WEBVTT - Rerun: The Artemis Program 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.479 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.480 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.840 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and a love of 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.320 all things tech. And for today's show, we're actually going 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.759 to listen to a podcast I recorded last year about 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:30.480 the Artemis Project, a NASA project to return American astronauts 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.479 to the Moon. Because the Office of the Inspector General, 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:40.720 a department within NASA, conducted an audit and discovered that 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.080 there is really no way NASA is going to have 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:50.479 space suits ready for a twenty twenty four return to 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.640 the Moon. That was the proposed deadline. We are not 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.200 going to make that. According to the audit, the earliest 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.240 those space suits would be ready with be sometime in 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:06.039 the spring of twenty twenty five. So according to that, 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.600 and that's just one piece, obviously, of a very complicated 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.720 series of pieces necessary for us to return to space, 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.320 we're not going to be back on the Moon by 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.640 twenty twenty four, which even at the you know, when 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.240 I recorded the episode last year, I thought was an 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.160 incredibly aggressive target in the first place. So I thought 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:29.840 it would be good to go back and listen to 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.920 that episode about the Artemis project and to understand what 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.759 the parameters are, what the purpose is, and then at 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.120 the end I'll talk a little bit more about space suits. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:48.000 So let's get to it today. We're going to talk 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:53.040 about space and NASA's most recent program intended to put 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.400 American astronauts back on the Moon and eventually to go 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.800 beyond the Moon. But first let's do a wick look 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.800 back into the history of the space program. So back 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.960 in the early nineteen sixties, the United States was in 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:14.200 a fierce competition with the then Soviet Union. The Soviets 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.840 had shocked Americans upon the launch of the satellite Sputnik 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.600 that was the first man made object launched into orbit 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:25.360 around the Earth. Sputnik didn't really do a whole lot 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.840 other than send out a little beep of a radio 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.720 signal as it traveled miles above the Earth's surface, but 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:37.040 the implications of that launch were enormous. First, the fact 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.600 that the Soviets could launch an object into orbit suggested 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.840 that the USSR also had the capability of launching, say, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.480 you know, a missile somewhere else, like across the world 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:54.079 at the United States. Coupled with a nuclear warhead. That 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.720 was a chilling thought. The US and the USSR held 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.720 a great deal of animal aimosity for each other, which 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.480 is putting it lightly, or at least the governments of 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.040 those countries did, and each government supported an awful lot 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.040 of propaganda aimed at vilifying the other side. As a 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.359 child of the eighties, I remember a lot of sort 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.919 of anti Soviet, anti Russian kind of messaging in pop 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.640 culture and beyond well. Anyway, the second part of this 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.200 is that the world is a stage, as Shakespeare once wrote, 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.280 and on that stage, the Soviets were poised to take 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.880 on the role of most technologically and scientifically advanced nation 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.839 on the planet. And that was something that the US 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.640 government wasn't too keen on either, and so there was 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.560 a very strong incentive to give the US space industry 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.360 its own shot in the arm to catch up and 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.040 then ultimately to pass the Soviet space program. The space 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:56.560 race would showcase the best and worst of human traits. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:03.080 Among the best were ingenuity, problems, solving, collaboration, exploration, and curiosity. 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.920 Among the worst, you had pride, you had boasting not 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.520 to mention the fact that the finish line kept getting 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.400 pushed back whenever one side would achieve something notable, like 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.159 you might say, oh, well, really, the real test is 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.720 to put the first person up in space, And then 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.120 the Soviets did that, and the Americans said, well, really, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:28.120 the real test is docking two spacecraft in space together. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.600 And then the Americans did that, and the Soviets said, well, 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.520 really it's and so they kept pushing that back until 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.320 finally it got to the real goal isn't to put 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.880 something into orbit, but to get to the moon, and 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.760 that was viewed as the ultimate goal, the ultimate finish line. Now, 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.000 I mean, for reals, a lot of the space race 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.320 was really just about moving those goal posts so that 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.400 one side could not easily declare victory and superiority over 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.560 the other side. And yes, it is more than a 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.719 little bit childish. It might remind you of kids playing 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:02.919 a game where they keep changing the rules whenever it 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.880 seems like they're losing. However, that childish desire is also 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.400 what helped drive and perhaps more importantly, fund, the actual 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.760 engineering and science that would lead to some of the 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.200 greatest achievements in human history. These are achievements that would 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.800 spin off numerous beneficial technologies that we rely upon and 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:26.400 benefit from. Today anyway. In nineteen sixty three, the US 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:32.040 Space Agency NASA initiated a new program named Apollo, and 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.320 this was an official response to a promise that had 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.960 been made in nineteen sixty one by US President John F. Kennedy. 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.960 He announced a commitment to get astronauts to the Moon 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.159 by the end of that decade. Now, in Greek mythology, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.640 Apollo is the son of Zeus. He's the god of 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.080 the arts, of poetry, and of the Sun. The Apollo 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.440 missions saw several successful moon landings, beginning with Apollo eleven 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.720 in July nineteen sixty nine, an ending with Apollo seventeen 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.960 in December nineteen seventy two. The program also had its 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:10.440 share of tragedy. In nineteen sixty seven, three astronauts died 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.159 in a pre flight test when a fire broke out 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.479 in the cockpit of the command module. NASA would later 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.040 designate this mission, originally known as Apollo two oh four, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.640 Apollo one, in an effort to honor the three astronauts 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.679 who lost their lives in this accident. Apollo seventeen would 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.520 mark the last time a human would set foot on 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.240 the Moon, and that stands true up to the date 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.560 of this recording. No human has been back to the 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.799 Moon since December nineteen seventy two, and that's what brings 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.240 us to today's topic, because once again NASA and numerous 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.400 partnering companies and organizations are looking to send people back 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.719 to the Moon's surface. This time, the goal is to 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.279 include women astronauts in the project, something that just didn't 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.280 happen back in the sixty and seventies. The new program 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.520 is called Artemis. Now, like Apollo, the name Artemis comes 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.320 to us from Greek mythology. She's actually Apollo's twin sister, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.160 which makes sense. This is sort of the twin Sister 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.120 project to Apollo. Now. Frankly, I would argue Artemis is 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.560 much better suited as a name for this project because 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.840 she's the goddess of the Moon. She's also the goddess 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.160 of the wilderness and hunting and other stuff. The Greek 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.480 gods were famous multitaskers. As goddess of the Moon, she 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.840 does have the perfect name for the NASA endeavor to 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.680 put people up there. She did not just spring into being, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.880 either in mythology or in the space project. In space terms, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.600 Artemis follows some earlier attempts to get astronauts back to 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.320 the Moon. She's sort of the evolution of some earlier 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:54.680 programs that have since been either canceled or just transformed. 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.480 So this means we need to look at a span 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:02.680 of time between the Apollo mission and the upcoming Artemis missions. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.480 In the first decade of the twenty first century, NASA 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.400 announced a program called Constellation. The scope of Constellation was 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.360 pretty darn big. It laid out the many advances NASA 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.480 identified as being pivotal for the most extensive missions to 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.920 the Moon and beyond. It called for the retirement of 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.840 the Space Shuttle program. It was already on its way out, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.240 and so the reason for that was that the Space 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.400 Shuttle program was limited in its ability. Really could only 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.800 go into orbit. It can't go to the Moon or beyond. 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.320 And also the Columbia disaster had brought up serious questions 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.240 about the viability of the Space Shuttle program in general, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:48.520 it was an aging fleet of spacecraft. So this particular 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.120 Constellation program laid out requirements for a new type of 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:57.200 spacecraft called Orion, also known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.520 and it's similar to the old Apollo CAP but it's 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:05.120 actually larger and has a lot more features and could 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.720 support a crew of astronauts on a mission to the 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.120 Moon and back, or extended trips to the International Space Station. 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:14.760 I'll talk more about the Orion in detail a little 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.880 bit later. So the Constellation program, in turn, was a 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.959 response to a call from the US President, George W. Bush, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.040 and he was asking NASA to really shoot for these goals. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:30.679 He wanted something really aspirational and inspirational to kind of 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.320 get people excited about this. Presidents tend to do this, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.880 by the way, when they need a kind of a 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.680 boost in their own popularity. It's great that we benefit 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.880 from it from a scientific perspective, but it does not 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:51.000 always come from a genuine desire to push science. Sometimes 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.960 that desire is more linked to the politics of the 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.160 situation than the actual scientific goal of the situation. And 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.360 in fact, there are plenty of people who argued that 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.600 this whole approach was not the right thing for NASA 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.760 to do, that putting people back on the Moon didn't 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.000 really solve any big issues or didn't open up any 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.959 other opportunities. We had already been to the Moon. People 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:18.960 were arguing that maybe we wouldn't be able to learn 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.360 anything new by going back to the Moon, that we 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:28.280 should instead dedicate our efforts toward other things. But the 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.040 Moon is one of those things that's easy to point 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.920 at and say that is a big challenge. How do 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.800 we get back there? And then you can worry about 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.160 the other stuff later on down the line. I think 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.199 that there is value going back to the Moon. By 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.840 the way, I don't want to dismiss it out of hand, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.559 but I can see the validity of arguments that state 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.800 maybe we should look at other goals instead, goals that 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:56.520 might have a more obvious payout in either the benefits 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.520 we get from technological advancement or the directors of the 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.720 missions themselves. So I could see both sides of both arguments, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:07.640 and so I haven't I guess I haven't really fully 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.720 made up my mind of which side I really subscribed to. Anyway, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:17.920 So we get this deadline set for this idea of 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:22.480 going back to the moon. The vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.880 was supposed to be ready by twenty fourteen, and then 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.400 you had the goal of actually getting people back on 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.360 the Moon by twenty twenty. It is twenty twenty, and 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.319 spoiler alert, that ain't gonna happen this year. NASA Administrator 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.680 Michael Griffin unveiled this plan in two thousand and five, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.920 and that included a plan for two new rocket systems 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.880 that would provide the umph needed to get the Orion 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.640 spacecraft out into space on its way to the Moon 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.480 or the International Space Station. And those rockets were the 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:59.800 ARES one and the ARES five launch vehicles. No two 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.560 in three, just one in five, and they were or four, 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.600 i should say, but one in five were also meant 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.280 to kind of mirror the Saturn one and Saturn five 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.000 rockets that were used in previous NASA programs. ARES one 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.600 was the smaller of the two rockets. That one was 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.080 intended to launch payloads like the Orion spacecraft and its 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.840 crew into orbit. The ARES five would be a heavy 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.520 lifting rocket and it would be used to launch significance 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.880 amounts of a payload into space of cargo. So if 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.320 you wanted to create say a Moon station, you know, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.480 to actually build a station on the Moon, you would 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.960 use a series of ARES five rockets to launch those 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.280 payloads into space, and then presumably you would find a 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.320 way of getting them to the Moon for construction. So 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.280 it's not that different from models like SpaceX, where they 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.280 have the Falcon nine rocket or launch vehicle that can 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.560 send a capsule into space, or the Falcon nine Heavy, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.320 which is meant to push much heavier payloads into space. 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.800 Developing the rockets would be another really big task on 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.680 top of building this Orion spacecraft. But this was a 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.680 thing that Griffin thought was necessary. Lunar missions are going 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:17.800 to require a lot of support systems in order to 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.439 make sure the astronauts can get to the Moon, they 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.680 can land there, they can operate on the Moon, and 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.240 then they can return from the Moon safely back to Earth. 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.760 That requires a lot of work. So according to NASA estimates, 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.720 relying on older launch vehicles like the Delta or Atlas 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:37.000 rockets would require many more launches to get the required 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.080 equipment back into space. So that would drive up the 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.360 cost of the program. And Griffin was saying, well, it's 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.240 going to cost a huge amount of money to develop 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.480 new rockets, but it will cost another huge amount of 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.199 money if we rely on older rockets, because we we'll 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.719 have to use more of them. And so he was 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.480 weighing those two options and ultimately decided that it made 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:02.360 more sense to push for brand new launch systems. Now 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.960 spoiler alert, this whole plan that was laid out in 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.240 two thousand and five did not pan out, at least 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.480 not as Constellation had laid it all out. We didn't 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.960 have a spacecraft ready in time, nor are we ready 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.880 to put anyone on the Moon this year. And one 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:24.320 of the main contributors to the shortfall was down to budget. 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.200 The original Apollo program had a budget of twenty five 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:33.720 point eight billion dollars from nineteen sixty to nineteen seventy three. 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.520 If we adjust that for inflation and look at it 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.760 in today's money, that would come out to about two 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:46.720 hundred sixty billion dollars, a truly princely sum. But that 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.880 was across the entire lifespan of the Apollo program, not 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.080 just one particular year. In nineteen sixty six, the peak 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.960 year the Apollo program. From a vedgetary perspective, the agency 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.440 spent the equivalent of forty seven point eight billion dollars 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.680 in today's money, and that was just for the Apollo program. 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.040 So the budget for all of NASA in two thousand 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.960 and five, not just Constellation, but all the programs that 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:19.680 NASA oversees was fifteen point six billion dollars. That's a 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.840 lot less than forty seven point eight billion. Trust me, 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.520 I ran the math. Even adjusted for inflation, that comes 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.880 out to just under seventeen billion dollars. It is an 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:34.600 enormous amount less than what was spent in nineteen sixty six, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.560 or the equivalent of what was spent in nineteen sixty six. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.520 And yet Griffin was describing Constellation as Apollo on steroids. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:44.920 So that got a lot of people asking, can you 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:49.200 really design Apollo on steroids if you're using a budget 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.320 that's less than half of what Apollos program spent in 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:58.360 nineteen sixty six. So this was a question that a 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.000 lot of people were asking, and ultimately the answer appears 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.720 to be no, you can't really do it. So despite 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.320 having access to less money, NASA still really tackled this challenge. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.040 I mean, a lot of people poured a ton of 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.200 work and effort into trying to make this happen. In 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.640 two thousand and nine, the agency released a statement saying 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.120 the Orion would not be ready for a twenty fourteen launch. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.720 They were hoping that they could maybe make it a 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:29.800 twenty fifteen deadline. But here's the thing. While on the 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.040 surface that says, oh, it's a delay of just one year. 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.320 That's actually not that bad, especially when you consider the 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.400 budgetary restraints. It actually was three years later than what 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.040 Griffin had been hoping for. He had hoped to have 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.920 the Orion ready for launch by twenty twelve, so now 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:46.440 they were sure it wasn't going to be ready till 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.560 at least twenty fifteen. The agency was really trying to 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.280 narrow a gap that was going to exist when the 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.400 space shuttles retired and the USA would no longer have 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:01.240 a spacecraft capable of launching and docking the newly finished 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.320 International Space Station, So the ISS gets finished around twenty 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.480 ten at the same time the space shuttle program retires. 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.520 Now the USA is reliant on other countries and their 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.439 space program in order to get astronauts to and from 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:22.080 the space station, typically Russia, so that's not ideal, and 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.840 they were waiting on commercial space companies like SpaceX to 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:31.080 catch up, but that just hadn't happened yet. So the 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.560 real hope was that the Orion spacecraft could take over 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.679 those duties and make USA independent of other countries and 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:43.000 also of commercial spacecraft companies, where NASA would be owning 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.840 and operating these vehicles. But that just wasn't going to happen. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.760 That gap was going to get wider and wider, not narrower. 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.920 NASA did have a cost overrun of three point one 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.560 billion dollars, though again this was much less than what 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.719 the agency spent during the Apollo program years. But that 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.560 delay of the program and the twenty six percent overrun 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.720 in costs gave Constellation a really bad reputation. That was 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:13.080 a reputation that President Barack Obama actually referenced back in 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.760 two thousand and eight. NASA also predicted that the program 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.400 would continue to cost more than had been originally projected, 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.600 with an increase of about one hundred and forty percent 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.240 of the original budget marked out for the years between 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.600 twenty ten and twenty fourteen, not great news. On top 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.320 of that, the focus of NASA was almost entirely on 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:39.119 the Orion spacecraft and the Areas One launch vehicle. Again 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.760 no big surprise here. The idea of sending people to 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.600 the moon is generally one that people really get excited about, 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:52.840 and excitement translates into governments approving bigger budgets because you know, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.959 representatives want to support the things that their constituents are 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.359 really excited about. But that meant that the ARES five rocket, 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.760 the heavy lifting rocket, had a much smaller development budget. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.240 All the focus was on the crude stuff the Orion 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.800 crew doesn't see rewed the Orion spacecraft and the ARES 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.720 one launch vehicle, not the ARES five, but the AREAS 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.200 five was going to need a lot of money. I mean, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.160 this was a heavy lifting rocket concept. But that meant 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.880 that because it didn't get that big budget, the development 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.080 was getting delayed over and over again, and that led 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.960 to a point where analysts believe that based on the 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.960 budgetary trajectory at NASA, the earliest the ARES five rocket 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.320 would be able to launch the lunar landing hardware that 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.400 would be necessary to actually land on the Moon would 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.399 be sometime in the twenty thirties, if that were at 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.280 all possible even then, so that would delay that deadline 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.800 of landing on the Moon by more than a decade. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.240 The idea here was that the Space Agency would put 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.639 a lunar landing spacecraft into Earth orbit, and it was 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.200 to be called the Lunar Surface Access Module or el SAM. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.679 Later it was renamed the Altair, and an ARIS five 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.280 would launch this Altair into Earth orbit. Because it was 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.840 heavier than the Orion spacecraft, so you wouldn't want to 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.000 use like an ARES one rocket, you need the heavy 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:22.640 lifting rocket. There a separate areas. One rocket would launch 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.719 an Orion spacecraft into Earth orbit, and then the Orion 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.119 spacecraft would rendezvous with the orbiting Altair. The two would 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.000 dock and then together they would make the rest of 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.919 the trip to the Moon. Upon entering lunar orbit, the 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.520 two spacecraft could separate. The entire crew of the Orion 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.000 could move over into the Altair because the Orion would 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.160 be automated and it would just remain in orbit around 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.400 the Moon. Then the Altair would land on the Moon. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.920 The astronauts would go out and you know, do moon stuff. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.119 Then they would come back to the Altair, launch off 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.160 the Moon, back into orbit, dock with the Orion, transfer 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.120 back over to the R spacecraft, and then they could 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.280 make the trip back to Earth. But because of these 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.760 budget limitations, the focus on the Orion and the ARES 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.919 IE vehicles meant that all of this other stuff, the 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.159 ARES five and the lunar module, all of that just 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.680 remained hypothetical. It was a proposal, not an actual spacecraft. 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.200 So while the agency might have produced an Orion spacecraft, 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:25.880 in time to get into space. By twenty fifteen, there 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.560 was just no hope of making enough progress to land 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.399 on the Moon any earlier than the twenty thirties, and 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.720 some people thought that even that was too ambitious. Meanwhile, NASA, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.399 the agency was struggling with budget constraints in general, not 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:43.439 just for the Constellation program. Sometimes one project would have 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.280 to siphon funds intended for a totally different project. You 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.199 had a lot of internal battles in NASA as different 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:55.240 project leads would kind of squirrel budgetary money away that 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.679 was intended for some other project for their own. That 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.240 did not help morale in the game agency. And moreover, 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.199 it was never enough to cover all the costs that 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:07.160 were mounting up. In twenty ten, NASA received its new 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.119 budget from the US government, and that budget listed zero 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.320 for the Constellation project. I'll explain more in just a moment, 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:24.720 but we'll take a quick break. So why did the 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:27.359 US government pull the plug in twenty ten on the 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:31.000 Constellation project? Well, it's actually pretty complicated to answer that, 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.400 but it comes down to several factors. So, for one thing, 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.480 the design specs or the various components in the Constellation 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.800 project had changed over time, some of them had changed 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.760 a few times since two thousand and five. The team 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.280 made various determinations that then led them down different paths, 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:50.800 requiring NASA to invest more in new technologies and new 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.159 designs and launch craft. And the initial plan would have 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.840 seen using them using more components that already existed right, 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.040 that were already in production. But a lot of the 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:02.960 decisions they made meant, oh, no, we're going to have 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.080 to actually make new stuff. So that meant that the 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.280 process was going to take longer and also cost more. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.439 The prospects didn't look promising as far as achieving goals 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.439 on time, so that was another strike against it. And 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.520 you also had the case of a change in political administrations, 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:25.080 which frequently shakes things up with government funded projects. In fact, 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.080 that's one of the biggest challenges NASA faces with space travel. 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:33.600 It's not just the incredibly difficult task of designing technology 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:37.119 capable of bringing people into space safely and back home again. 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.719 It's dealing with a changing political climate that may have 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:45.120 vastly different priorities than the previous administration, which in turn 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.359 can mean that the funding you were counting on early 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:53.320 in the project disappears midway through the project, and that 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.359 just means it's the end of your whole process, not 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.439 a way to run a space railway. Right. So, in 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:06.000 two thousand and eight, when Obama won the presidency, one 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.639 of the things that followed was a change in NASA administrators. 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:12.200 He and his advisors had a different set of priorities 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:15.680 than the previous administration, which included dedicating more money toward 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.639 commercial space companies like SpaceX rather than going down the 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:23.160 traditional path in which NASA would contract with big companies 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:27.800 like Boeing or Lockheed. Griffin resigned upon Obama taking office, 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:30.200 which in turn is not an unusual thing to happen 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:34.840 when you have a change in administrations. It's not out 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:41.120 of the realm of normal practice for administrators to resign. 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:45.840 In those cases, it often happens. His replacement would eventually 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:50.360 be Charles Bolden, himself a former astronaut, though it takes 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:54.960 several months before Bolden would be appointed that position and 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:59.080 confirmed as the new administrator of NASA. These challenges are 0:24:59.119 --> 0:25:02.000 part of why the private space industry was able to 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:06.040