00:00For the first time in nearly 50 years, NASA is sending astronauts back to the moon.
00:04The Artemis 2 mission set for liftoff from Florida as early as Wednesday of this coming week.
00:09Joining us now is Ed Ludlow, co-host of Bloomberg Tech.
00:11He's going to be there in Florida for this launch, regardless of whether or not it transpires, I should say.
00:16Ed, help us understand the magnitude of this, what this means kind of in the history of space exploration.
00:23Yeah, this is the great next step in America's ambition to have humans back on the moon.
00:28In this mission, Artemis 2, they're basically doing a flyby or a fly around the moon.
00:34So they travel deep into space, 285,000 miles, go around the moon and come back.
00:42But it's, you know, it's the great dress rehearsal for the technology, essentially, that's planned to get humankind and driven
00:51by NASA, America, back to the moon, maybe in 2028.
00:55And it is the space launch system principally built by Boeing and then the Orion spacecraft principally built by Lockheed.
01:04And, you know, it's a project that is way behind schedule, frankly, and massively over budget.
01:12But a big moment if we go off this week.
01:15We know there are four astronauts.
01:17I do know one of them is named Christina.
01:19I also know that none of the three of us were invited to go on this mission, which we're a
01:24little salty about.
01:25But what do we know about these individuals and how they got selected?
01:29Yeah, so there's essentially three U.S. citizens and one Canadian.
01:32It's a great international collaboration, you know, beyond the crew themselves.
01:37The European Space Agency has a hand in some of the technology of the full stack as well.
01:44But, you know, they are people with vast experience.
01:48Reid Wiseman is the commander of the mission.
01:50He's, you know, classic former Navy test pilot, has previously been to ISS.
01:55Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut to travel to lunar distance.
02:01So it's, you know, it's kind of a significant moment in history from that standpoint.
02:05But he's been, you know, on prior SpaceX driven missions, SpaceX Crew-1.
02:11Christina, who you mentioned, is the mission specialist, electrical engineer.
02:16She actually holds the record for longest continuous space flight by a woman.
02:20And then the Canadian is Jeremy Hansen, first Canadian assigned to a lunar mission.
02:25So a lot of firsts, but highly decorated and experienced crew.
02:30Mission specialist.
02:31I feel like I could adopt that title for myself here at Bloomberg.
02:34You're in a dream.
02:34Mission specialist.
02:35Go ahead, David.
02:37And we're looking at live pictures now.
02:38Our viewers on TV and at Bloomberg.com and on the app can see those pictures there in Florida.
02:42What can you expect as you make your way there?
02:45And as I said, there's some uncertainty, of course, whether or not this is going to happen.
02:47You mentioned the delays this program has faced over many, many years now.
02:51Walk us through what's going to transpire here over the course of the week leading up to that final countdown.
02:55Yeah, I mean, NASA, you know, is communicating very regularly.
02:59And whether you take that as an indication of confidence, you know, it's hard to tell.
03:04Space launch, when it involves human life, is complex.
03:08There are systems issues.
03:10They will run tests.
03:11They are not doing a full dress rehearsal, which they had done in the month of March, early March, late
03:16February.
03:17They will track the weather very closely.
03:21But it all gears toward the earliest opportunity to launch, which is 6.24 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday,
03:28April 1st.
03:29And, you know, the system is a mix of highly synchronized autonomous technology, human judgment call.
03:37And, again, the weather is a big factor, you know, on the range of KSC.
03:41So that will constantly be launched.
03:44But the crew are there.
03:45You know, they arrived, I believe, Friday afternoon, having been in quarantine, a mandatory quarantine.
03:50And it is all tracking to that early launch window.
03:54But there are backup windows over consecutive days through Monday night.
03:57You said this mission is essentially kind of doing a lunar flyby.
04:02Is it the next mission that the hope is they will actually get boots on the moon?
04:06And why do this?
04:08Is it just because, as that, you know, legendary West Wing episode says, this is what's next in human progress?
04:14Yeah, I mean, there's the politics of it, frankly.
04:18You know, the Trump administration had put the moon front and center of its own belief of what NASA should
04:25be doing.
04:25The Artemis program has its origins back in the Bush era, George W.
04:29But, you know, Obama didn't really go for the moon as a priority.
04:35And then Trump presidency won, carried through Biden and Trump too.
04:41You know, Artemis 1, which was testing the Orion spacecraft and space launch system, was supposed to go in 2017.
04:48It went in 22.
04:50And that's had a cascading effect.
04:52But the goal on paper is to get human boots, American boots, on the moon's surface in 2028,
05:00with the geopolitics of knowing China has the same ambition and their same 2030.
05:04So, you know, I wouldn't underestimate that part of the story.
05:07The political will to do this, which was a big part of Jared Isaacman's path to becoming administrator.
05:14Maybe we can talk about that on another edition of Bloomberg this weekend.
05:17I would love that.
05:18Absolutely.
05:19Yeah, it's seriously important to this administration.
05:22Very quickly, we've got about a minute left.
05:23I'm curious, you mentioned that this is a Boeing and Lockheed joint project.
05:26These are kind of old standby government contractors.
05:29How has the advent of SpaceX and Blue Origin and the rest sort of changed the shape of this program,
05:34this particular mission in any way?
05:35NASA is committed to that, those two, as principal contractors through Artemis 5.
05:41But as Lauren Grush and I broke the story on 10 days ago and the administrator confirmed on Tuesday morning,
05:47they have two new proposals from SpaceX and from Blue Origin to take over the actual role of getting Orion
05:57from low Earth orbit to the moon.
05:59So right now, Space Launch System takes to orbit and carries it or propels it to the moon.
06:05There is a, you can read about it on Bloomberg.com, but there is now a proposal where actually those
06:11two newer names will probably step in and do what those others have struggled to do.
06:16So right now, we're going to go ahead and do what we're going to do.
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