00:00It will orbit the moon and is intended to act as a stepping stone,
00:04testing technologies and operations in preparation for the first crewed mission to Mars.
00:11I'm joined now by Keith Cowling, editor of nasawatch.com.
00:15So, Keith, going to the dark side of the moon here,
00:18why is NASA going back to the moon after more than five decades?
00:24Well, as somebody who just turned 70, I've been expecting this for quite a long time.
00:29When I grew up, they said, you know, you're going to go to the moon by the end of the decade, and we did.
00:33Then they said Mars by 1981, and, well, here I am, 70, a senior citizen.
00:39We haven't done that yet, but it's always a good time to go back to the moon.
00:43We have unfinished business there.
00:44We have greater capabilities today to study the moon, and this time we're going to go and we're going to stay.
00:50So, this is a big difference.
00:52How important is this mission?
00:55Well, it's important in many ways.
00:57First of all, can we still, you know, send people to the moon?
01:01Second of all, looks like somebody has decided there's a space race now with China.
01:06So, China's intent on sending their taikonauts to the moon,
01:09and America has decided to set up the challenge and take it on, and they're going to do it.
01:14So, at least those two countries, plus Europe and Canada and Japan and everybody else who's involved,
01:20are seeing this as a challenge pretty much to, again, pick up where we left off
01:25and then move on to other parts of the moon and to Mars and beyond.
01:29Now, the astronauts will not actually be landing on the moon this time.
01:34What exactly are they going to be doing?
01:35Well, quite a bit.
01:38First of all, this may sound silly, but looking out the window.
01:41I mean, there's a lot of this whole issue of when you are going to a place ahead of a crew that's going to land,
01:48you want to do recon.
01:49And back in the Explorer's days, they would sail around an island and get the telescopes out
01:54and look for things and bays that you can land at and so forth.
01:57They're also testing their spacecraft, however, and they're going to be running it through everything from
02:01how does the life support system work, how does the toilet work, how does the food work,
02:05how does everything else work, and sort of proof-testing the spacecraft
02:10so that when we do send a crew to the moon, we're confident that it'll do all the things it's supposed to do.
02:15Sounds like important stuff.
02:16When do you think they will be sending a crew to the moon again?
02:21Oh, I'd go to Las Vegas if I knew that number.
02:24It's always a bit of a thing in motion, but if they launch in February this year,
02:30I would expect that you're going to see 2028 probably towards the end of the year as a likely date,
02:37but things change.
02:39You know, we may have a different way of doing it where the new administrator is having a relook
02:43at how we land on the moon and what we use for landers and rovers and things like that.
02:48So those dates may change, but I think if you were going to take some time off to watch a moon launch,
02:55late 2028 might be a good time to pick, or early 29.
02:59Let's talk about this, Artemis, too, though.
03:01For now, the rocket's being moved into position.
03:03The launch isn't until next month, as you said.
03:06Can you walk us through what happens now, step by step?
03:10Well, it's funny you say walk us through, because I actually, back in the day when I worked at NASA,
03:16I actually walked with the crawler when it had a shuttle on it,
03:20and anybody in even poor health can walk faster than that thing.
03:25So it's an immense piece of hardware on top of a giant tractor.
03:29So just that is getting it to the pad.
03:31Then they're going to go through now all the pad checks to make sure that everywhere that you plug it in,
03:36that the connectors work, which can sometimes cause launch delays.
03:40So you want to make sure that that works.
03:41At some point, they'll fuel up the rocket to test off the inner part.
03:46The other two rockets on the other side are solid rockets.
03:48They already have the fuel in them.
03:50Then they'll have the crew go in there and practice all the things that go with the initial preparations for launch.
03:57And, you know, they'll do external inspections.
04:00If it rains a lot, they may have to go outside and make sure there's no little dings or dongs in the spacecraft.
04:05But it's going to be testing up until the point that they launch.
04:09And if it's going to be launching in a month or so, it's going to be nonstop testing from now until then.
04:14Keith Cowling, editor of nasawatch.com.
04:17Great talking to you as always, Keith.
04:19My pleasure.
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