Hey there, folks.
It is Wednesday, April first, and we are about to see something today that most Americans have not experienced in our lifetimes. NASA is sending folks to the moon. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. The countdown is on. This is space stuff and it's just cool and quite frankly, world, this is something that usually brings Americans together. This is a big historic day. We need to put this in context.
You just gave me chills because we have had we haven't had a lot to cheer for, and this is something that, yes, brings America together, the world together. This is exciting and I hadn't thought about that. We have not most of us are not old enough hope to have been a part of or even recalled watching astronauts launch to the moon. This is epic and it's historic for a lot of reasons.
The majority of Americans this has not happened in our lifetimes because the last time it happened was in nineteen seventy two. So if you were born after nineteen seventy two, you have never seen us send astronauts.
Towards the moon.
Even we're gonna see it today and wrote, Even some folks who were born or kids around that time, you don't remember it. So the overwhelming majority we are seeing something today that has not happened in most of our lifetimes, and it's space stuff. I keep saying, I'm kind of a space nerd. You see how excited I get with launches, and I get up in the middle.
Of the night. This is just cool. Space is cool.
Yeah, And you don't even have to get up in the middle of the night this one. Yeah, yeah, this one. The launch is at six twenty four pm Eastern time. They have a two hour launch windows, so it could happen anytime between six twenty four and eight twenty four pm tonight at Kennedy's Space in Florida. And this is going to take This mission is going to take astronauts farther into deep space than any human being has ever
been before. So not only are we having a Moon mission for the first time in more than fifty years, it's the farthest any human has ever been. That is an incredible thing to get your head around.
This sounds star treking when you say it is. Yeah, no man has gone before we are.
It is absolutely exciting.
We're sending for This is all part, of course, the Artemis program, which is beyond way past schedule and way over budget. But I don't care about that today, it's so cool. But the Artemis program is the one that's supposed to get Americans astronauts back into space, back to deep space, and eventually robes. This is part of a program that's going to set up possibly a base on the Moon. This is just a part of that step, but robes. This has been going on for some ten
years in development, a little behind. I'm sure, fine, but it's okay. Today's a really.
Big today's a very exciting day. And yes, this is Artemis two. Artemis one launched in twenty twenty two, but that was an uncrude mission around the Moon, so it was basically a test for what we're about to see begin today.
That was a test for this test. This is a test. Is something mel correct, This is the next part.
But this is a big test because they are going these four astronauts are going on a spacecraft that no human being has flown in before. So yes, they are truly pioneers. They're brave as hell. Obviously they have gone through a tremendous amount of training, Three of the four astronauts have already been to the International Space Stations, so
they're not newbies here in space. But still to go on an on a spacecraft that has never been flown by humans before is something that I would believe requires an incredible amount of bravery.
And this is also one that had some issues before. Correct this particular, you're doing that later or do it now?
Dimension Orion, the craft that they're on, Yeah, it did go up for a test flight. What they're essentially doing is slingshotting around the Moon and Earth is for this travel. But the same craft did have some heat shield issues when it re entered last time robes, and it caused damage. And look, even if you don't follow those space program that closely, you hear heat shield and whatnot, and you go back and you think about some Space Shuttle disasters.
This is significant stuff. They think they fixed that problem by what was it of gases weren't venting out properly and it caused some damage. They fixed that problem, but they also robes. It was serious enough they've changed the route that the Orion is coming back on just to be sure. YESO that causes issues. It's always takeoff and landing right, that are always the scariest time, It seems to be.
No matter what aircraft you're in. Yes, and this is going to be a ten day journey. They're going to loop around the Earth and the Moon and yeah, this is really cool. They're going to go from zero to five hundred miles per hour and two seconds. Can you even get your head around what that is like? And then the really big they say key part will be three and a half hours after liftoff, where the Orion capsule will fully separate from the rocket that propelled them.
And then they are going to test drive it. They say. It's kind of like a like I guess some of these driverless cars where you can still manually override, so that they literally, as you pointed out, will be testing for other missions about just can we dock here, can we maneuver it here? Would we be able to do this with the Orion? So they're going to be just literally testing it out, you.
Know, it's all the first thing comes in mind. You've got a nineteen year old you had to teach to drive not too long ago, but you take them out to a big parking lot, right, and you just let them where no one's around away from the South. They take you to Walmart in the middle of the night that you practice and you can't hit anything. You're in space, not gonna hit anything, No, not yourselves out.
No one else up there. So that's pretty cool. Here's the other cool thing. The cruise views from space are going to be shared live with the public. How awesome is that. So they're going to be looking at parts of the Moon that have never been seen by the human eye before, and we'll all technically at least we're supposed to be able to see it along with the astronauts without question.
Isn't this going to be the most watched followed launch we have ever seen in space history, given all the technology we have now, given how we all look at our phones, given how NaSTA and all these places have great social media accounts, and all the pictures that available roads we are going to be.
Along with them on this mission.
Yes, this is this is so so so cool. Now, there's one part that I read about that just freaked me out. I'm sure they won't be freaked out. But there will be a time when the Artemis two, the Moon will be between the spacecraft and Earth, and so there will be no communications, certainly no live video feed, and the astronauts will not be to talk to Houston or whoever they're talking to for as much as fifty minutes,
fifty I don't know, it's that long. Thirty to fifty minutes, that's how long they will be out of communication with Nastay.
Do you know which day that's on?
No, I don't, but that is frightening to think about.
We've seen that in movies.
We have actually seen it in space movies where there's this moment we have to wait see on the other side, all kinds of stuff like that. This is okay, yes, that's a little but they're prepared for they know it's coming. But wrote the idea that today we are launching, launching humans that are going to go farther in space than any human has ever gone. And this is happening in our lifetime. We are privileged to be able to see it.
It's so cool and you know what, I love this is going to happen. I haven't done the math, but they say four hours and forty minutes before launch, So when is that around two maybe one something this afternoon Eastern time. We're going to see the four astronauts, who, by the way, are currently in quarantine. I hadn't thought about that.
You have to.
Be be with their families. You'd think you'd be hugging your families and hanging with them the night before you launch. Nope, you're in quarantine to limit exposure to germs. But those four NASA astronauts, and will tell you who they are because they are of significance, will walk out before the launch.
Their families are going to be waiting nearby. They can't touch them or anything like that, but they'll be able to wave, shout I love you, and you'll be able to see all of this on live international television, and they'll be out in their orange jumpsuits. The New York Times did a whole article on the color the Pantone color of their suits. It's international orange. I can save that for another episode because I know how much you love your colors. Well, I'm looking for my book you
a Pantone book that I bought you for Christmas. But it is called international orange. And there are all sorts of historic reasons why they've chosen that color of a jumpsuit, one of them being that it looks beautiful against blue, and so when you'll see them, plus there if there's an emergency, there's just all sorts of historic end visual reasons.
Was the emergency bar?
Well, they're easy to spot. You can find someone in an orange yes, just speaking in the water, okay, yes, when they come down crash.
You're right.
Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry, but just to see that moment. And then they have patches. Did you read about this? Patches on these orange suits? I love this? So the the pilot said that the crew members designed their mission patch to make so for Artemis two, it says A one one, but they designed it to look like the word all, so just to highlight the togetherness the four of them going on this mission together. So I love that their patch basically says all for Artemis two.
Is anybody out there calling there's a DEI Space trip? No?
But it is?
Is it?
I mean in a way. We have the first black man to travel around the Moon. He's the pilot of the mission, Victor Glover. And we have the first woman ever to travel around the room, Christina Cox, she's a mission specialist. And we have the first non NASA astronaut to travel around the Moon, the Canadian Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman. The commander is the only one who is in a first, but he's the commander in charge, first in charge, so everyone's got a first.
No, it sounds like everybody's in the same role as they are on Earth. The white guy's in charge. A couple of deis on the No, I'm joking about that. But the reason is it's so much has been talked about in this country by DEI to where when there is history made and there are people to be celebrated, it's almost dismissed as I they're only there because she's a woman. I only there because he's black. Hate hate
hate that. And so when we do have history, it's almost like we can't even celebrate that it's happening because there are some people who have built up this I guess this narrative in the country that you don't deserve it.
Well, these are seasoned astronots, Oh yeah, to the International Space Station before and know what they are doing. And by the way, I am proud to see representation up there for all of us to see. Wow, how cool is that there's a woman up there? How cool is that there's a black man up there piloting everybody. This is there's amazing and it should be celibar.
He's driving them.
Huh, he's driving them?
Oh stop else stop, we need a uber to the moon.
Who you got I can't he said, it said he was driving.
No, it's no matter what Robes this today. We can't. We can't emphasize enough. We forget that we went to the moon in sixty nine. Nineteen sixty nine was the first mission, and the very last one was in nineteen seventy two.
We have not been back.
We were not born.
We weren't. This is incredible. So this countdown is on.
I know robes if they were, they're saying the weather is eighty percent?
Is the number favorable conditions?
Yes, so it looks like it's going to happen. But even if it doesn't happen today, they have a bunch of windows in the month of paproll they do now they could do this, So this is going to happen. How long do you I don't remember seeing I know they've been in quarantine. Did you see how long they've been quarantined? Because they have eventually been locked down and nobody's been around them, So I don't see it know
how long that goes. I'm trying to think of even you remember straight hand when he went to space, nothing like this. Obviously he went up for eleven minutes. He was here, was at a camp for a week to it was right, but that.
Was mostly I think, to learn about weightlessness, just to know what to prepare for when you go up into space.
They didn't separate them, even though he had family he could be with and whatnot. I just remembered how he was kind of isolated for a little while. This wasn't that wasn't a health issue. It was ten minutes. It's not gonna be a problem.
So according to AI, the modern NASA astronauts typically quarantine for fourteen days prior to launch to ensure that they're healthy. And that makes sense because you don't want to bring anything obviously up into space where you have no options. So that does make sense, a fourteen day quarantine. Think about when we were doing COVID and you had to
go anywhere. When I had to go to Tokyo for the Olympics, a fourteen day quarantine was mandatory, So that must be there must be scientific health reasons behind that number.
Oh, that makes sense. We'll stay with us here, folks.
We're going to give you some other details here, including we are going to help you win trivia in your office and amongst your friends today when somebody asked who was the last person to walk on the moon? Yep, we're going to help you be the smartest person in the office today.
Give you that.
Also, I will ask robok a question. We just talked about these astronauts their last night, getting their meal, seeing their family. What actually before you go to space? What would you do the night before? Continue here, counting down to a historic day for NASA. We are sending folks to the Moon for the first time in many of our lifetimes. We haven't launched anybody to the moon since nineteen seventy two.
Ropes.
If we haven't made clear, they're sling shotting. These guys are not stopping at the moon. No, this will not be a space walk situation. They are just doing a flyby.
Yeah, they need that gravitational pull. But they're going to go deeper into space than any humans have ever been before. They're going on another side, the other side of the Moon that has never been seen by human eyes. So this is cool. They are going to see parts unseen, and we all, we're told, get to see it with them because there will be a camera that we will be able to see in live. I mean, that's just remarkable.
Live from space. We are going to be able to see what the astronauts are looking at from their spacecraft. The ARTEMI is too o ryon.
Doesn't this feel good right now? And all that's going on, isn't the space program in space launch? When you see an astronaut making that walk, when you see them with those helmets, which when you see all that, don't we all just swell up with American pride and all them the same size.
Yes, and now it can be American and Canadian pride because we've got one Canadian on board with the three Americans. And yes, it does fill you with the sense of unity. And I do like seeing who's up there. We got a lot of representation. It's cool to see someone who looks like you up in space doing something that you
probably couldn't even imagine having the courage to do. But yet it is an honor to see someone do that on behalf of the rest of us for space exploration and what that could mean for future generations.
It is ro This is something I don't know, we learned about it in school. If you go back to Lewis and Clark, I mean, you can just go back. When it comes to exploration, these things, these traveling these people are setting a stage that we don't even understand one hundred years from now. These are pioneers in a way that it's hard to understand.
And this is just part of the history. Human exploration is just part of human history. It's what we do.
You have to go somewhere else, you have to push it, you have to risk and they're willing to do it or I just it's this isn't just launching another satellite. This isn't space tourism. This is the real deal. This is I don't know, we always get into this stuff. But it's happening tonight six twenty for a reasonable time.
Six twenty four pm Eastern time. Yes, but you know what, the coverage begins. I don't know when any of you all are listening to this, but we're taping this or recording this pretty early. But coverage begins at seven forty five am Eastern Time on NASA's YouTube channel. If you want to watch them, load propellant onto, but just you're literally watching the mission, the preps taking place again starting at seven forty five this morning, but the full coverage
begins at twelve fifty pm Eastern Time. NASA plus Amazon Prime and YouTube you can watch the full launch coverage. And I think, yeah, shortly after that when you start to see the astronauts come out and make their final goodbye as they walk towards these astrovaans. There are these futuristic astravans that take them to the launch pad. But you were mentioning trivia before the break.
Yes, because I didn't know the walking on the Moon, of course, Neil Armstrong, all of our minds. But there were several more Moon missions and other men walked on the Moon. The last Moon.
Mission was actually nineteen seventy two, Apollo seventeen. I didn't know that.
Yeah, I didn't either.
I didn't know that nineteen seventy two was the last time we were up there. Three astronauts went and wrote this. If anybody asked who left the last footprint on the Moon, his name was Eugene Kernan. He was the captain of Apollo seventeen. Literally the last footprint human footprint on the Moon was by that guy in December of nineteen seventy two. Wow, Eugene, we have not been back in that long. That's just
awesome that we're doing this today. Now, how soon after this one, this one's had this year, the next one? There is it twenty twenty.
Twenty eight, yes, end of twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, yes, so.
Soon, So that one's coming out the rogues, h there go. Who knows how they're feeling, and imagine how they're feeling. I'm not sure when they're getting up this morning, but they are on a very specific and have been on a very specific sleep schedule, so they have a whole routine they're going through today. But you said they're seeing family today.
Well, when they walk outwards the Astrovans, their family will be nearby, and they'll be able to wave and shout out like I love you, and I think the pilot said, instead of normally we would have to text or email our loved ones, will actually be able to hear their voices and will actually be able to tell our family that we love see you know what, Roades.
I don't remember that. I remember like media being there as they're doing that walk, but I thought the families did this thing we're talking about the night before, the day before.
From what I am historical, Yes, from what I'm reading, it looks as though we'll see the families to say goodbye. So I think they're actually maybe they're deliberately staging this from a production standpoint, which is wonderful. See, yes, the families having their last goodbyes, which is, oh my gosh, I cannot imagine. We know how we felt watching straight Ah be waitless for ten seconds in space. I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I cannot imagine a husband, wife,
a brother of any of it. Oh my gosh.
We won't even like Strahan that much. And we were worried about them. But that you're Robes.
You are one hundred percent correct that everything was fun and games until we saw him in that flight suit walking up those stairs and we said, holy hell. We started robes. We were in communication, don't do it. We were telling just please, don't do it. So and again, he's a dear friend, this is family, this is your husband, this is your child, this is your ohoh.
I cannot imagine. But it's a cool scene. We have to see it.
But it gets us what robes invested even more so in this mission and these people. What would you do your life? Oh what would I do before you go up into space?
I'd want like a filet mignon. You're saying, like the food. Oh yeah, I would want something that I wouldn't be able to have in space. I'd want to, you know what, I want to take a wonderful run on the ground in Florida.
Let you do that.
Oh they might not, because I'd want to, just like I'd want to be able to feel gravity, feel the weight of things, feel outdoors, feel like that's what I would want, the sun on my face. I would want to be able to run. And maybe if they could have a place like a beach where no one else was I don't know.
Oh yes, you say that, and you make a very good point, because these folks are going to be in a really cramped space with two other individuals for ten straight days.
You cannot take a walk outside.
No, and like being weightless, I'm sure is cool, but it might be nice to feel the weight of your body, like just really appreciate. Wow, for one last time, I have something grilled and juicy and fresh.
I want to have you seen anything about restrictions. No, I know, I have no idea, and what do you we We are always about this because we're runners, and so it's very very specific. Things you should and shouldn't eat before you go run twenty six miles? Aren't there things maybe you shouldn't have sitting on your stomach before you go from zero to five hundred miles an hour and two a second.
I have no idea what those types of g forces are like. And and then what weightlessness does to the digestive track, No idea, no clue. That sounds like constipation, but I don't know.
Oh wow, you know it's a part of space travel. This is so cool. Bless them, bless their families. Everything takes place today. We are rooting for you on the whole, and you know, Ropes even it's kind of cool to see an American and a Canadian getting.
Along, you know, at this point, I never thought that would be a big deal sight, but it is apparently now these days.
Right, folks, We appreciate you always spending some time with us for my daar Amy Robock, I'm TJ.
Holmes. We will see you for launch.
The cat puts the chan