00:00 Let's talk to James Head, who's Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University.
00:05 Good to see you, Professor. Welcome back to the programme.
00:07 So, explain to us how this satellite's going to work.
00:10 What will it allow that isn't currently possible?
00:13 Well, you know, when the Apollo astronauts went to the Moon, I worked in that programme,
00:18 and basically, when Dave Scott came back from the Moon, he told me that when they went around to the far side,
00:23 you couldn't see the Earth, you couldn't see the Sun,
00:26 and the only way you knew the Moon was there was there was a place with no stars.
00:31 That's what it's like to be on the far side.
00:33 So you need something in higher orbit to be able to communicate from the far side back to the Earth.
00:38 That's totally essential, and we just know so little about the far side.
00:42 So, essentially, Keqiao-2 will enable us, as with the first satellite,
00:48 to be able to communicate with the far side.
00:50 With Chang'e 4, the rover, you can see the little rover here in the corner here,
00:54 that was able to be worked on the far side by having that first satellite.
00:58 This will be even better because it's larger, it's more capable,
01:03 and it will begin the constellation of communication satellites that China is putting in orbit.
01:09 And for a scientist, it enables us to communicate with the far side lunar, Chang'e 6,
01:14 and then Chang'e 7 and 7 and 8, and the International Lunar Research Station.
01:18 So it's very exciting from a technological and a scientific point of view.
01:22 So how much is there to learn about the other side of the Moon? What can it tell us?
01:28 Well, it's very different than the near side, and we don't really understand why that is.
01:32 I just gave a paper in Houston, Texas, at our major conference,
01:35 on some of the ideas about why the sides are different.
01:38 And also, we really need to be able to collect samples from there,
01:42 which Chang'e 6 will do when it's launching in May.
01:46 And the key here is about the Moon is we don't really understand exactly how it relates to the Earth.
01:52 We know that a big impact in very early Earth history, a Mars-sized object hit the Earth,
01:58 ejected material, and that formed the Moon.
02:01 And if I want to understand how, you know, anybody, what their behavior is like,
02:06 you really need to understand their childhood, their formative years.
02:10 And that's a big event in the childhood of the Earth and the Moon system.
02:13 So if we don't understand the Moon, we really don't even understand our home planet Earth.
02:17 So it's critically important to explore the Moon and the far side and all the Moon.
02:22 And China in particular has big plans to explore the Moon, doesn't it?
02:25 It's hoping to land astronauts there in 2030.
02:29 What difference will this satellite make as part of those plans?
02:33 Well, it'll be really incredible for increasing communication.
02:37 So one of the other problems we have, besides the far side communication,
02:40 is all the data we want to bring back.
02:42 Now we have much more data capability to send back many, many, many bits of data.
02:49 And so we need sophisticated communication in order to enable that data to come back digitally in real time.
02:56 We want to see what the astronauts are doing on the surface, the taikonauts, the astronauts, et cetera.
03:01 We want to be able to get tons of data to help support them on the surface.
03:05 And that's what this communication satellite, as well as a constellation of satellites, will really enable us to do.
03:10 It's a really remarkable achievement on the part of China, and it'll help with international exploration as well.
03:17 So this is a particular push by China, but do you think we're actually now entering a new era of Moon landings more broadly?
03:24 Oh, absolutely. It's just stunning to me, having worked in the Apollo program,
03:28 to see lunar missions by the U.S., by China, by ESA, by Japan, India, Russia, Korea just launched one,
03:36 United Arab Republics, Israel, and even private companies now.
03:39 So it's really an international destination. It's like Antarctica in the sense that it's an international activity.
03:47 The scientists are really trying to understand how the Moon formed and how it's related to the Earth.
03:52 And then we contribute and pool all our data to try to develop an international understanding of this.
03:58 Professor, great to talk to you, as always. Thank you for joining us.
04:01 That's Professor James Head from Brown University.
04:04 My pleasure. Thank you.
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