets people
Speaker 1: into the habit of looking at practical approaches. If the
Speaker 1: goal is to get people back on the Moon by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, what are the things that have to
Speaker 1: happen in order to achieve that goal. If we're going
Speaker 1: to send people to Mars in the following decade in
Speaker 1: twenty thirties, what do we absolutely have to have nailed
Speaker 1: down to make that happen, Rather than just having feature
Speaker 1: come in where we say, oh, wouldn't it be nice
Speaker 1: if we also added this. By saying these aggressive goals,
Speaker 1: you kind of push feature creep to the side because
Speaker 1: you say, listen, our main concern is getting this to
Speaker 1: happen by this date. The things that would be nice
Speaker 1: are out of the discussion because that doesn't contribute to
Speaker 1: what we actually have as our goal. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of what happened in the nineteen sixties to a large extent,
Speaker 1: and it does work as a motivating factor to a
Speaker 1: certain level. Now, besides, these timelines have to be aggressive anyway,
Speaker 1: because NASA can't count on having a budget sufficient for
Speaker 1: achieving its goals from one year to the next. Definitely
Speaker 1: not between presidential administrations, and there's the potential for the
Speaker 1: presidential administration to make a big change in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: so who knows what the next president might prioritize when
Speaker 1: it comes to budgets. So if they set longer timelines,
Speaker 1: if NASA said, OK, we're gonna give ourselves more space,
Speaker 1: no pun intended, to get this stuff done, there'd be
Speaker 1: a lot more chances for things like budget cutbacks which
Speaker 1: would sabotage emission just as effectively as hitting some sort
Speaker 1: of technical or design challenge that would become harder to
Speaker 1: solve than you thought. NASA is moving forward with their
Speaker 1: goals that we're going to have to wait and see
Speaker 1: if they actually are achievable. But in the meantime, the
Speaker 1: agency has opened up the application process for people who
Speaker 1: are interested in becoming astronauts. Right now, the US Astronaut
Speaker 1: program has about forty eight people in it. NASA needs
Speaker 1: more for this program to be workable, so it's possible
Speaker 1: someone listening to this podcast could be the first woman
Speaker 1: or the next man to set foot on the moon.
Speaker 1: To apply, you have to meet some pretty high standards,
Speaker 1: which again is understandable. There are three general types of
Speaker 1: folks that NASA is 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
Speaker 1: understand it takes a couple of hours to complete. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know because I don't meet the initial criteria, but
Speaker 1: maybe one of you guys can find out. And we'll
Speaker 1: have to wait and see if Artemis actually gets people
Speaker 1: to the moon. We just don't know if it's going
Speaker 1: to be possible yet. I have high hopes. I would
Speaker 1: love to see it happen. I don't know how useful
Speaker 1: it will be in the long term, unless we're actually
Speaker 1: able 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, all right. So that was
Speaker 1: the Artemis Project. I hope you enjoyed that episode, and
Speaker 1: I am working on an update to this where we're
Speaker 1: going to talk more about space suits, their evolution, and
Speaker 1: why things got out of control. According to the Office
Speaker 1: of the Inspector General, the amount of money being spent
Speaker 1: on new spacesuits so far just the development costs have
Speaker 1: been around four hundred and twenty million dollars, and the
Speaker 1: office expects that another six hundred million or so would
Speaker 1: be spent before they were fully tested and ready to go,
Speaker 1: which means that more than a billion dollars would be
Speaker 1: spent on the development of these spacesuits, and that also
Speaker 1: prompted some other folks to pipe up and suggest that
Speaker 1: perhaps NASA's approach is not the best way, one of
Speaker 1: those being Elon Musk. So I'm gonna do a follow
Speaker 1: up episode to this one about spacesuits in general and
Speaker 1: talk about what has been going on in more detail.
Speaker 1: But for this one, I really wanted to revisit that
Speaker 1: whole story about the Artemis program to really talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, what are we trying to achieve in the
Speaker 1: first place, and then kind of see what elements are
Speaker 1: holding us back, because the space suits are just one
Speaker 1: of them, but it is one that definitively states we
Speaker 1: will not make that twenty twenty four goal. Barring some
Speaker 1: Deos x Machina kind of solution. Perhaps Elon Musk will
Speaker 1: produce spacesuits within the next three years that would be
Speaker 1: fully tested and ready to go. I doubt it, but
Speaker 1: who's to say. Anyway, If you have suggestions for future
Speaker 1: topics of tech Stuff, let me know. You can reach
Speaker 1: out to me on Twitter. The handle is text stuff
Speaker 1: HSW and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.