Brett Witterble (2:45)
Clay don't rub it in, but that's right, just fire up the iHeartRadio app and kick back with the Sunday hang, guaranteed laughs. Or check out any of our other great hosts in the Clay and Buck Podcast Network. There's so much content you won't even miss us. But we'll miss you and look forward to speaking with you again in the new year. Until then, SHIELD time. And welcome to the Clay and Buck Show. I am Brett Witterble, sitting in for Clay and Buck. So grateful to have this time with each and every one of you. Very exciting. If you don't know who I am, typically you will hear me over at WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is a pleasure to be with you. Our telephone number. Everything is fair game. 800-282-2882. As we look at this incredible report that we got from the economy, right, we've got, we've got an unbelievable opportunity for growth and people are just sitting back saying, wait a minute, how did that happen? Well, how did it happen? It took a lot of work, it took a lot of effort. It took a lot of, of all that sort of stuff. Not only are we looking at a really nice economy, getting ready to bloom as we get into 2026, but what have I told you? We have astronauts suiting up for their journey to the moon. Now, admittedly, when I was looking at this story, by the way, Merry Christmas to everybody. As I was looking at this storyline, I was saying to myself, wait a minute, wait a minute. I remember when we used to send rockets out into space and then you would have people landing on the moon. But I guess we have become so, so cautious that we don't really try to do that kind of stuff anymore. But now we are so we've got a banging economy and we've got people going to their journey to the moon, but it's not the kind of journey to the moon that you might think think about. Astronauts are suiting up for their journey to the moon. The countdown is on. If all goes according to plan, four astronauts are set to become the first humans to travel past the confines of our planet gravity well to the moon in over half a century. NASA is hoping to launch its Artemis 2 mission a mere two months from now, two months earlier than originally planned. By launching the four individuals on board an Orion spacecraft mounted to its enormous Space Launch System SLS rocket. The goal is not to touch down on the lunar surface just yet, a goal that NASA has reserved for its follow up Artemis 3 mission, which is tentatively scheduled for 2027. But it's nonetheless a daring feat. The Artemis 2 crew will be flying around the moon and back in an enormous ark. No, no, no. Not. Not an ark like Noah's ark, but in an ark, the way they're going around to the farthest point from Earth that any human has traveled before, including the Apollo missions. And though drama has plagued the Artemis program, this next mission is starting to really come into focus. Over the weekend, NASA conducted a dress rehearsal for its scheduled February launch date. And image shows a Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch dressed up in their bright orange Orion suits. According to the space agency, the countdown demonstration test simulated what will go down on launch day itself, including donning the suits and climbing in and out of the spacecraft. However, the SLS rocket is not on the launch pad yet, which forced the crew to board inside the NASA Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building, that famous place that you've seen so many times. Now, it remains to be seen if the SLS will roll out of the pad at Launch Complex 39B, which played a key role in the Apollo program. But the Orion was already stacked on the SLS in October inside the building, allowing astronauts to conduct the rehearsal. So this is us going back to space in a substantial way. It's an enormous and highly complex task, but with enormous payoff. The last time humans were anywhere near the moon was during NASA's Apollo 17 mission, which launched just over 53 years ago. See, we as a country have been told that we can't do important things, big things. I'm not talking just about military stuff or wars or things like that. I'm talking about us being the top of the pile. This is an important point when we decide that we want to go and chase these sorts of things and we are able to actually carry it out. Everybody in the country feels that accomplishment for a long time, and I don't want to make everything political, but for a long time, we've been told we can't do things, that it's impossible, it's too hard. It's. It's. It's just. It's one of those things where people say, well, you don't have to quit so easily. You don't have to stop so early. Just try to do these big things. When we achieve big things, the rest of the world looks at us. We are leaders. What you saw between the period of 2009 and the Trump presidency, in that first term, what you saw was an administration in Obama, Biden that did not want to do great things, things they wanted to just be thought of as just another country, just another person. When you go back to that time, you'll remember the famous line in which President Obama said, well, we are the exception, but the Greeks are exceptional and the Turks are exceptional and the Europeans are exceptional. He didn't even understand this teacher of law, did not even understand that the exception was the founding of our constitutional republic, that we could do great things, that we had the ability to be the first country that was talking about freedom and liberty and charting our own courses. The president of the United States did not even understand that basic concept. And then came Donald Trump, who talked to us in a way that said we need to do big things, great things, important things, until we ran into Covid and Joe Biden came to the White House and told us and scolded us and said to us that we are not that great. We cannot do big things. We cannot pull anything in any way or shape or form. What? We are just another cog in the. In the gear. That is not what this country is predicated on. This country is predicated on coming to this continent, taming the continent when it comes to building crops, building buildings, building universities, building all of these things, working hard and being able to be remunerated for that, all of that sort of stuff. And we became the number one place in the entire world that people wanted to come and see us, to be with us, to understand what it is that we are capable of doing. And for a number of years, we've hidden our lamp under a basket. Our lamp is now shining brightly to people in our country and around the world. Normally, I wouldn't pay so much attention about the idea of going back to space, but. But we were the people who did it. We were the people who achieved it. We are the people who looked and said, we are going there. In the words of jfk, this is what's important, to be back on top, not holding people back, but leading the way for the future. And you and I both know we have that ability to do that. We have that ability to return. This country is made up of so many different people with so many different backgrounds. It's nearly a guarantee that we would find people who were brilliant enough to be able to put these things together in the right pieces in the right time. And that is what we have inherited. But we must not sit on our. On our accomplishments. We must always understand that we can go farther and better. I'm Brett Wooderville, in for Clay and Buck. 800-282-2882. 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