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