Ready, and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
This is the Daly OS.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday, the twenty fifth of September. I'm Emma Gillespie, I'm Billy fit Simons. In just a few months time, four NASA astronauts will embark on the first crude lunar mission since nineteen seventy two.
Together, have a front row seat to history. We're returning to the Moon after over fifty years.
Artemis two is scheduled to take off in February next year for a ten day trip around the Moon, a head of a crude mission to the lunar surface in twenty twenty seven. It comes amid what's been dubbed the Second Space Race, as the US and China push to get back to.
The Moon first.
Today we will explain everything you need to know about the Artemis mission, why also wants to go to the Moon, and why it's taken them so long to get back there.
But before we get into today's deep dive, here is a quick message from our sponsor.
Billy.
If it's Ion's welcome back to the pod.
Thank you so much. I thought everyone forgot about me. It has been more than a month since I've been on the point.
We could not forget about you. It's so exciting to have you back.
Oh, I've missed you. I've missed recording into a purple ball every day.
That is nice of you to say, Billy, I know it missed you, of course, and our listeners of course. Of course. I know you've had a big trip. You're back from that.
I've pretty much gone all around the world. But you know where I didn't go Space. I missed the moon, did not quite get there. So I'm very excited to hear about it today.
He's stolen my joke because I steering up to say, oh, I'm so sorry, Billy. I know you just got back from a big trip, but don't worry, because today I'm going to take you to the moon.
Oh well, let's just return like I didn't ruin. That is a great joke. It's very unpredictable. No one else could have thought about it.
Great mine thinking alike. That's why we needed you back.
Couldn't be back, so Emma. Today we are talking about a pretty major announcement this week, which is that NASA is going back to the Moon. I always find this quite surprising that despite the big race to the Moon nearly sixty or seventy years ago, now yep, we actually haven't really been back since. So this is a pretty big announcement.
Right exactly, And all things going smoothly. Astronauts are set to land on the Moon by mid twenty twenty seven, so in less than two years time. But before that happens, we've got a mission called Artemis two that's going to lift off in February next year.
And still's a ten day test flight.
We will be launching four crew and them, along with our ground teams, we are going to be working together to execute this mission. This is a stepped approach, and all that we learned from Artemis two we will build upon there to prepare us for our first crew landing on the surface of the Moon for Artemis three.
That was Lakeisha Hawkins speaking at a NASA press conference this week.
Now.
She is the acting Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
Try saying that ten times, and what you.
Would have heard there is that next year's mission is a step towards putting actual astronauts back on the Moon.
Okay, So we have Artemis two, which is sending a crew of astronauts on a mission around the Moon. That is in feb next year, and then Artemis three will be a mission on the Moon and that is in mid twenty twenty seven, so in two years time. Yeah, when was the last time a crew went to the Moon? I know I said before, it was like sixty seventy years ago, yes.
So nearly. It was a little bit more recently than that. It was nineteen seventy two. The last time humans traveled to the Moon. That was the Apollo seventeen mission, over fifty years ago now, and that was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program. So that was the program that took Neil Armstrong. I was going to say, so basic terms, are we talking about Neil Armstrong? Yes, we are talking
about Neil Armstrong, But Apollo seventeen wasn't Neil Armstrong. So even though we got to the Moon all those years ago, there has not been people on the Moon since the seventies, but there have been still space exploration missions and shuttles, and the only things that have been on the Moon, I suppose, are rovers. So even though Artemis TI, which is the one coming up in February, isn't going to
involve astronauts stepping onto the lunar surface. It will carry astronauts farther from Earth and closer to the Moon than any human has been in over half a century.
Wow, why has it taken so long to get back there?
That's a really good question and it has a complicated answer. So the official word from NASA is this is about scientific discovery, economic benefits, inspiration for a new generation of explorers, while quote maintaining American leadership in exploration. But the main reasons why it's taken so long really come down to
politics and priorities. Space exploration is expensive, It is incredibly expensive, so there needs to be not only a willingness from the decision makers in government of the day, but also a purpose behind making those big investments, a reason to spend all that money. The Moon landing back in nineteen sixty nine, Neil Armstrong buzz Aldron shout out that was a Cold War era achievement. So America at that time was in this race with the Soviet Union for space superiority.
America won that race in nineteen sixty nine with the Apollo program, and that program was ended in the seventies under US President Richard Nixon. Since then, NASA's priorities have really changed depending on who was in the White House. So it's been more than fifty years since the Apollo mission. We have this generational gap in experience, which presents its
own challenges. But the Trump administration has the appetite to put the Moon back on the agenda, and we saw that both in President Trump's first term and now again for this second term in office.
Okay, and so we now have the Artemis program under the Trump administration. Can you break down what that actually involves.
Yes, So this is a Moon exploration program led by NASA, which stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
It's the United States Space Agency.
That's definitely going to come up in a good weekend quiz one time.
Yeah, exact nowly going to remember it, watch this space. So Artemis was formally established in twenty seventeen. It's intended to re establish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo seventeen mission, with this stated long term goal to establish a permanent base on
the Moon and facilitate human missions to Mars. There are several missions planned under the pro so Artemis two builds on Artemis one, that was an uncrude mission in twenty twenty two, and NASA said this second mission is about demonstrating a broad range of capabilities needed four deep space missions, and that will involve four astronauts venturing around the Moon over ten days, three astronauts from NASA, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, and in that group is one woman astronaut.
And so that's Artemis two, the one that's just going I shouldn't say, just the one that is going around the moon. Tell us about Artemis three, which is where they plan to actually go on to the Moon again.
Yes, Artemis three is expected to launch in mid twenty twenty seven. That was the update from NASA this week. It's a little bit sooner than we were expecting, but this would be the first time humans have landed on the Moon since the seventies, and it would be the big one.
So Artemis two next year will be major.
It's the closest we will have gotten to the Moon in f something years. But that Artemis II mission is when NASA will kind of execute the stages of its plan to return to the Moon more frequently. It's looking at yearly landings on the Moon with a goal to establish a permanent presence there.
Okay, so we mentioned before that for about fifty or so years, missions to the Moon have basically stopped, and reasons for that are political and also they're expensive. But now they are starting up again, And you said part of the reason for that is the Trump administration. Why exactly is the Trump administration interested in going back to the Moon.
It has a lot to do with this idea of the second space race. So if Apollo was NASA's attempt to win the space race against Russia, Artemis is its battle against China. So in July twenty twenty three, China's space agency publicly announced a plan to land two astronauts
on the Moon by twenty thirty. Russia and China then announced together that they're going to build a moon base together, so this would be Russian Chinese infrastructure to get those astronauts there, and it also formally invited more countries and international organizations to join their International Research Station project as this alternative to NASA's Artemis program. What's really interesting is that China has already achieved some significant firsts in its race.
In June, a Chinese lunar land has successfully collected rocks and soil from the far side of the Moon. That's something that no other country had done, and it returned them back to the Earth for study. So there is kind of a broader geopolitical force really driving Artemis.
So China is aiming for twenty thirty Artemis, the US is aiming for twenty twenty seven. How realistic are these timelines? Are we actually looking at a close race here? Could China actually get there first?
Well?
This is an another interesting point to the whole story because NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that this mid twenty twenty seven goal is well ahead of the Chinese government's announced intention, but experts aren't actually so sure that NASA will be able to do it. To quote former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein, who told a Senate hearing this quote, unless something changes, it's highly unlikely the US will beat
China's projected timeline. He cited concerns about the development of SpaceX's starship, which will serve as the lunar lander, the need for multiple refueling missions, and the general kind of pressure on the scale of this project versus the cost, the technology, the research, and all of the hours involved in making it happen and making it happen safely.
NASA experts did acknowledge.
This need to kind of balance ambition and safety at this week's Artemis press conference.
Here's a little bit of what was said. This administration.
Has us to acknowledge that we are indeed in a well, you know what people have commonly called a second space race. There is a desire for us to return to the surface of the Moon and to be the first to return to the surface of the Moon. With that being said, NASA's objective, though, is to do so safely.
And what's the strategic importance for the US or China in getting to the moon first?
Like?
Why does it matter?
So this surprised me because I didn't really get it either, apart from it being a bit of a technological capability demonstration and a bit of pride from each superpower on wanting to flex that tech.
Yeah, Like, is it just bragging rights that we're fighting for here?
Well, there are deeper political consequences to consider, and they actually have to do with the territory of the Moon, the physical land on the Moon itself exactly. It sounds a bit like Avatar, don't you reckon? Alan Cutler, who is the president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Explorations, said, quote, the country that lands on the Moon first will shape the rules of engagement in space
for decades to come. Cutler and other US officials are basically concerned that if China gets there first, that there could be competition over resources in space. That includes valuable water ice that's thought to be locked up in craters at the lunar South Pole, so Billy. The thinking is that water on the Moon could be used to make rocket fuel, to propel missions deeper into space, or to
sustain colonies of humans living on the Moon. And basically China and the US want to be the ones to get their hands on that water.
Okay.
And so what I guess you're kind of hinting at or explicitly saying, is that this is all building towards missions to Mars.
Yeah, it's a pretty far out concept, but it's closer than we think. The Artemis program has this stated long term goal to establish a permanent base on the Moon to facilitate missions to Mars. So we want to get to the Moon not only to have access to that water ice, but also as a kind of base for missions to Mars, because from Earth to Mars, the refueling, the specs around that at the moment are physically impossible.
The idea, though, is that the Moon becomes this kind of testing ground, this stepping stone for the much more challenging journey to Mars.
And on that.
Base, hopefully, you know, NASA experts will learn how to develop the technologies needed to get to Mars, how to live and work in deep space environments, testing life support systems, can they grow vegetables and food on the Mars surface, all of that kind of stuff. But I do think it's important to note that while this sounds exciting, both the Chinese and American programs have faced delays. I would
take their timelines with a grain of salt. Space programs are in credibly complex, and Artemis still has some significant technical hurdles to overcome. So who knows who will win the second space race. Will it be the US, will it be China. Whatever happens, it feels like we're certainly entering a new era of space exploration.
Do you know how close we are to getting to Mars.
I'd say we are about several thousand light years.
Oh, I was expecting more like human years. But light years, I mean, I can never get my head around those.
But yeah, basically, we don't know how close we are to Mars until we have.
A presence on the moon. Exactly, got it. But do you think it will be in our lifetime? I think I think it will be in our lifetime. That will be exciting.
I don't know if it will be in our lifetime while we still have our.
Natural hair color. Okay, however, I'll take that.
Although I'm not an astrophysicist, I'm not a rocket scientist, so don't quote me on.
I will be you to everyone I know. I'll be like Emma says, we're going to Mars in our lifetime, the.
Girl with the Bachelor of media says, we're going to Mars.
Emma, thank you for that breakdown. A bachelor in media is all I need for you to be an expert in space. Apparently, I'll take it.
Thank you, Billy, and thank you to the real experts.
And that is all we have time for today's deep dive. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We'll be back in your ears this afternoon with the headlines, but until then, have a great day and thanks for having me back.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.