Why is NASA going to the moon again?

NASA’s Artemis II mission is set to launch this week, which could bring humanity close to the moon for the first time since 1972. It’s a mission that’s over twenty years in the making – and even though it’s not the first venture out to the moon, it still involves a lot of firsts. If all goes to plan, the mission will bring the first woman, person of color and non-American close to the moon. But why are we embarking on a sequel space mission to begin with? And while they’re up in space, what could scientists learn about the possibility of life in space for those of us still on Earth? Interested in more science behind current events? Email us your question at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave http://plus.npr.org/shortwave. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 0:21Regina Barber?

  In just days, humans could get closer to the moon than they have in over half a century. The last astronaut to ever walk on the lunar surface was Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  We leave as we came, with peace and hope for all mankind.

• 0:40Regina Barber?

  He and his crewmates left the moon in December 1972. Since then, no one has ventured so far out into space. Now, though, NASA is poised to launch four astronauts on the Artemis II mission. The plan is to fly around the moon in a bell-shaped capsule before coming back and splashing down into the Pacific Ocean. The mission's commander is NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman. He emphasized that this is a test mission.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  When we get off the planet, we might come right back home. We might spend three or four days around Earth. We might go to the moon. That's where we want to go, but it is a test mission.

• 1:13Regina Barber?

  So what kind of test mission is it? And what could it mean for NASA's long-term moon plans? To answer those questions, we're checking in with NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfield Boyes, who's at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida right now. Hey, Nell.

• 1:28Speaker 04

  Hey there, Gina.

• 1:29Regina Barber?

  It is so cool that you're there for the launch. I'm very jealous. So where are you right now? Like, can you see the rocket that's going to blast off?

• 1:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, they have us out here at the press center, which is a ways from the rocket. So I can see it, but it looks tiny out there. I mean, in reality, it's 322 feet tall, but it's this, you know, orange and white rocket. And from where I am, I can see it, along with the big countdown clock, you know, which is under this American flag. And you've got all the press trucks set up everywhere. And, you know, it's a, it's a big to-do. There'll be more people pouring in as we get closer to the launch.

• 2:05Regina Barber?

  Wow. OK, so it's my understanding that the earliest this mission can launch is today, Wednesday, the first. And this is the start of the launch window, right?

• 2:15Speaker 04

  That's right, yeah. So the earliest is 6:24 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 1st.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  But it could be delayed by anything. There could be weather rolling in. There could be technical glitches, like maybe a hydrogen leak. And if they have to delay, it depends on what the nature of the problem is. But it takes like 24 to 48 hours to get things reset up so they can try again. But they think over the next week, they're going to have several launch opportunities. So people are feeling pretty good that we could see this go.

• 2:46Regina Barber?

  Cool. Fingers crossed.

• 2:50Regina Barber?

  Today on the show, humans returning to the moon. Well, around the moon, anyway. And traveling the furthest we as a species have ever gone into space. We'll be answering why people are returning to the moon and what it means for the future of living on other worlds. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

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• 4:37Regina Barber?

  Okay, now, so can you explain what these astronauts will be doing once they're in space? Because it's not a sure thing that they're going to the moon, right?

• 4:45Speaker 04

  Right, so this is the first flight of the Orion capsule with a crew onboard. So this is a chance for them to test out this vehicle with people onboard, and that means testing everything from life support to, you know, even the toilet. This is going to be the first toilet to go around the moon, which is pretty exciting.

• 5:06Regina Barber?

  I think so.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  Once they get into space, the Orion capsule separates from the upper stage of the rocket, and they spend a while kind of doing maneuvers around that upper stage of the rocket to kind of practice what it would be like to have the Orion capsule doing rendezvous, doing maneuvers.

• 5:24Regina Barber?

  Oh, like detaching and coming back in. Okay.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of thing they're going to need to do in the future as they plan more ambitious moon missions. And so if everything goes well, and it's maneuvering well, and the life support systems are good, and the navigation and everything, then, you know, they could decide whether they're going to go to the moon.

• 5:43Regina Barber?

  Okay, so when will they decide whether or not to head out to the moon?

• 5:48Speaker 04

  So that comes about one day into the mission.

• 5:50Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  And if everything looks good, they'll do what's called the translunar injection burn, which is just a fancy way of saying their propulsion system is going to send them out on this path that takes them on a figure eight around the moon. And, you know, if they go, it'll take them about four days to get out there. It's a distance of over 230,000 miles.

• 6:11Regina Barber?

  Wow, okay, so if they do that, if they make that figure eight, how close are they actually going to get to the moon?

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Well, not that close.

• 6:18Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Depending on when they launch and everything, I mean, it's gonna be about 4,000 to 6,000 miles away from the moon.

• 6:26Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  On the other hand, it's a lot closer than the Earth is, right? So NASA has said that from where they are, the moon is gonna look about the size if you held a basketball at arm's length from your face. That's kinda how the moon will look to them.

• 6:40Regina Barber?

  Oh, that's...

• 6:40Speaker 04

  And then, of course, you know, behind it, you'll have the Earth looking very tiny and distant. Um, and then, you know, as they go around the far side of the moon, there's gonna be this communications blackout.

• 6:51Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  So for a while, they won't be in any contact with Earth, and then they'll come around the other side. So it'll be dramatic, you know?

• 6:57Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  It may not be landing, they can't land, but there'll be some drama, anyway.

• 7:01Regina Barber?

  Still, this mission is a huge deal, right? Because NASA's been talking about sending humans back to the moon for what feels like forever.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  So they've been working on this, basically, for 22 years.

• 7:14Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  That's when then-President George W. Bush gave a speech saying that NASA was going to finish building the International Space Station, retire the space shuttles, and then build a new vehicle to go to the moon.

• 7:26Speaker 08

  We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe to gain a new foothold on the moon.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  So, you know, they've been working towards that ever since. There's been some, you know, detours and twists and turns along the way, but that's been the plan for kind of a long time. And, and the other thing that's interesting about this mission is there's a lot of firsts involved in it.

• 7:49Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  So it'll be the first woman to go out to the moon, Christina Cook, astronaut Christina Cook, and there's gonna be the first person of color, Victor Glover, and then there's the first non-American. So in addition to these NASA astronauts, there's a Canadian Space Agency astronaut named Jeremy Hansen who's going.

• 8:06Regina Barber?

  So how long after this test mission could we see, like, a moon landing?

• 8:11Speaker 04

  So for a landing, you need a lander, right? You need a vehicle that can actually go down to the moon and then get astronauts up off it again, and that's in development. So there's two companies working on it. NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Blue Origin, and the new... Administrator of NASA is this guy Jared Isaacman. He's a wealthy entrepreneur, a private astronaut, and he's been pushing those two companies to speed up development of the lunar landers. And he actually added a new Artemis mission next year that's supposed to test out one or both of them in orbit.

• 8:44Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  So, you know, Isaacman has said that there could be a moon landing as soon as 2028, assuming those tests of the lander go well. But, you know, people I talk to think that that seems pretty optimistic.

• 8:57Regina Barber?

  Yeah, so I feel like that is optimistic. But what's NASA's plan after this like landing on the moon?

• 9:04Speaker 04

  So NASA has said that it doesn't want just flags and footprints, right? It says that it wants to establish a near continuous human presence on the moon, sort of like we have a presence in Antarctica, right? So it's laid out this fairly ambitious plan that includes all these robotic missions, you know, development of a power station and a lunar base where astronauts could live. And, you know, Jared Isaacman has said recently that the goal is that there would be lunar landings of various kinds on a near monthly basis. The question is, is there going to be the money for that and the appetite for that? You know, I mean, they're saying they're going to do it cheaper than the days of the Apollo program because they're going to use commercial partners and stuff.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  But still, I mean, he's got a three-phase plan, and phase one alone would cost like, you know, $10 billion.

• 9:55Regina Barber?

  Wow, okay, so then how much will the whole thing cost?

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Well, it's hard to come by those numbers. But it's the best I can tell, there was a projection from NASA's Inspector General Office a few years ago, and it said through 2025, it was projecting total costs for the program of like $93 billion. And that was just like so far, you know? I mean, every, every launch of one of these big rockets, like the one I'm looking at, it costs several billion dollars.

• 10:26Regina Barber?

  Okay, so, Nell, I think it's worth mentioning that like back in the 1960s, when, you know, humans did land on the moon, NASA kind of stopped after that. And they did so for many reasons, including that we had the civil rights movement being halted by assassinations, there was like more political upheaval from former President Nixon's corruption and Watergate. There was a lot of disinterest in the government looking to the stars instead of helping people on Earth. So what is the public support now for Artemis?

• 11:00Speaker 04

  It's interesting, you know, leading up to this, I would talk to people, and a lot of people just weren't even aware that NASA was working to putting people back on the moon, you know?

• 11:09Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  And then you have the fact that the majority of people alive today have been born after 1972.

• 11:16Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  There was never a time in their life when they looked up at the moon and thought, well, there's people there right now, you know?

• 11:21Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  But, but having said that, there was one recent poll that found that a majority of Americans did support the Artemis program. And I was talking to one historian who pointed out that, you know, that poll suggests there was like more support for this program now than there was for Apollo back in the 1960s.

• 11:38Regina Barber?

  Wow.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  I mean, there was a lot of enthusiasm around certain moments of the Apollo program, but, you know, support just kind of petered out. Once the space race had been won, you know, they didn't want to spend all this money on it. I mean, they were spending a lot more back then. It was like 4% of the national budget.

• 11:55Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  Compared to, you know, less than 1%, a fraction of a percent for NASA today.

• 12:00Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  I will say, though, there is a lot of bipartisan support in Congress, and there's been support over multiple administrations for this moon program. So we'll see.

• 12:09Regina Barber?

  If we do, you know, get bases on the moon, what does that mean for, you know, humans living on other worlds? Not just the moon, but other places? Like, what are we hoping to get from this?

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Well, lots of people in the space community feel that Mars is the obvious destination, right? And so NASA actually considers this its "moon-to-Mars" program. But so far, there's been mostly moon and not really much to Mars.

• 12:33Regina Barber?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Some people question whether the moon is really a stepping stone to Mars, or whether we would kind of get bogged down in the moon. But others say, well, you know, if you want to live on another planet, it's different than long-term habitation in space in a space station like the International Space Station. So, you know, on the moon, you've got to contend with stuff like lunar dust, and you've got to figure out, you know, all kinds of things related to getting stuff there.

• 12:59Regina Barber?

  Yeah, like getting water from the ice and stuff like that, right?

• 13:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, they see it as a proving ground. That's the idea. And there are other nations who also want to go to the moon, it's worth noting.

• 13:09Regina Barber?

  Oh, wow.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  So NASA is doing this program in partnership with international partners like the Canadian Space Agency, but also the European Space Agency. And so, you know, there's a lot of consensus that this is like a way of establishing a foothold beyond Earth. And China wants to go to the moon, too. And so, you know, some people are trying to drum up kind of another space race with China, similar to the space race of the 1960s. But others are like, look, we already won the space race. We'll always be first on the moon.

• 13:42Regina Barber?

  Well, Nell, I really hope you get to see a launch today. Either way, though, whenever it happens, please tell us what comes next.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  All right. Well, it should be a fun mission, so I'll keep you guys posted.

• 13:59Regina Barber?

  If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend. It really helps out our show. This episode was produced by Arud Nair with help from Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Amina Khan and our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Kwasi Lee was the audio engineer. Special thanks to Carl Kraft and Russell Lewis. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave from NPR.

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