← 13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II
13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II
Artemis II: 9. Bye bye, fly-by
00:44:50
The Artemis II crew have completed their lunar fly-by.
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- [00:00]
Tim
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- [00:06]
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- [01:10]
Kristen Fisher
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- [01:51]
Maggie Adairin
Welcome to 13 Minutes presents Artemis 2 from the BBC World Service. I'm space scientist Raggy Adairin and this is episode nine, approaching flight day seven.
- [02:04]
Kristen Fisher
And I'm space journalist Kristen Fisher and we're following the progress of the first crewed mission around the moon in more than 50 years with a new episode every day.
- [02:12]
Jim Lovell
The second one, and especially meaningful for this crew, is a number of years ago we started this journey in our close knit astronaut family and we lost a loved one. And there's a feature in a really neat place on the moon and it is on the near side, far side boundary. In fact, it's just on the near side of that boundary. And so at certain times of the moon's transit around Earth, we will be able to see this from Earth. And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carol, the spouse of Reed, the mother of Katie and Ellie. And if you want to find this one, you look at Glushko and it's just to the northwest of that at the same latitude as Home. And it's a. It's a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carol. And you spell that. C, A, R, R, O, L, L. Yeah.
- [03:19]
Maggie Adairin
That's a really emotional moment from Artemis. Two crew there and what an amazing 24 hours it has been for all of us. But we'll come on to that shortly. Now, sadly, Tim can't be with us for today's episode, but we're enjoyed as ever by Kristin Fisher. Hi, Kristin.
- [03:37]
Kristen Fisher
Hi, Maggie. What a day.
- [03:40]
Maggie Adairin
But also we have BBC Science editor Becky Morrell. And, Becky, thank you so much for joining us, especially with such little sleep.
- [03:48]
Becky Morrell
I know. I will point out again, the astronauts have more sleep scheduled into their plan than I do. So, yeah, yeah, not quite fresh, but I have. I've got my coffee with me. So, yeah, glad to be here.
- [04:01]
Kristen Fisher
And we're all just bursting to talk about everything that's happened in the last 24 hours. But I think we're going to have to take turns, ladies. So, unfortunately, though, Tim got there first and earlier today he sent us this postcard. So let's listen to him first and then we'll jump in.
- [04:19]
Tim
Hello, Kristen and Maggie. Well, Lunar Flyby did not disappoint. What an incredible thing to witness. And it started for me with something really unexpected because just after Capcom had made that announcement that the Artemis 2 crew had become the furthest humans away from planet Earth, exceeding that 400,000 km kilometers or so set by Apollo 13, Jeremy made that announcement of naming of two craters. Firstly, integrity, after the name of the Orion capsule, but then the crater Carol, after Reid's late wife. And we are a very small family in the astronaut world. And I have to admit, I was absolutely taken aback for a few moments there. A really emotional experience. And you could tell that was also an emotional and special moment for the crew as well. But then when they got into the actual observation window, I was so impressed. The pace of work was phenomenal. They were doing this tag team, two on, two off, and they were running through their science objectives. The kind of descriptions that were coming back were phenomenal. They've obviously been so well trained by the science team and what they were bringing out in terms of the volcanic activity, the textures, the structures, the albedo, the lighting levels, was truly remarkable. The amount of detail data that they managed to capture last night, I think that's going to take years to go through.
- [05:41]
Jonathan Amos
It was.
- [05:41]
Tim
It was quite phenomenal. And also the excitement in the voices. You had the kind of scientific element, but then you had the Human element. You could tell that they were really overcome by what they were seeing. Victor's descriptions were so eloquent. When we got to the terminator and he was talking about these dark holes at the bottom of the impact craters that they go to the center of the moon. And then we come to the part which I know you were looking forward to, Krist, which was the solar eclipse.
- [06:10]
And I don't think any of us
- [06:11]
expected it to be such a special moment. And the sun had gone completely behind the moon. They could see this corona, but I don't think what they had expected was Earth shine. And just like on a full moon, we get moonshine here on Earth. They were seeing light reflected off Earth hitting the moon. And so parts of the moon they expected to be in darkness were actually kind of lit up. So they could see the moon, they could see the eclipse behind it. And it was just giving this surreal view. And there was that brilliant moment where Victor just said, we just went sci fi. And they were struggling to find the words to describe and they were kind of struggling with their camera settings as well, saying we can't, we can't quite capture what we're seeing with our eyes. And then as they came around from that eclipse, they started to see these impact flashes on the surface. And you could see the science team jumping up with joy at that point. And I can't wait to speak to Dr. Kelsey Young and get her impressions of this lunar flyby. I know they will be absolutely delighted with what the crew have reported and hopefully we will start to see some of those high resolution photographs making it on their way back from that spacecraft down to Earth so we can have a bit of a glimpse of what they've seen. And I can't wait to hear. Maggie and Kristin, what did you think of that too?
- [07:32]
Maggie Adairin
Well, it was lovely to hear from Tim there, but I think, Becky, I think your turn next. You need to go back to sleep. So is there any way to describe what it's like in Houston and mission Control at the moment?
- [07:43]
Becky Morrell
Well, actually, I was going to say, you know, Tim's wish of seeing those images, you know, he's obviously spoken to the higher astronaut group of people and they've pinged them down. We've had the first two back. An absolutely fabulous Earth set with the moon close up in the foreground and the Earth behind it. And of course that mirrors the Apollo 8 Earth Rise image and also absolutely fabulous eclipse. I mean, I know the astronauts said that they couldn't take photos. What they were seeing with their eyes wasn't matching their photography. But it's a lovely image where you can see the darkness of space, but with the stars pinging behind the moon. The moon, it's not fully black. The full disc of the moon, you can actually see some of the texture on it. And you can see the sun's outer atmosphere, it's corona behind it. I mean, it's fabulous. Anyway, I'm sure you will talk much more about that, but I thought I'd get in there, get in there first. But no, mission control is very exciting. Yesterday we actually went in. When I sent my little message to you, we were in there, and it was the start of the day for the team. And they are just so focused in there. You could see them sitting at their consoles with the data streaming in from the spacecraft. When we went in, actually, the astronauts were asleep, but what was quite nice, we were in there when the astronauts woke up. So they had some music playing, but also this very touching message recorded by Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, who passed away, but this was recorded before he died. So can you imagine on the day that you're going to the moon, waking up to that? You know, it must have been such a. Such a special moment for them. But, you know, as, as, as Tim said, it just kind of kept on going, you know, first exceeding the record set by the Apollo 13 astronals by Jim Lovell and his crew, you know, so long ago. And then, you know, the lunar observations. And I think one of my favorite things, I mean, it's almost the perfect sort of way to do a story for radio or for podcasts, the audio descriptions. I mean, they just brought that lunar surface to light, you know, talking about the textures they were seeing, talking about the colors, too. I mean, you know, you think that the moon is gray, you know, black, white, and gray, but they're seeing blues and greens and browns up there. You know, the fact that some of the younger craters were much, much brighter than the older craters, and they. They were recording them so precisely. And it has been interesting. We've been speaking to lots of the lunar science team here who've been saying that basically the astronauts had to go to school to learn how to be lunar scientists. You know, they had to learn their geology. They've had lessons in the classroom. They've been on field trip. I asked Nikki Fox, Dr. Nicola Fox, who's the head of science at NASA, last night, I kind of said, you know, it's like the ultimate exam, you know, doing this flyby for those astronauts. How did they do? And she said they aced it. They did really well. And then to cap it all off, the solar eclipse, I mean it's like, you know, as if, as if breaking the record isn't enough, as if, you know, seeing the moon close up isn't enough. It's. Oh, okay, we'll throw in a celestial advice for you too. So, you know, it was a fabulous day here and I think I just really liked hearing those descriptions though. But actually starting to see. I thought I was happy with the descriptions but now I'm seeing the images, I'm like, I want more of these images. They are fabulous.
- [11:08]
Maggie Adairin
Yes, I totally agree. And yeah, the thing is it was just sort of the trip that just kept on giving. There was more and more and more and it's almost mind boggling to try and take it all in.
- [11:19]
Becky Morrell
Yeah, that's, that's right. I mean actually speaking to Dr. Nicola Fox as well, she's a solar scientist, that is her thing. And she said to us, I have seen a lot of eclipses. That is her thing. She looks at eclipses, I mean obviously with her eclipse glasses, if she's doing it in person. But she said there's something quite different about seeing an eclipse from the vantage point that the astronauts were looking at it. She said it just looked different to the ones she, she saw on, on Earth. So. And actually the other really nice thing was I spoke to one of the lunar scientists. Sorry, there's so much to pack in, I'm rambling away, but I'll keep, I'll keep. I was waiting to one of the lunar scientists and suddenly this was a day before their flyby and suddenly I thought, because we do lots of stories about eclipses and I always have to say, you know, don't look at the sun, make sure you've got some eclipse glasses like this. And I was like, hang on a second, do the astronauts have any eclipse glasses? And the scientists we spoke to a really nice guy called Jacob Richardson said just a couple of weeks before their launch, they suddenly realized that if they launched on the first or the second, they would see a solar eclipse up there. So they went to rummage around at the Johnson Space center and they found some eclipse glasses from the Great American Eclipse.
- [12:38]
Maggie Adairin
I was there.
- [12:39]
Becky Morrell
Yeah, exactly. They found some eclipse classes and they managed to sneak them into the astronauts bags to take space. So they got into their manifest, which was just a detail that I really, really like because they're obviously, you know, whether they saw the eclipse or not was dependent on the trajectory that they were, they were on. But I mean, what a, what a treat. And it's, you know, it really shows off the moon actually. Even though the, the looking at that image, even though the moon is in darkness, I mean, it just, you know, it looks glorious.
- [13:07]
Maggie Adairin
It does because I've been to a number of solar eclipses and they've blown my mind. But yes, you see, as Nikki was saying, to see it from this perspective, it's so different because the moon is much bigger comp to the sun from this perspective and so to see the corona, but it's almost like wispy. It's just gorgeous.
- [13:22]
Becky Morrell
Yeah, no, lovely. There's really delightful images. Very nice.
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Maggie Adairin
But Becky, I know you need some more sleep, so thank you so much for joining us.
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Becky Morrell
Oh, no problem. Hope so. You know what, the astronauts are taking a day off tomorrow and so am I. I've now decided that my BBC News schedule is not working out with this four hours of sleep. So I'm going to try and have a day off. If they're having a day off, then should you. Yes, so am I. So, yeah, I'm well deserved.
- [13:51]
Maggie Adairin
Thank you again for joining us. Lovely. See. So we'll speak to you again soon, but yeah, enjoy your day of rest. I'll be back, I'll be back.
- [13:58]
Becky Morrell
See you later. Thank you.
- [14:00]
Kristen Fisher
Bye, Becky. Thank you. You know, Maggie, one of the things that I was really thinking about yesterday, and this is kind of a seemingly unusual connection, so bear with me here. One of the very few good things to come out of the COVID pandemic, I thought, was this feeling of unity amongst people all over the world, this feeling like we were all in it together. And yesterday as I was watching this all play out over hours, the humanity setting the new distance record, the closest pass by the moon, the eclipse, I felt like we were all back in it together, experiencing this thing for the first time together. And I don't know if the algorithm just had me pegged and was just feeding me more and more stuff about this mission on X and all the other social platforms, but I feel like maybe yesterday was a day where space and space exploration really broke through in a way that it hasn't broken through in my generation. And I don't know if that's wishful thinking, but gosh, I hope it is. I hope I'm right. And I was just so moved by the amount of people that were talking about the Artemis II mission yesterday. I was so encouraged by it.
- [15:24]
Maggie Adairin
That's one of the things that has played A big role in my life because I think space can unify. And it's funny. Cause during the pandemic, I got to do a lot of interviews and saying, okay, yeah, it's pretty rough here on Earth, but look up. And that's something that unites us. And looking at the moon, because sometimes, you know, there's clouds and things like that, you can't see the stars, but looking at the moon, it just sort of reunites us and we're together. And if you're separated from people, you know, you look at the moon, I look at the moon. It's sort of a. A bridging gap. And so, again, my life, I became a space scientist because I love that global view, that sort of view of humanity united and the images that we're seeing sort of really lends itself to that. And so, yeah, and I think hopefully this is the start of something. And what I've been finding is in the communities that I'm in, okay, I'm in the space community. But even going to the shops and getting a coffee, someone's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, have you been watching the Artemis? I was like, yeah, yeah. So we're sharing that. And anything that can unite us must be good. And we need it more than ever.
- [16:21]
Kristen Fisher
I think we really do. And, you know, later in the podcast, Maggie, we're going to get a long view on this mission from longtime space watcher and former BBC science correspondent John Amos. But yesterday, before the flyby to while away the time, Maggie, Tim and I had a dip into the huge number of questions that you all have been emailing us via Thirteenminutesbc.co.uk so here's a little clip of what we recorded earlier.
- [16:54]
Tim
We've been really delighted to have so many questions from you, and we've been amazed by both the number and the quality of what we've received. So thank you so much to all of you have written in. We're really grateful.
- [17:05]
Maggie Adairin
We're sorry that we can't answer all of them, but we've gone through the inbox and selected as many as we can. So straight off the bat, we'll start with a couple looking at a comparison between Artemis and Apollo. Now, this is for Molassie, who has written from Denmark. Could you talk a little about the different approach towards a moon landing between Apollo and Artemis? Apollo seemed to take small and very clear instrumental steps every few months towards the first moon landing in 1969. Artemis seems to take big leaps, but only once every few years. Artemis also seems to be quite sensitive to delays. What are the advantages and disadvantages to the Artemis approach? Thank you, Kristin. I think you've got this one.
- [17:48]
Kristen Fisher
Yeah. You know, Lassie, I don't know if there are any advantages to the original Artemis approach. I mean, the way Apollo did it with these incremental progressions. I mean, just look at the success of that, which is why were seeing a complete overhaul of the Artemis program's architecture. Just about two weeks ago, the new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, said he essentially wasn't comfortable going straight from Artemis 2, what we're seeing right now, to the lunar landing. And so he added in a mission in between Artemis 2 and the Lunar landing, which really mimics the way the Apollo program did it. And so what we're going to see for the first mission after Artemis 2 is a docking of the Orion spacecraft with one or both of the human landing systems that are at some point going to take those astronauts to the surface of the moon. We don't know if it's SpaceX's Starship or maybe Blue Origin's blue moon. That's still to be determined. But what we're seeing is this new administrator coming in and acknowledging exactly what you were talking about, Lassie, that there were some big problems with the Artemis program's architecture. It was sensitive to delays, it was too expensive. And so he is kind of course correcting and making some big changes to try to fix that. So I think Apollo really had it right. And I think you see Artemis trying to move a bit more in that direction.
- [19:20]
Tim
Absolutely. I think also to be fair to Artemis, obviously they're working on much, much tighter budgets. But then the plus side, they do have international partnership, which helps. And that recent announcement also this year, Kristin, to cancel the Gateway, or at least postpone the Gateway, and to refocus some of those elements onto lunar surface. So I think it gives some idea that the motivation now is, no, let's go down to the surface and let's establish a base and make a sustainable presence on the surface of the moon.
- [19:52]
Kristen Fisher
Apollo was really quite simple. Right. Compared to Artemis and what it was trying to do. It had a really simple elegance to it. Everything launching in one big stack. Whereas Artemis, you have to, you know, have starship potentially refuel multiple times. And so I think there's really been an acknowledgement by NASA's leadership and by Congress that Artemis needed to be simplified. And as you said, Tim, getting rid of Gateway was a big part of that. Gateway, of course, being a space station that was going to orbit the moon, they're essentially pausing that, maybe canceling and just putting all of that time, money and energy into building a base on the moon.
- [20:29]
Maggie Adairin
But that's one of the things I find exciting about Artemis because it is the long term goal. I think the future focus has a much longer baseline. And so the plans we're putting in now have a big impact in where we're going in the future. And so I think in that scale, because of the technology needed for that, it does take longer and we stumble upon big challenges along the way and those big challenges cause delays. So, yes, it isn't just about getting boots on the moon, it's about the long term plan. And I think, yeah, we find a few stumbling blocks on that way.
- [21:04]
Tim
Yeah, and of course, you know, Apollo, they made that, or Kennedy made that announcement, 1961, I think it was. We're going to have our humans on the moon by the end of this decade and they built the Saturn V to do exactly that. Whereas Artemis, as we've spoken, you know, this SLS rocket, it had its heritage in Ares 1, in Ares 5, the bush constellation program, the Obama years. No, let's cancel that. Let's go to an asteroid Trump. No, we're back on with the moon. We've ended up effectively with an SLS rocket that can carry the Orion spacecraft into the moon's orbit, but it can't actually land on the moon. So you're absolutely right. Chris in Apollo did it right. They were focused and targeted on exactly what they wanted to do. But, but Maggie, also, as you pointed out there, I think in, in 10 years time, we're going to end up with a fantastic program. We're going to end up with the right vehicles carrying the right equipment to a sustainable lunar base at the south pole of the moon. It's just that we've, you know, taken a long way round to get there.
- [22:03]
Kristen Fisher
Okay, our next question is from Katie in the UK and she asks, I was wondering if you could share a bit of information about how the Artemis 2 mission is handling water. Do they recyc like they do on the International Space Station or do they have water tanks? If it's the latter, how closely do they have to monitor each crew member's water rations? Tim, you know a thing or two about recycling water and wee, I believe, as you all call it, urine. As a very literal American would. What do you think about this?
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Tim
Yeah, that is a great question. And on the space station we have the luxury of space and huge volumes to have big pieces of equipment and A water recycling, a water revitalization system that takes up a lot of payload space. So no, the Orion spacecraft doesn't have that. On the space station, we're up to sort of high 80s, low 90% of recycling, everything. So you just said there, Kristen, it's our urine, it's our sweat, it's the moisture we breathe out. All of that's being captured and in less than 24 hours it's being processed back into drinking water. So, you know, yeah, this morning cup of tea is yesterday's pee. And we get used to that. It makes for interesting conversations around the breakfast table. But on the Orion spacecraft, they're going to have to carry all the water they need with them. No recycling at all. So they've got four big water tanks in that European service module and each of those tanks they carry about £125 worth of water. So in total that equates to about 240 litres of water for this mission. So the crew get about two and a half to three litres for their own consumption each day and that's to rehydrate their food and also just to drink. So they've got a water dispenser, but they've got to be careful about the rationing. They can't just go anytime they like to the water dispenser and getting a drink. It has to be regulated and the only way can they can do that is by timing it. And so when they're dispensing water, they time it to make sure they can keep a record of how much water they've used and how much water they've got left.
- [24:13]
Maggie Adairin
It was quite interesting because after launch they noticed that there was a difficulty with one of the valves on one of the tanks. And as a precaution they started putting water into pouches. They solved the problem. But if they had another problem sort of on the far side of the moon or on the way home, they need to know they can access that water. So I think it's quite interesting that they've even got a redundancy so that if anything does go wrong, they have those water pouches and they can keep themselves hydrated.
- [24:39]
Tim
Absolutely. And we do the same thing on the space station as well, Maggie. We occasionally have water put into these pouches and over time those pouches they let air into them so they become a bit inflated. And one of the astronauts tasks is to go and squeeze the pouches in the morning. And it's not the best task. It takes about an hour and a half and it's like playing the bagpipes and the way you do it is you grab these, there'd be like 20 of these water pouches and you have to spin your body around and you use the centrifugal force. So all the water goes one way or the air goes the other way and then you squeeze the air bit next to your chest, so. So it's like playing the bagpipes for an hour and a half to empty all the air out of the water. But that's what we do and that's our reserve quantity of water, so.
- [25:23]
Kristen Fisher
Wow.
- [25:23]
Tim
Thankfully they won't have to do that on Orion.
- [25:26]
Maggie Adairin
Yes. I do have to ask, because you mentioned all this recycling the water and things like that. Does it taste good? Is the water. Do you notice I.
- [25:35]
Tim
We make a joke about. Oh, but I genuinely never had a problem drinking that water. It tasted absolutely fine. I mean, the mineral get added back into it, so it's clearly. It's purified, it's clean and it's good quality water. And it works, it works really well. Saves us having to fly up very heavy water to replenish it. Just use it all again and I think, you know, that's one way again. The space station and space travel is teaching us an awful lot about how we can better recycle resources back here on Earth.
- [26:04]
Maggie Adairin
Well, you've convinced me. I'll go up, I'll try it out.
- [26:10]
Kristen Fisher
All right, our next question from Alison in the uk, she wants to know, when watching the rocket on the launch pad, there was a circle of steam or smoke a few feet from the top. I've seen this on other launches and I've often wondered what it was. Can you please explain, Maggie?
- [26:24]
Maggie Adairin
Yeah. So this is all to do with the cryogenic system we've mentioned. In tanking, they're filling the fuel cells with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the rocket fuel to get the rocket into space. Now, liquid hydrogen, the hydrogen is the simplest atom and to make it liquefied, well, the boiling point of hydrogen is minus 223 degrees C, or minus 423 Fahrenheit. So this has to be super cooled and it's the whole cryogenic system in place to keep those two fuels at those really cold temperatures. As they do that, of course, some of the liquid oxygen and the liquid hydrogen will actually bubble up and boil and you need to vent that out. So I think what you're seeing is venting from the cryogenic system, which is keeping it all cool, but probably a little of the other gases escaping as well. But the key is to keep those gases, which are now in liquid form as cool as possible until the time of launch.
- [27:23]
Tim
What makes that really interesting, Maggie as well, is when you actually get close up to that rocket and you take the elevator ride to the top, it's hissing and steaming. I mean this venting that we're seeing, it's like it's a live animal. And because the fuel is so cold, you get frosting around the rocket. And our Soyuz rocket is actually painted green and when we see that roll out on the train to the launch pad, it's a green rocket. But on launch day we've got a white rocket and of course it's frosting and you see it's not thin layer frost as well. I mean you've got a significant kind of inch level of ice frost around that cryogenic fuel tanks. And we're using RP1 which is like a form of kerosene, but it's still in that liquid cryogenic form and liquid oxygen on the Soyuz rocket. So yeah, anytime you see a rocket, it steaming and hissing and venting, it's, it's basically the gas is boiling off.
- [28:13]
Kristen Fisher
I've always wondered if that's how the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule got its name right, because as you say, Tim, it's, it's hissing, there's smoke, it, you know, you often hear it described as a living, breathing dragon. And so I've always wondered if that's where the dragon really got its name from.
- [28:33]
Maggie Adairin
I do hope so.
- [28:34]
Tim
Is X I think it should be. It certainly makes for a good story.
- [28:38]
Maggie Adairin
It does, yes. Actually, let's put it out there and see what happens.
- [28:44]
Kristen Fisher
And please do keep those questions coming. We're doing our best to keep up and you can send them to 13minutesbc.co.uk Maggie I think we could do a special episode of Just Listener Questions maybe, but we really enjoy reading them and believe me, they really do. All get ready.
- [29:03]
Maggie Adairin
But now it's time to bring in today's guest. Listening quietly in the background is a person who has observed and commented on space flight and science for decades. He's been covering the Artemis 2 mission since it was a twinkle in NASA's eye. It's former BBC space correspondent Jonathan Amos. Jonathan, welcome to 30 Minutes Presents from the BBC World Service.
- [29:25]
Jonathan Amos
Hey Mackie, it is great, great to be here. Such a privilege to be part of the 13 minutes community. Can I call it that?
- [29:34]
Maggie Adairin
You sure can and you are warmly embraced. Most people would rather assemble a 300 piece cabinet than Search for insurance. That's why the Zebra searches for you. Comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can compare. Today@the zebra.com
- [29:56]
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- [30:30]
Maggie Adairin
Now, John, I'm presuming you were watching the flyby into the wee small hours like most of us here in the uk. How was it for you?
- [30:37]
Jonathan Amos
There was something going on really extraordinary. So I was like that little boy because I was in bed with my earphones, trying not to disturb my wife listening to the live NASA feed. And I was aware at one point that I was drifting into and out of sleep as I was hearing their descriptions of the moon's surface. And there was a lot of sort of oohs and ahs of wows and all the rest of it. And I distinctly remember at one point Reid Wiseman said, I need 20 more superlatives because the superlatives that I have are just not sufficient. So, yeah, I was that little boy again. You know, my first Apollo memory is Apollo 15 back in 71, seven years old. And I remember watching the video feed of Dave Scott, commander, testing the equivalence principle. You know, he dropped the hammer, geological hammer and the feather, and they both hit the surface of the moon at the same time. And I thought, that's just not possible. How is that possible? Right.
- [31:46]
Maggie Adairin
It's counterintuitive.
- [31:48]
Jonathan Amos
It's just. Yeah, absolutely. It's just extraordinary. So, yeah, and it's, it's just, it's great to have that enthusiasm again. Somewhere along the way, we lost it, didn't we? We lost our way. And I just feel now we've got it it back, we've rediscovered it, which augurs well for the future. I'm more confident now about what's going to happen in the next few years than I've been for a very, very long time. And the last few hours have just been extra. How many superlatives can I get in there? Right. I mean, so you've got a day of really intense science. And who doesn't love their science? I love my science. Right, okay.
- [32:30]
Tim
Yes.
- [32:30]
Jonathan Amos
You get a new distance record we should just mention it, shouldn't we? Just put it down on record. What was it? 252,756 miles. So just over 406,000 kilometers, which kind of. It kind of reminds me of. Do you remember Mike Collins on Apollo 11? He's up there in the, you know, the service module, command module. And the guy's down on the surface, Armstrong and Altruist. And he takes a photo looking at the moon back towards Earth. And he thinks, you know, everybody who's living, everybody who's ever lived is on the other side of this camera lens. And you know, the Artemis 2 crew got this personal eclipse, right? I mean, whenever there's a total solar eclipse on Earth, I don't know, millions of people watch it.
- [33:26]
Maggie Adairin
Yes.
- [33:27]
Jonathan Amos
And this eclipse, just four people got to watch it. Isn't that incredible?
- [33:32]
Maggie Adairin
If they'd launched later, if they'd launched later, they would have missed it. So the idea that it was just a window of opportunity.
- [33:39]
Kristen Fisher
John, I love this.
- [33:40]
Jonathan Amos
The idea you can sum it up, your personal eclipse is just incredible. And the day starts, as Becky said, with Jim Lovell, right? And he does this wake up call, which in many ways he's so apt. So, I mean, the mission itself has echoes of Apollo 8, which he was on, you know, this, this trip around the back of him and they don't land. But then Apollo 13 as well, where he's, you know, he's the, he's the commander. They have the, the explosion in the oxygen tank and they have to quickly reset the mission. They can't land. And then they do this free return trajectory and they set the distance record which has been broken now in the past 24 hours. So it is so apt that Jim Lovell was asked. I know it's a little while ago, he's dead now, but so apt that he was the one they asked to begin the day. This is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell.
- [34:34]
Jim Lovell
Welcome to my old neighborhood. When Frank Foreman and Bill Anders and I orbited the moon on Apollo 8,
- [34:41]
Jonathan Amos
we got humanity's first up close look,
- [34:44]
Jim Lovell
the movie, and got a view of the home planet that inspired and united people around the world. I'm proud to pass that torch onto
- [34:53]
Jonathan Amos
you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions for
- [34:58]
Jim Lovell
the benefit of all.
- [35:00]
Jonathan Amos
It's a historic day and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget
- [35:05]
Jim Lovell
to enjoy the view.
- [35:07]
Jonathan Amos
So Reed, Victor and Christina and Jeremy
- [35:11]
Jim Lovell
and all the great teams supporting you, good luck and Godspeed from all this.
- [35:16]
Jonathan Amos
Here, here on the good Earth.
- [35:19]
Maggie Adairin
That's just beautiful. And I think he recorded that when he was 97. So he passed away last year, but recorded it before he passed. So. What a wonderful thing.
- [35:28]
Kristen Fisher
What a wonderful moment. And you know, John, I just love this image of you falling asleep to the sounds of the Artemis 2 crew flying by the moon. You know, some people fall asleep to white noise or the sound of waterfalls or rain. No, no, not John. He's got something way better. I love it. And I also completely agree with you. And this is kind of what I was getting to earlier is I feel like I've been such a skeptic and a pessimist for so long about humanity caring about space again. And it really does feel like yesterday shifted things in some way. Not just yesterday, but this whole mission. And I think part of the reason for that is the personalities and the characters of the crew themselves. They've really humanized this whole mission. And of course, no moment had more heart and humanity in it, I think, than the moment when Jeremy Hansen announced the naming of the crater for Reid Wiseman's late wife, Carol. John, curious what you felt when you. When you heard those words. And in particular, Jeremy choking up. He could barely get the words out.
- [36:36]
Jonathan Amos
Well, he wasn't the only one choking up, right?
- [36:39]
Becky Morrell
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Jonathan Amos
I mean, Tim was saying how that really got to him. It got to everybody. I mean, I'm trying to talk about it now. And it was. It was. So we had the video feed, not just the audio feed. And you could see Christina Cook. She was wiping tears from our eyes. I'm starting to break up now. So, so. And then. And then once, once, once. Jeremy, you know, he eventually gets through it, right? Because he's really struggling to get through it. They all do the big hug. Okay? Four of them. And then they hand out the tissues. And that's the moment that I really cracked up. I was really struggling. But we should talk a little bit about that. So Jeremy Hansy asked that there's a crater, a so far unnamed crater that be named after the capsule integrity. And then a bright region called Carroll after Reid Wiseman's. Why the thing. It's a very. This whole business of space nomenclature naming stuff is actually really tightly controlled. And it's controlled by the International Astronomical Union. And you can name anything that you want. Right? I mean, on Mars, the rover engineers are constantly naming little rocks because it's much easier to talk about out that lump and give it a nice name if you're deciding where next to drive. But to have Something like a crater or a lava flow or whatever, named and put on a lunar map. You need the authority, you need the permission of the International Astronomical Unit. Now, I don't know whether the delegation, the American delegation will go to the next IAU meeting and say, can we have these features named after Integrity? And also, Carol, the likelihood is they will say, well, it doesn't really fit our criteria. And if we can go back to Jim Lovell, he did exactly the same thing. He wanted to name a mountain on the moon after his wife, Marilyn. And it was only in 2017 that the IAU finally relented and said, yeah, okay, you can call it Marilyn and we'll put it on the map. And the reason that they did was because they accepted by that point that it did meet some of the criteria. The criteria are things like if it's a person, they have to been dead for more than three. I think it's three years. Well, obviously Carol Weitzman has been dead now for quite a bit more than that. But also it must fit into certain other parameters. The one for Mount Marilyn was the fact that it was a navigation point. So this is the 13 minutes podcast, right? 13 minutes, because it describes the powered descent of the Apollo crews down to the surface of the Moon. Well, they knew Apollo 11 and the likes knew that they were on the correct trajectory and in the right time frame when they passed Mount Maryland. And that's why eventually the IAU accepted the naming. But it'll be interesting to see what happens. And in some ways, it doesn't really matter because it was just. It was a lovely moment that brought everybody together.
- [40:02]
Kristen Fisher
And people are going to revolt. People are going to revolt.
- [40:05]
Becky Morrell
Yes.
- [40:05]
Kristen Fisher
Public opinion, if this is not named Carol, people are going to revolt if this is not named after Reid Wiseman's wife. Now, I mean, this whole moment went quite viral, right?
- [40:17]
Jonathan Amos
But there's a large rocky sphere quite away from Earth called Pluto. Pluto. And a lot of people revolted when. When the IAU said, that's not a planet anymore. So I. I don't know what difference.
- [40:30]
Maggie Adairin
I. I think this might just go ahead, I think, because the world's eyes are very different. Although I remember the Pluto flyby because when the. The New Horizon launched, it was a. A planet. And by the time they did their flyby, it wasn't. And they weren't happy about that. So.
- [40:48]
Jonathan Amos
And there's actually, we're waiting for, as we speak now, we're waiting for quite a lot of the imagery to come down from the Artemis crew There's one image that NASA has released and you see the moon, I guess, from our perspective, side on. Right. You see a little bit of the far side, a little bit of the near side. And when you look at the Mari, the lava flows, the dark lava flow, flames. It looks like a heart. And it reminded me so much of Tombo Reggio, you know that.
- [41:22]
Tim
Yes.
- [41:22]
Maggie Adairin
On Pluto.
- [41:23]
Jonathan Amos
Yeah. So go to the NASA website and have a look at one of the first moon images to come down from. From the crew and you'll. You'll get what I mean. It looks like the moon has a great big heart on it.
- [41:37]
Maggie Adairin
Yeah, I'm tearing up again. Yes.
- [41:39]
Jonathan Amos
Past the tissues, Chris.
- [41:43]
Maggie Adairin
But it's also quite interesting to sort of talk about China. So it does feel as if we're getting the momentum, especially with NASA. We sort of talk about boots on the moon by 2028. But yes, of China is also looking at landing at the South Pole. But I guess there were quite a few challenges associated with that.
- [42:01]
Jonathan Amos
Yeah, they have a short list. Just like NASA has a shortlist. NASA has a short list. I think the last time I heard it was about 13 spots on the south polar region. It's probably come down a bit now. China would definitely like to get to the South Pole. I think they're more than likely to do a sort of an Apollo revisit. There's talk about them going to an equatorial near site location, first of all, which kind of makes sense if you think about it. You don't want to. To run before you can walk. So I would expect them to go to the nearside equatorial and then jump to the South Pole. So we'll see what happens. But it's great that we've got competition. It would be nice if it were good, friendly competition. Of course, NASA is not allowed to talk to the Chinese. Congress says you can't talk to them. It's not allowed. But something's going to have to be done in the future. If we have, have we have moon bases at the South Pole and somebody gets into trouble, there's gonna have to be protocols for somebody else to come help you, right?
- [43:08]
Maggie Adairin
Oh, yes.
- [43:08]
Jonathan Amos
To get into trouble. And so there's gonna have to be a dialogue.
- [43:13]
Jim Lovell
Yeah.
- [43:13]
Kristen Fisher
Now you're getting into an episode of For All Mankind. That exact scene plays out.
- [43:19]
Jonathan Amos
You know, it makes sense.
- [43:21]
Maggie Adairin
Antarctica, I think, might be a good analogy for the sort of things we can do where there is, is a competition, but collaboration. I think it is possible to have both. And I think in space it really lends Itself to that Mackie.
- [43:32]
Jonathan Amos
That's a great example. The Antarctic Treaty. Right. Nobody owns Antarctica. People have claims which are in abeyance. But if somebody gets into difficulty, then people don't hesitate. They go help. And if you're 250,000 miles away, the person who can help is the person who's over the ridge, Right?
- [43:55]
Kristen Fisher
Yes.
- [43:56]
Jonathan Amos
So it just makes. It makes perfect sense.
- [43:59]
Kristen Fisher
So before we go, John, I want you to take part in listening to an email that somebody sent us. It's from listener Neil, and he's got a Snoopy update. I don't know if you know, John, but we've been talking about the zero G indicator on this show, and the original one was Snoopy. So we've been wondering, are there. Are there Snoopies on this one? Because the zero G indicator on this mission is a little stuffy named named Rise. So listener Neil got some answers for us. He says, Hey, 13 minutes, team. On episode six, you had a question about whether Snoopy was on board a mascot for NASA's flight awareness program since 1968. Well, according to the Artemis 2 official flight kit, they are actually carrying 100 silver Snoopy pins. Thank you for doing our research for us, Neil. You know, John, Maggie, it's good to know that Snoopy is still traveling to
- [44:57]
Maggie Adairin
space and hopefully coming back to Earth. So these pins, yeah, I want to get my hands on.
- [45:04]
Jonathan Amos
There must be loads of little mementos, right, Tucked in a box somewhere. And this is the history of spaceflight.
- [45:12]
Maggie Adairin
I think that's all we have time for today, but thank you, John, for bringing your joy and your insight to this amazing party. Lovely to speak to you again.
- [45:20]
Jonathan Amos
Go, Artemis, come back. Artemis, come back.
- [45:23]
Maggie Adairin
Yes, Swing back. And thank you as ever, Christian, for joining us, too.
- [45:30]
Kristen Fisher
Thank you, Maggie. It's been such a treat and, you know, I really feel like the lunar flyby day day, it lived up to the hype, and there was a lot of hype. It was going to be tough to do, but it exceeded my. My wildest expectations. It really did.
- [45:43]
Maggie Adairin
Yeah, mine too. And I'm still stunned by that. But wow, Amazing.
- [45:48]
Kristen Fisher
And a reminder that we're doing an episode every day for this mission. So do follow or subscribe to 13minutes. So you never miss an episode. But that's it for today. So goodbye from me, Kristen Fisher and me, Maggie Adairin.
- [46:01]
Maggie Adairin
The producers are Alex Mansfield and Sophie Ormiston, and the series editor is Martin Smith.
- [46:07]
Kristen Fisher
And our thanks to Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg at Bleeding Fingers music For
- [46:11]
Maggie Adairin
our theme music 13 minutes presents Artemis 2 is a BBC audio science production for the BBC World Service.
- [46:24]
Jim Lovell
This is Apollo coming to you live from the moon. We've had to switch the TV camera. Now we showed you first a view of Earth as we've been watching it for the past 16 hours. Now we're switching so that we can show you the moon that we've been flying over at 60 miles altitude for the last 16 hours. Jim, what have you thought most about? Well, flying by bus. We're very, very similar. The vast loneliness up here of the moon is awe inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis of the big fastest of space.
- [47:23]
Kristen Fisher
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