00:00Ed, I have a really dumb question that I've been waiting all day to ask you.
00:04All of this technology, all of this new stuff for this mission, this is still how we're returning from space?
00:09Is there really just no better way to do this?
00:11Tried and true, it works, we're sticking with it?
00:14Yeah, just good old-fashioned rocket science, right?
00:17The flat-bottom capsule.
00:19It's a really good point.
00:20I think to a lot of people, the millions and millions of people watching around the world yesterday evening,
00:25the thing that all of us in industry, and I did the splashdown show with Bloomberg's Lauren Grush,
00:31who leads our space coverage at Bloomberg, but also has this deep family connection to NASA and history of NASA,
00:37and then Laurie Leshin, who used to lead NASA's propulsion labs.
00:41We did this show, and the thing that both of them are super clear on is that you're trying to
00:46enter Earth's atmosphere
00:48at 400,000 feet altitude, traveling at 25,000 miles per hour.
00:53It just seems insane, but just hitting a wall of air on that flat bottom and the heat shield
00:59and the need for the heat shield to hold up, that is the best way to do it at this
01:04moment.
01:05I'm glad you mentioned the heat shield because there were a lot of questions going into this re-entry, Ed,
01:09yesterday
01:10about the durability of the heat shield after what happened with Artemis 1 a couple of years ago.
01:14At this point, do we have any close-up images of how the heat shield withstood
01:18this sort of different re-entry that was for less of a period of time but still really challenged the
01:25materials?
01:26So the answer, frankly, is no.
01:29You know, the recovery has taken place, and what happens is that the Orion spacecraft
01:35gets taken, actually, to Kennedy Space Center, and then all of that analysis done
01:39with particular focus on the heat shield, there is going to have been some breakup,
01:45some material, you know, removal from the heat shield.
01:49That's what it's designed to do.
01:50That's what it's designed to do.
01:51The issue was in Artemis 1, which was an uncrewed mission, that it was just,
01:56it broke up in ways that they didn't expect.
01:58The material itself behaved in ways that they didn't expect.
02:02But actually, the fix for this, I mean, it's academic now, right,
02:06because the four astronauts are safe.
02:08They're safe, guys.
02:09They made it, and successful end-to-end mission.
02:12But how they ensured that was to actually change the angle that the Orion spacecraft
02:18integrity entered Earth's atmosphere, the re-entry phase,
02:23rather than actually make any material changes or design changes to the shield itself.
02:28You are such a space nerd.
02:30Why did you know that?
02:31Well, we talked to Ed a lot.
02:33Yeah, come on.
02:35Ed, you know, one thing that I noticed yesterday,
02:38for all the success that this mission had,
02:40there was this kind of hiccup in terms of communication
02:46when the Orion capsule splashed down yesterday.
02:49What happened?
02:50They were like, somebody asked,
02:51are you sure you're pressing the right button, essentially?
02:54Press the PTT, the push-to-talk button.
02:57It was almost like it was going too smoothly.
02:58They needed a moment of drama to make us all panic.
03:00I mean, so I guess in a sequence that's 13 minutes, it's about 13 minutes from the re-entry interface,
03:10the moment that the capsule kind of orients back into Earth's atmosphere and splashdown.
03:15Of all of the things that can happen, post-splashdown, the talkback being sort of a comical lighthearted moment, it's
03:25not really a big deal.
03:27Because, right, bear in mind that at that 400,000 feet altitude and its speed, 25,000 miles, plasma encases
03:35the capsule, right?
03:36From sheer heat, 3,000 degrees Celsius, 5,000 Fahrenheit.
03:40So for six minutes, there's no way for the crew, the astronauts, to speak to Houston,
03:45and there's no way for Houston to speak to them.
03:48That's really scary.
03:49So NASA, I think in the presser, in the debrief it came up, but I think that was just giddiness
03:55and human euphoria,
03:57having pulled off quite a feat of space travel.
04:02So we've talked before about the commercial aspect of this and the growth of the commercial space industry
04:07and what that means for NASA and these programs, and there's a story that just hit the terminal this morning
04:11talking about Boeing's moon rocket faces an uncertain future under Trump
04:15and the fact that despite this success, the Trump administration is looking to competitors for a possible replacement.
04:21What does that mean for you, and how could this impact future missions?
04:25Yeah, so there are future missions, and what NASA has said officially is that they are committed to SLS,
04:33space launch system, the rockety bit developed by Boeing, until at least Artemis 5.
04:41However, you know, Lauren Grush and I broke a story a few weeks ago that, how can I put it?
04:48It ruffled some feathers because NASA hadn't yet communicated how they wanted to take the project forward to the parties
04:57involved.
04:57And what we reported was there are two proposals on the table, one from SpaceX and one from Blue Origin,
05:05that would change the mechanism for humans landing on the moon, essentially.
05:11And in one of the mechanisms, Orion, the spacecraft, would dock with Starship, SpaceX's rocket, in low Earth orbit.
05:21And then, I'm using my hands, I hope that's okay for Bloomberg this weekend,
05:25but like, Orion would merge with Starship nose-to-nose, and Starship would push it to the moon.
05:31And then there are various proposals on the table to land down on the moon's surface.
05:35But that cuts out SLS, you know, even if SLS is a vehicle that would take Orion to low Earth
05:43orbit.
05:44But also, Starship's, like, massively unproven, right?
05:47It's never had done a human space flight.
05:49They basically have two years, less than two years, to prove this thing can work without blowing up.
05:56So there's a lot there.
05:57But yeah, you know, this was a huge success, end-to-end human deep space mission.
06:02But it's had problems, it's way over budget, and it's way behind on its timeline.
06:07And it's important to restate that, now that everyone's safe.
06:10So, Ed, just about 40 seconds left on this.
06:12Next steps on building that base on the moon, and then ultimately getting to Mars?
06:16At least for NASA and Jared Isaacman, what does it mean?
06:19Yeah, there's two tracks in parallel.
06:21On an ongoing basis, many more missions to the moon, which is why SpaceX might come in,
06:26because they can launch more regularly at lower cost, to put robots and hardware on the moon.
06:32No humans, but just flood the moon's surface to start building up this base.
06:362028, that's the earliest that NASA thinks it will get humans to land on the moon.
06:41And so there's lots of steps.
06:42Artemis 3, as a mission, is a demonstration of how those different technology providers
06:49would interact with each other in orbit, some of what I just described.
06:52So there is a timeline over the next two years where we'll see many more launches
06:56with the target of having NASA astronauts, you know, humans back on the moon's surface, 2028.
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