00:00Well, Professor James Head has trained astronaut crews and participated in the selection of landing sites for the Apollo moon program.
00:07He's in Cape Cod in the United States. James, welcome back. Great to see you.
00:11I mean, these launches seem routine now, don't they? But they must be absolutely terrifying.
00:17Yes, absolutely. I mean, I watch every one I can. I watched the Shinto 1 this morning.
00:22Very successful launch. I love to watch the crew.
00:25And also, it was new to me to see the crew in this heavenly palace actually watching the launch.
00:31That was really spectacular. So it is not like going down to the corner market, that's for sure.
00:38So it is a lot of moving parts, and it's very dangerous.
00:42And the trick is to make it look like it was easy. And that's what they've been doing. It's great.
00:47Where does today sit in China's wider space program?
00:51Well, I think China has been very successful, really, just starting, you know, 30, 40 years ago,
00:59into a really formidable space program. And they've been doing an excellent job.
01:04Basically, they have the Earth orbiting platform and lots of activities there,
01:09all the kinds of things we're talking about.
01:10And, of course, the lunar and planetary exploration program.
01:13There's a mission on the way to asteroid to return samples.
01:16They're very successful lunar missions. We've been working with them on the samples.
01:21And it's incredible. First return from the far side of the moon and more to come.
01:26So it's very, very successful.
01:28What do you think we might learn from this space voyage?
01:32I think that, you know, there's a number of things.
01:36I think one of the things is, basically, we need to learn how humans live in space.
01:41And, of course, we've been in Earth orbit and the International Space Station for over 25 years.
01:46But you still need longer term and multiple perspectives.
01:51So it's really important, each individual mission, while it may not seem like,
01:56oh, my gosh, we've got the first rocks back from the moon,
01:59it is indeed a very major contribution ahead.
02:02And I think, you know, looking at the details here, I mean, earlier,
02:08the TNGO-8 took bricks to the moon, took bricks to the space station to look,
02:19put them on the outside and see how they behaved.
02:21And that's really important because you need to learn how to make things on the moon
02:25so you can live in things.
02:26And so we've actually been doing that in our own program here at Brown University and NASA,
02:33looking at how we can reduce the upmass, where upmass is how many bricks and center blocks
02:38are you going to take to build things on the moon?
02:40And the answer is not very many.
02:41So you need to be innovative.
02:43That's what we're doing.
02:44That's what China is doing with these things that have been placed on the outside of the heavenly palace
02:49to look at the exposure, et cetera.
02:50So lots of really important things going on.
02:53This is obviously China's day and a proud day for China,
02:56but space exploration is an international endeavor, isn't it?
03:01Absolutely.
03:02I mean, you know, first of all, it's just not only international for the Earth,
03:06but if you look at outer space, it's an incredible infinity of opportunities to learn.
03:12And no one nation can, you know, can corner the market, so to speak.
03:18And so we really need all the help we can get, and we need all the perspectives.
03:22You know, it's really important to think differently about things and share that information,
03:27and that's what's going on internationally now in space science and exploration.
03:31And it's absolutely spectacular.
03:32For example, the first samples from the far side of the moon returned by Chang 5 and 6,
03:39you know, really incredible, incredible results that have helped us understand the moon
03:44and our own place in the solar system.
03:46I know you walk into university and inspire a new generation of scientists,
03:52but days like today are important even for very young scientists, children even, to be inspired by.
03:58I think that's really true.
04:01And, you know, basically, space is the future.
04:04I mean, it is the future.
04:06Apollo 16 astronaut John Young said, why do we explore the moon?
04:10Why do we want to go to the moon?
04:11Because single-planet species don't survive.
04:13We really need to be thinking in the long term here.
04:16That's a scary thought, but, in fact, we need to go and populate the solar system
04:20so that we can explore it, to understand it, and, indeed, to live there, on the moon, very soon, I think.
04:28Boom, boom, boom.
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