WEBVTT - The Artemis Program 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.840 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.960 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.880 and I love all things tech. And today we're going 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:27.080 to talk about space and NASA's most recent program intended 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.520 to put American astronauts back on the Moon and eventually 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.280 to go beyond the Moon. But first let's do a 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.480 quick look back into the history of the space program. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.720 So back in the early nineteen sixties, the United States 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.400 was in a fierce competition with the then Soviet Union. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.120 The Soviets had shocked Americans upon the launch of the 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.160 satellite Sputnik that was the first man made object launched 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.080 into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik didn't really do a 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.480 whole lot of other than send out a little beap 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.400 of a radio signal as it traveled miles above the 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:10.800 Earth's surface, but the implications of that launch were enormous. First, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.800 the fact that the Soviets could launch an object into 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.840 orbit suggested that the USS are also had the capability 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.759 of launching, say, you know, a missile somewhere else, like 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.720 across the world. At the United States coupled with a 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.320 nuclear warhead. That was a chilling thought. The US and 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.280 the USS are held a great deal of animosity for 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.880 each other, which is putting it lightly, or at least 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.600 the governments of those countries did, and each government supported 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.559 an awful lot of propaganda aimed at vilifying the other side. 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.320 As a child of the eighties, I remember a lot 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.760 of sort of anti Soviet, anti Russian kind of messaging 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.760 in pop culture and beyond well anyway, the second part 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.200 of this is that the world is a stage, as 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.880 Shakespeare once wrote, and on that stage, the Soviets were 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.240 poised to take on the role of most technologically and 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.720 scientifically advanced nation on the planet. And that was something 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.600 that the US government wasn't too keen on either, and 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.440 so there was a very strong incentive to give the 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.000 US space industry its own shot in the arm to 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:25.919 catch up and then ultimately to pass the Soviet space program. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:30.000 The space race would showcase the best and worst of 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:36.480 human traits. Among the best were ingenuity, problem solving, collaboration, exploration, 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:41.200 and curiosity. Among the worst, you had pride, you had 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.240 boasting not to mention the fact that the finish line 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.280 kept getting pushed back whenever one side would achieve something notable, 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.440 like you might say, oh, well, really, the real test 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.960 is to put the first person up in space, And 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.480 then the Soviets did that, and the Americans said, well, really, 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.560 the real test is docking to spacecraft in space together. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.000 And then the Americans did that, and the Soviets said, well, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.919 really it's and so they kept pushing that back until 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.720 finally it got to the real goal isn't to put 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.320 something into orbit, but to get to the moon, and 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:20.160 that was viewed as the ultimate goal, the ultimate finish line. Now, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.399 I mean, for reals, a lot of the space race 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.680 was really just about moving those goal posts so that 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.839 one side could not easily declare victory and superiority over 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.960 the other side. And yes, it is more than a 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.120 little bit childish. It might remind you of kids playing 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.360 a game where they keep changing the rules whenever it 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:42.280 seems like they're losing. However, that childish desire is also 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:46.760 what helped drive and perhaps more importantly, fund the actual 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.160 engineering and science that would lead to some of the 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.640 greatest achievements in human history. These are achievements that would 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.200 spend off numerous beneficial technologies that we rely upon and 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:02.720 benefit from today anyway. In the US Space Agency, NASA 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.880 initiated a new program named Apollo, and this was an 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.240 official response to a promise that had been made in 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.760 nineteen sixty one by US President John F. Kennedy. He 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.760 announced a commitment to get astronauts to the Moon by 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.320 the end of that decade. Now, in Greek mythology, Apollo 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.839 is the son of Zeus. He's the god of the arts, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.320 of poetry, and of the Sun. The Apollo missions saw 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.359 several successful moon landings, beginning with Apollo eleven in July 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:37.000 nineteen sixty nine and ending with Apollo seventeen in December 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.400 nineteen seventy two. The program also had its share of tragedy. 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.400 In nineteen sixty seven, three astronauts died in a pre 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.320 flight test when a fire broke out in the cockpit 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.000 of the command module. NASA would later designate this mission, 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.960 originally known as Apollo two oh four, Apollo one, in 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.680 an effort to honor the three astronauts who lost their 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.920 live in this accident. Apollo seventeen would mark the last 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.000 time a human would set foot on the Moon, and 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.640 that stands true up to the date of this recording. 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.320 No human has been back to the Moon since December 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.480 nineteen seventy two, and that's what brings us to today's topic, 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.800 because once again NASA and numerous partnering companies and organizations 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.080 are looking to send people back to the Moon's surface. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.159 This time, the goal is to include women astronauts in 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.040 the project, something that just didn't happen back in the 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:39.360 sixties and seventies. The new program is called Artemis. Now, 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.480 like Apollo, the name Artemis comes to us from Greek mythology. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.840 She's actually Apollo's twin sister, which makes sense as a 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.080 sort of the twin Sister project to Apollo. Now. Frankly, 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.360 I would argue Artemis is much better suited as a 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.360 name for this project because she's the goddess of the Moon. 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.680 She's also the goddess of you know, the wilderness and 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.640 hunting and other stuff. The Greek gods were famous multitaskers. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.679 As goddess of the Moon, she does have the perfect 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.279 name for the NASA endeavor to put people up there. 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.560 She did not just spring into being, either in mythology 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.320 or in the space project. In space terms, Artemis follows 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.360 some earlier attempts to get astronauts back to the Moon. 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.600 She's sort of the evolution of some earlier programs that 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.760 have since been either canceled or just transformed. So this 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.560 means we need to look at a span of time 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.839 between the Apollo missions and the upcoming Artemis missions. In 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.400 the first decade of the twenty one century, NASA announced 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:46.240 a program called Constellation. The scope of Constellation was pretty 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.400 darned big. It laid out the many advances NASA identified 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.000 as being pivotal for the most extensive missions to the 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.440 Moon and beyond. It called for the retirement of the 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.240 Space Shuttle program. It was already on its way out, 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.640 and so the reason for that was that the Space 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.800 Shuttle program was limited in its ability. Really could only 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.159 go into orbit. It can't go to the Moon or beyond. 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.160 And also, uh the Columbia disaster had brought up serious 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.640 questions about the viability of the Space Shuttle program in general, 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.920 it was an aging fleet of spacecraft. So this particular 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.520 Constellation program laid out requirements for a new type of 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.560 spacecraft called Oriyan, also known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle, 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.920 and it's similar to the old Apollo capsules, but it's 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:39.240 actually larger. The end has a lot more features and 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.960 could support a crew of astronauts on a mission to 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.960 the Moon and back, or extended trips to the International 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.800 Space Station. I'll talk more about the Orion in detail 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.280 a little bit later. So the Constellation program, in turn, 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.720 was a response to a call from the US President, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.280 George W. Bush, and he was asking NASA to really 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.880 shoot for the goals. He wanted something really aspirational and 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:08.080 inspirational to kind of get people excited about this. Presidents 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.640 tend to do this, by the way, when they need 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.120 a kind of a a boost in their own popularity. 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.840 It's great that we benefit from it from a scientific perspective, 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.360 but it does not always come from a genuine desire 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:27.400 to push science. Sometimes that desire is more linked to 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.360 the politics of the situation than the actual scientific goal 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.960 of the situation. And in fact, there are plenty of 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:39.640 people who argued that this whole approach was not the 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.800 right thing for NASA to do, that putting people back 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:47.320 on the Moon didn't really solve any big issues or 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.080 didn't open up any other opportunities. We had already been 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.720 to the Moon. People were arguing that maybe we wouldn't 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.480 be able to learn anything new by going back to 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.920 the Moon, that we should instead dedicate our efforts to 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.480 or other things. But the Moon is one of those 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.199 things that's easy to point out and say that is 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.920 a big challenge. How do we get back there? And 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.280 then you can worry about the other stuff later on 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.520 down the line. I think that there is value of 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.200 going back to the moon, by the way, I don't 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.199 want to dismiss it out of hand, but I can 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.040 see the validity of arguments that state maybe we should 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.320 look at other goals instead, goals that might have a 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:31.559 more obvious payout in either the benefits we get from 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.080 technological advancement or the direct result of the missions themselves. 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.080 So I can see both sides of both arguments, um, 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.040 and so I haven't I guess I haven't really fully 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.440 made up my mind of which side I really subscribe to. Anyway, 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:52.400 So we get this deadline set for this idea of 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.480 going back to the moon. The vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.719 was supposed to be ready by and then you had 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.200 the goal of actually getting people back on the Moon 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.520 by it is and spoiler alert, that ain't gonna happen 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:14.160 this year. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin unveiled this plan in 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.000 two thousand five, and that included a plan for two 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.600 new rockets systems that would provide the umph needed to 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.560 get the Orion spacecraft out into space on its way 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.040 to the Moon or the International Space Station. And those 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.360 rockets were the Aries one and the Arias five launch 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.920 vehicles No. Two and three just one in five and 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.880 they were or four, i should say, but one in 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.520 five were also meant to kind of mirror the Saturn 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.320 one and Saturn five rockets that were used in previous 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.080 NASA programs. Areas one was the smaller of the two rockets. 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.319 That one was intended to launch payloads like the Orion 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.679 spacecraft and its crew into orbit. The Area's five would 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.600 be a heavy lifting rocket and it would be used 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.400 to launch significance of amounts of a payload into space 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.800 of cargo. So if you wanted to create say Ace 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.880 Moon station, you know, to actually build a station on 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.040 the Moon, you would use a series of Aries five 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.840 rockets to launch those payloads into space and then presumably 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.080 you would find a way of getting them to the 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.280 Moon for construction. So it's not that different from models 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.120 like SpaceX, where they have the Falcon nine rocket or 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.440 launch vehicle that can send a capsule into space, or 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.240 the Falcon nine Heavy, which is meant to push much 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.440 heavier payloads into space. Developing the rockets would be another 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.480 really big task on top of building this Orion spacecraft. 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.400 But this was a thing that Griffin thought was necessary. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.360 Lunar missions are going to require a lot of support 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.679 systems in order to make sure the astronauts can get 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.440 to the Moon, they can land there, they can operate 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.200 on the Moon, and then they can return from the 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.080 Moon safely back to Earth. That fires a lot of work. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.400 So according to NASA estimates, relying on older launch vehicles 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.199 like the Delta or Atlas rockets would require many more 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:14.120 launches to get the required equipment back into space. So 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.240 that would drive up the cost of the program. And 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.920 Griffin was saying, well, it's gonna cost a huge amount 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.480 of money to develop new rockets, but it will cost 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.760 another huge amount of money if we rely on older rockets, 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.439 because we'll have to we'll have to use more of them. 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.680 And so he was weighing those two options and ultimately 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.760 decided that it made more sense to push for brand 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:39.680 new launch systems. Now spoiler alert. This whole plan that 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.720 was laid out in two thousand five did not pan out, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.640 at least not as Constellation had laid it all out. 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.959 We didn't have a spacecraft ready in time, nor are 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.360 we ready to put anyone on the Moon this year. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.400 And one of the main contributors to the shortfall was 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.800 down to budget. The original Hollow program had a budget 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:06.359 of twenty five point eight billion dollars from nineteen sixty 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.559 to nineteen seventy three. If we adjust that for inflation 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.040 and look at it in today's money, that would come 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:19.400 out to about two hundred sixty billion dollars, a truly 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.640 princely sum. But that was across the entire lifespan of 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.920 the Apollo program, not just one particular year. In nineteen 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.199 sixty six, the peak year the Apollo program. From a 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.439 vegetary perspective, the agency spent the equivalent of forty seven 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.000 point eight billion dollars in today's money, and that was 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.800 just for the Apollo program. So the budget for all 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.320 of NASA in two thousand five, not just Constellation, but 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:52.200 all the programs that NASA oversees was fifteen point six 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.360 billion dollars. That's a lot less than fourty seven point 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.320 eight billion. Trust me, I ran the math. Even adjusted 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.120 for inflation, that comes to just under seventeen billion dollars. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:07.440 It is an enormous amount less than what was spent 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.400 in nineteen sixty six, or the equivalent of what was 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.040 spent in nineteen sixty six. And yet Griffin was describing 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:18.240 Constellation as Apollo on steroids. So that got a lot 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.960 of people asking, can you really design Apollo on steroids 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.680 if you're using a budget that's less than half of 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:31.560 what Apollo's program spent in nineteen sixty six. So this 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:33.640 was a question that a lot of people were asking, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.880 and ultimately the answer appears to be, now, you can't 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.480 really do it. So despite having access to less money, 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.160 NASA still really tackled this challenge. I mean, a lot 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.960 of people poured a ton of work and effort into 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.520 trying to make this happen. In two thousand nine, the 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.400 agency released a statement saying the Orion would not be 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.040 ready for a fourteen launch. They were hoping that they 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:01.160 could maybe make it a twenty fifteen deadline. Um, but 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.160 here's the thing. While on on the surface that says, oh, 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.280 it's a delay of just one year, that's actually not 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.920 that bad, especially when you consider the budgetary restraints. It 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.800 actually was three years later than what Griffin had been 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.280 hoping for. He had hoped to have the Orion ready 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.920 for launch by twelve, so now they were sure it 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.120 wasn't gonna be ready till at least. The agency was 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.560 really trying to narrow a gap that was going to 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:30.000 exist when the space shuttles retired and the USA would 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.200 no longer have a spacecraft capable of launching and docking 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.920 with the newly finished International Space Station, so the I 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.200 s S gets finished around at the same time the 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.720 space shuttle program retires. Now, the USA is reliant on 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:49.280 other countries and their space program in order to get 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:54.240 astronauts to and from the space station, typically Russia, so 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:59.680 that's not ideal, and they were waiting on commercial space 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.840 companies like SpaceX to catch up, but that just hadn't 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.760 happened yet. So the real hope was that the Orion 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.880 spacecraft could take over those duties and make USA independent 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:16.000 of other countries and also of commercial spacecraft companies, where 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.040 NASA would be owning and operating these vehicles. But that 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.360 just wasn't gonna happen. That gap was going to get 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.280 wider and wider, not narrower. NASA did have a cost 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:30.880 overrun of three point one billion dollars, though again this 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.120 was much less than what the agency spent during the 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:37.160 Apollo program years. But that delay of the program and 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:42.240 they overrun in costs gave Constellation a really bad reputation. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:47.200 That was a reputation that President Barack Obama actually referenced 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.840 back in two thousand eight. NASA also predicted that the 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.840 program would continue to cost more than had been originally projected, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.240 with an increase of about a hundred forty percent of 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.880 the original budget marked out for the years between two 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.399 thousand ten and two thousand and fourteen, not great news. 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.560 On top of that, the focus of NASA was almost 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.760 entirely on the Orion spacecraft and the Arias one launch vehicle. 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.000 Again no big surprise here. The idea of sending people 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.200 to the Moon is generally one that people really get 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:25.760 excited about, and excitement translates into governments approving bigger budgets 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:30.240 because you know, representatives want to support the things that 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.439 their constituents are really excited about. But that meant that 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.240 the Area's five rocket, the heavy lifting rocket, had a 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.840 much smaller development budget that all the focus was on 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.040 the crude stuff. The Orion crew doesn't c R E 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.399 W E D the Orion spacecraft, and the Areas one 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.360 launch vehicle, not the Area's five, but the Areas five 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:52.679 was gonna need a lot of money. I mean, this 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.719 was a heavy lifting rocket concept, but that meant that 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.320 because it didn't get that big budget, the development was 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.480 getting delay it over and over again, and that led 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.359 to a point where analysts believed that based on the 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:09.359 budgetary trajectory at NASA, the earliest the Arias five rocket 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.720 would be able to launch the lunar landing hardware that 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.800 would be necessary to actually land on the Moon would 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.800 be sometime in the twenty thirties, if that were at 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.920 all possible even then, so that would delay that that 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.200 deadline of landing on the Moon by more than a decade. 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.640 The idea here was that the Space Agency would put 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.040 a lunar landing spacecraft into Earth orbit, and it was 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.560 to be called the Lunar Surface Access Module or l SAM. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.680 Later it was renamed the al Tear, and an Aries 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.439 five would launch this al Tear into Earth orbit. Because 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.040 it was heavier than the Orion spacecraft, so you wouldn't 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.040 want to use like an ARIES one rocket, you need 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.080 the heavy lifting rocket. There a separate areas. One rocket 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.640 would launch an Orion spacecraft into Earth orbit, and then 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.640 the Orion spacecraft would rendezvous with the orbiting al tear. 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.040 The two would dock and then together they would make 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.200 the rest of the trip to the Moon. Upon entering 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.960 lunar orbit, the two spacecraft could separate. The entire crew 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.440 of the Orion could move over into the al Tear 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:18.480 because the Orion would be automated and it would just 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.200 remain in orbit around the Moon. Then the al Tear 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.240 would land on the Moon. The astronauts would go out 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.399 and you know, do moon stuff. Then they would come 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.600 back to the altear, launch off the Moon back into 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.320 orbit doc with the Orion, transfer back over to the 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.400 Orion spacecraft, and then they could make the trip back 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.760 to Earth. But because of these budget limitations, the focus 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.399 on the Orion and the ARIES one vehicles meant that 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.399 all of this other stuff, the ARIES five and the 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.280 lunar module, all of that just remained hypothetical. It was 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.640 a proposal, not an actual spacecraft. So while the agency 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.280 might have produced an Orion spacecraft in time to get 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.840 into space. By there was just no hope of making 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.399 enough progress to land on the Moon any earlier than 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.440 the twenty thirties, and some people thought that even that 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:12.000 was too ambitious. Meanwhile, NASA, the agency was struggling with 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.120 budget constraints in general, not just for the Constellation program. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.159 Sometimes one project would have to siphon funds intended for 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.640 a totally different project. You had a lot of internal 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.840 battles in NASA as different project leads would kind of 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.840 squirrel budgetary money away that was intended for some other 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.199 project for their own. That did not help morale in 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.760 the agency. And moreover, it was never enough to cover 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:41.160 all the costs that were mounting up in NASA received 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:43.280 its new budget from the U. S government, and that 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:49.080 budget listed zero for the Constellation project. I'll explain more 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.119 in just a moment, but we'll take a quick break. 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.679 So why did the US government pull the plug in 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.560 two on the Constellation project? Well, it's actually pretty complicated 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.080 to answer that, but it comes down to several factors. So, 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.160 for one thing, the design specs for the various components 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.520 in the Constellation project had changed over time, some of 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.200 them had changed a few times since two thousand five. 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.800 The team made various determinations that then led them down 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.880 different paths, requiring NASA to invest more in new technologies 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.480 and new designs and launchcraft. And the initial plan would 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.680 have seen using them using more components that already existed, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.320 right that we're already in production. But a lot of 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.359 the decisions they made meant, oh, no, we're gonna have 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.480 to actually make new stuff. So that meant that the 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.640 process was going to take longer and also cost more. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.840 The prospects didn't look promising as far as achieving goals 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.920 on time, so that was another strike against it. And 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.920 you also had the case of a change in political administrations, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:59.480 which frequently shakes things up with government funded projects. In fact, 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.479 that's one of the biggest challenges NASA faces with space travel. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.000 It's not just the incredibly difficult task of designing technology 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.560 capable of bringing people into space safely and back home again. 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.119 It's dealing with a changing political climate that may have 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:19.480 vastly different priorities than the previous administration, which in turn 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.760 can mean that the funding you were counting on early 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.960 in the project disappears midway through the project and that's 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.040 that just means it's the end of your your your 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.400 whole process. Want a way to run a space railroad? Right. So, 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.359 in two thousand eight, when Obama won the presidency, one 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.080 of the things that followed was a change in NASA administrators. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.639 He and his advisers had a different set of priorities 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.040 than the previous administration, which included dedicating more money toward 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:54.080 commercial space companies like SpaceX rather than going down the 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.560 traditional path in which NASA would contract with big companies 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:02.080 like Boeing or Lockeed. Griffin resigned upon Obama taking office, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.600 which in turn is not an unusual thing to happen 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:08.320 when you have a change in administrations. It's not it's 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:13.040 not out of the realm of of of normal you know, 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:17.920 practice for administrators to resign. In those cases, it often happens. 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:22.520 His replacement would eventually be Charles Bolden, himself a a 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:27.159 former astronaut. Theo takes several months before Bolden would be 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:32.240 appointed that position and confirmed as the new administrator of NASA. 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.879 These challenges are part of why the private space industry 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.400 was able to get a foothold. Private companies aren't beholden 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.520 to a government for their budgets, although a private company 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.119 might find itself burning through its startup cash before it 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.399 can become a viable business, and private space companies like 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.880 SpaceX were becoming prominent right around the same time, which 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.520 in turn created a chance to rely on those companies 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.760 for key components rather than having them all be designed 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:02.960 or contracted through NASA. After a committee evaluated Constellation and 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.720 determined that the program simply could not succeed given its 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:11.080 very ambitious goals coupled with its very limited resources, the 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:14.600 project got the axe. It wasn't necessarily that the project 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:18.240 was bad, just that its reach was further than its grasp. 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:22.199 NASA was to shift money over to long range goals 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:26.120 such as developing new heavy lift rockets and propulsion systems 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:28.680 to be used in space, all with an eye towards 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:32.120 powering missions to Mars in the future. The area's rockets 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:37.480 and the Orion were scrapped, at least temporarily. Congress reacted 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.639 negatively to these changes because, well mostly because they weren't 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:47.119 included in the decisions. Obama amended his decision after encountering 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:51.760 intense opposition from certain members of Congress, and he brought 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:55.119