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Nova S53E06
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00:06We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return.
00:13After more than 50 years, humanity has finally returned to the moon.
00:22To get there, NASA needed a new rocket that packs a punch.
00:268.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
00:33I call it the arrogance of humanity.
00:35The fact that we think we can launch machinery like this, it just leaves you with a sense of awe.
00:42How did they build it?
00:43This is like no other kind of atmospheric machine.
00:46We designed for every iteration that could occur between liftoff and orbit.
00:52Copy, Vernon.
00:52What were they up against?
00:54Copy.
00:55China's space program is more advanced than I think a lot of people realize.
01:00When you see something that anomalous on a critical system like the heat shield, where there's no backup, that really
01:06raises your concerns.
01:09They've mitigated the risk as much as possible, but this still could be a catastrophic failure and loss of life.
01:15The inside story of Artemis II, from design to splashdown.
01:23Return to the moon, right now, on Nova.
01:48April 1st, 2026.
01:53It's launch day for the crew of Artemis II.
02:16It's launch day for the crew of Artemis II.
02:22We'll just take a look all the way up and see the top of the rocket.
02:24It's full of fuel, so it'll be venting.
02:27It'll be cold.
02:28It'll be alive.
02:31And we are just teeny tiny specks amongst this 280-foot-tall rocket in front of us.
02:39We'll get in an elevator.
02:41We'll ride that elevator up to the 274 level.
02:46And we walk down the gantry to the white room.
02:50Put on our helmet.
02:51Put on our gloves.
02:52Make sure we look good from head to toe.
02:53And then one at a time, we'll go into the Orion and start getting strapped in.
02:58Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years.
03:04The astronauts will travel farther from Earth than any humans have traveled before.
03:10Paving the way for future missions to land on the lunar surface.
03:17When a rocket launch is going ahead, it is almost like poetry in motion.
03:23Everything has to be in perfect alignment before they will give the go-ahead for a launch.
03:30You've got four human beings sitting on top of a massive bomb.
03:34If the detonation is controlled properly, then the rocket goes up and they go to space.
03:40But if something goes wrong, that rocket blows up.
03:44OTC.
03:45OTC is go.
03:46It's taken decades to get here.
03:48The risks are enormous.
03:50MCO.
03:51CO is go.
03:52But now it's finally time.
03:54Time for humans to go back to the moon.
03:57Artemis II crew is go for launch.
04:01I copy that.
04:02Good luck.
04:04Godspeed, Artemis II.
04:07Let's go.
04:25Three years before the launch of Artemis II, NASA launches Artemis I.
04:32A test flight to the moon and back without astronauts on board.
04:41There are things that we've done many times in sims.
04:45And we've done them many times in the lab.
04:48But in a tanked configuration at the pad, it was the first time.
04:56It is incredibly quiet in the room.
05:01Everybody is focused on their system.
05:04They're focused on the data.
05:08I mean, there's not a sound.
05:12It's the first flight of the Space Launch System, SLS.
05:18The rocket, specially built for the Artemis program.
05:23Five million pounds of fuel has to ignite on Q to lift the rocket into space.
05:33Rockets are insanely complex vehicles where everything has to go right for it to succeed.
05:39And if a single important thing goes wrong, the rocket blows up.
05:42I mean, it is the ultimate kind of pass-fail test.
05:46And here we go.
05:47Ten.
05:50I got a bit of a...
05:52The hair on my arm stood up just a little bit as those final six seconds ticked off the countdown
05:59clock.
06:00Six, five, four stage engines start.
06:04And then the call.
06:06Booster ignition and liftoff.
06:10Three, two, one.
06:13Liftoff of Artemis I.
06:25It was...
06:27It was breathtaking.
06:36Good control on the roll from Teams in Mission Control, Houston, all good calls so far.
06:40Now 30 seconds into the flight of Artemis 1.
06:45The SLS is a multi-stage rocket.
06:48Once each stage or section of the rocket has done its job, it separates.
06:56The spacecraft becomes lighter, better able to accelerate into space.
07:11Within two hours, all that remains is Orion.
07:15The crew and service modules heading away from Earth.
07:22It takes five days to reach the moon, where Orion settles into lunar orbit, allowing mission
07:30controllers to test its flight systems in deep space.
07:37For me, one of the highlights was seeing the Earth pass behind the moon and disappear and
07:44then come out the other side.
07:488 billion people disappeared behind the only other place that humanity had ever been.
07:58I've had a different perspective every time I've looked at the moon since then.
08:04NASA's newest moon explorer is barreling its way back home after circumnavigating the moon and beyond.
08:12When Artemis 1 returns from the moon, Orion is traveling 7,500 miles per hour faster than a spacecraft coming
08:21back from low
08:22Earth orbit.
08:24As it hits the upper atmosphere, friction generates intense heat and super hot plasma visible through the capsule window.
08:36The only protection from this inferno is a heat shield an inch and a half thick.
08:44Demonstrating the heat shield at lunar reentry velocities was our number one priority because temperatures outside got half as high
08:52as the sun and approaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:58When you come back from the moon, you're coming back from the moon, you're coming back at Mach 32 or
09:0324,500 miles an hour.
09:05In fact, we came back at 24,581 miles an hour.
09:09We were 81 miles an hour over the speed limit.
09:13And there it is, 5,000 feet, three good main chutes for Orion.
09:22Orion in the perfect orientation for splashdown, just seconds away.
09:29Half an hour earlier, Orion was hurtling towards Earth at 32 times the speed of sound.
09:37When it hits the water, it's falling at less than 20 miles an hour.
09:48The idea for Artemis II is to go back to the moon, but this time with a crew of astronauts
09:55on board.
10:00They'll do a single wide loop, flying more than 4,000 miles beyond the moon, the farthest any human has
10:09been into space, before returning to Earth.
10:17Artemis I was back testing the hardware, making sure that everything would work going to the moon and back.
10:22Now, they're putting people on board.
10:23And people, of course, there is a sense of danger, a sense of trepidation.
10:28It just amps up the safety factor, right?
10:31With Artemis I, a failure would be bad, right?
10:34But it wouldn't have been catastrophic.
10:36If you lose the human crew on Artemis II, that is catastrophic.
10:38That calls into question the future of the whole Artemis program.
10:43In April 2023, the Artemis II crew is announced.
10:48Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cooke, and Jeremy Hansen.
10:55They'll be the first humans to leave Earth's orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
11:03Hello, Houston.
11:04Uh, 17, last clear.
11:07Hip-dity-hoppity, hip-dity-hoppity, hip-dity-hopping over you and do.
11:12Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
11:16Artemis intrinsically builds on the legacy of Apollo.
11:20We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we've learned so much in human exploration.
11:25But, of course, returning to the moon when we haven't done that for over 50 years,
11:29we are looking back to Apollo.
11:31We're-we're making those comparisons.
11:37Apollo was clearly a program designed to demonstrate U.S. superiority in technology
11:43compared to the Soviet Union. And it was successful in that. And then once they completed that
11:48task, they shut it down because it cost a lot of money. And every time they launched,
11:52there was a 10 or 15 percent chance that the crew would not come back safely.
11:57In only three and a half years, the Apollo program completed a total of six lunar landings
12:03at a cost equivalent to $280 billion today.
12:10We leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.
12:24If you look at NASA's budget in the 1960s, at its peak, it was drawing down 5 percent of the
12:31federal budget.
12:32NASA's budget today is 0.5 percent. So 10 times less, or one-tenth of what it was back in
12:40the 1960s.
12:41And NASA is sort of building the Artemis program within that budget.
12:57Despite having much less money, the long-term ambition for Artemis far exceeds that of Apollo.
13:07Rather than simply landing astronauts on the moon for a few days at a time,
13:12the goal is to establish a moon base where humans can live and work long-term.
13:27During the Apollo program, each landing was at a different site, clustered around the lunar equator.
13:35With the Artemis program, the plan for future missions is to land near the South Pole.
13:43This part of the moon has deep craters where the sun never shines.
13:48They're thought to contain huge deposits of water in the form of ice.
13:54Where you have ice, you have the ability to melt that and provide drinking water clearly for habitation modules,
14:01but also then the potential to split that water into hydrogen and oxygen gas,
14:07which can be used for atmosphere and it can also be used for potential rocket fuel.
14:13But NASA isn't the only one eyeing this prime real estate.
14:21China has already announced their intention to land with their astronauts,
14:30astronauts, they call them taikonauts, are on the South Pole of the moon.
14:36On the schedule that we are, we will land before the Chinese.
14:42But it is a race.
14:47I do think getting back there first matters a heck of a lot.
14:50China would turn that into a huge win.
14:54Just sort of saying that this is the century of China.
14:58Look, we've surpassed the United States.
14:59They can't get back to the moon.
15:00We can.
15:02But that's really why we're going.
15:03There's kind of a geopolitical imperative at this time.
15:08China's space program is more advanced than I think a lot of people realize.
15:12And it is hitting its deadlines and meeting a lot of critical milestones.
15:17NASA's program, the deadlines keep getting pushed back.
15:21And so there is concern that China's accelerating and NASA's not keeping up.
15:28The pressure is on to speed up the Artemis program
15:33and get its astronauts to the moon.
15:39With this goal in mind,
15:41thousands of people at sites across the U.S. and in Europe
15:44are developing hardware for Artemis II.
15:51They're building a spacecraft capable of taking astronauts to the moon
15:55and returning them safely for the first time since the Apollo era.
16:06The rocket that'll get them into space is the SLS, the Space Launch System.
16:13Its huge core stage contains the fuel tanks and main engines.
16:19Alongside are two solid fuel boosters to provide extra thrust at launch.
16:26Above is the upper stage and service module,
16:30which power the vehicle in space.
16:34And finally, the crew module that carries the astronauts
16:39on their journey to the moon.
16:54On the outskirts of New Orleans,
16:56the core stage of the SLS
16:58is leaving the hangar in which it's been assembled.
17:04Over 200 feet long,
17:07it is the single largest rocket stage NASA has ever built.
17:18When you see SLS, you think scale.
17:21You do not understand scale
17:23until you go see that thing in real life.
17:27I call it the arrogance of humanity.
17:30The fact that we think we can assemble machinery like this
17:33and launch it successfully,
17:35it just leaves you with a sense of awe.
17:38The core stage contains two massive aluminum fuel tanks,
17:43which at launch will be filled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
17:49Liquid hydrogen generates more thrust per pound
17:52than any other rocket fuel.
17:55But its molecules are so light and loosely packed together,
17:59it needs more storage space than any other fuel.
18:05That's why the core stage is so large.
18:09Liquid hydrogen is the rocket fuel of choice,
18:12and you can see why.
18:13It packs a punch.
18:15It will get people to the moon.
18:16But it is incredibly hard to handle.
18:20It needs to be kept at temperatures of minus 250 Celsius.
18:24The fuel lines, the tank itself,
18:27everything has to be kept at that temperature,
18:29or the liquid hydrogen will start to evaporate, to expand.
18:35Now, imagine if your liquid hydrogen starts expanding in the tank.
18:39The tank will explode,
18:40and so everything has to be kept at that low, low temperature
18:43so that everything stays in its liquid form.
18:5060% of space shuttle launches had to be postponed,
18:54often due to problems with hydrogen fueling.
19:00The worry is Artemis will suffer the same complications.
19:09Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
19:12and it has cleared the tower.
19:15NASA knows just how dangerous rocket fuel can be at launch.
19:21Normal throttles for most of the flight, 104%.
19:25When the fuel tank of the Challenger space shuttle ruptured,
19:29liquid hydrogen ignited.
19:31Challenger, go with throttle up.
19:33Causing a catastrophic explosion
19:40that took the lives of seven astronauts.
19:44Obviously a major malfunction.
19:46Such disasters have led NASA to prioritize safety over speed.
19:57The core stage of the SLS is transported very slowly and carefully by barge,
20:03900 miles to Kennedy Space Center,
20:06where it will eventually launch.
20:11On arrival, it's taken to the Vehicle Assembly Building,
20:15the largest single-story building in the world.
20:22The head of NASA at the time, Bill Nelson,
20:26is taking a look for himself.
20:29That core stage packs a big punch
20:34in those four engines right there.
20:37By the way, those engines were the same engines
20:41that were on the space shuttle.
20:46But instead of throwing them away,
20:48we're using them.
20:53In order to support the existing aerospace industry,
20:57Congress mandated NASA to reuse and update
21:00the RS-25 engines
21:02that had previously powered the space shuttle.
21:07Congress basically told NASA
21:09that it's going to use contracts, workforce systems,
21:13from the shuttle, from previous programs.
21:19developed in the 1970s
21:21to deliver maximum thrust from liquid hydrogen,
21:25RS-25s were known as the Ferrari of rocket engines.
21:30But reusing them comes at a cost.
21:34The space shuttle main engines were great engines,
21:37just brilliant engineering.
21:40But it turns out, if you want an affordable space program,
21:44you don't want to be launching Ferraris in space,
21:45especially if, like, you drive it one time
21:47and the car goes away.
21:49The RS-25s were originally designed to be reusable.
21:53But on Artemis, each of them will be flown only once,
21:58and then discarded.
22:01If you total up all the money that NASA is spending,
22:04the cost of the single RS-25 engine
22:08is between 100 and 140 million US dollars.
22:13SpaceX is building a comparable Raptor engine
22:17for $500,000, half a million.
22:21If you were starting from a clean sheet,
22:23this is probably not what you would have designed.
22:26But given all of the political,
22:28financial, and technical realities,
22:30it is the systems we have.
22:31It's the best shot we have to get to the moon
22:33in the next few years.
22:34And so NASA's making the best of it.
22:37The engines need to generate enough thrust
22:40to get the rocket into space,
22:42balancing the rocket equation,
22:46which determines the ratio of fuel
22:49to mass to thrust required for a successful launch.
22:55Physics doesn't read PowerPoint.
22:57It doesn't read our reports.
22:59It doesn't care about any of that.
23:00So the rocket equation is simply a representation
23:03of the physical requirements to cheat gravity.
23:07The tyranny of the rocket equation
23:10is that heavy rockets require more fuel.
23:13But more fuel makes rockets heavier,
23:16requiring even more fuel.
23:20A fully loaded SLS weighs 5.7 million pounds.
23:25Five million of that is fuel.
23:2890% of the entire mass that we've got is chemical energy.
23:31And a good bit of the rest of that mass
23:33is actually structured to hold that chemical energy.
23:38We're going from zero velocity,
23:40sitting on the launch pad,
23:42to 32,000 feet per second.
23:45That's an incredible energy ride.
23:48So we continually accelerate.
23:51So this is like no other kind of atmospheric machine.
23:55It's not like airplanes.
23:56It's not like cars.
23:57We don't get to a cruising speed and stop.
24:00And so we design for every iteration
24:02that could occur between liftoff and orbit.
24:14Since the 1960s,
24:16NASA rockets have been designed here
24:18at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
24:22Out of this center will come the vehicles
24:25that will carry the United States into outer space.
24:36It's historic wind tunnel is still used
24:39to test the aerodynamics of the SLS.
24:43There's a joke around Marshall Space Flight Center
24:46that in God we trust,
24:47everybody else bring data.
24:51By inserting a scale model of the SLS
24:54into the wind tunnel and blowing air over it,
24:58engineers can study the forces acting on the rocket
25:01as it accelerates into space.
25:05This is 25,000 to 50,000 feet,
25:08and air molecules pile up on each other,
25:10and they create a very dense layer of air,
25:14and so that's what we call a shock wave.
25:16And so once we get supersonic,
25:18we'll see these all over the vehicle.
25:21That dictates our stability and our control system.
25:24And this gives us all the data that we need
25:26in order to control the rocket.
25:30This data can be used
25:31to create computer simulations
25:34that plot every second of the rocket's journey.
25:39Rocket science has 1,000 different parts,
25:421,000 different components
25:43that have to be done perfectly.
25:45It's not just focusing on one big task.
25:48It's all these little parts,
25:49and when they all come together,
25:50they don't always work seamlessly,
25:52and so that's why all of this stuff
25:54has to be checked and tested so rigorously.
25:58At the top of the spacecraft
25:59sits the Orion capsule,
26:01which carries the four astronauts.
26:04Its cabin is 50% larger than on Apollo,
26:07about the size of a passenger van.
26:11But before it can go to the moon,
26:13it needs to be certified, ready to fly.
26:21To do this, engineers are running post-flight tests
26:25on the return capsule from Artemis I.
26:33They start by shaking the capsule,
26:36blasting it with extreme noise,
26:39equivalent to the sound of 200 jet engines,
26:45simulating the most extreme vibrations
26:47that might occur during a mission.
26:55The focus today is on the forward bay cover,
26:58the cap on top of the capsule.
27:02It needs to eject on re-entry
27:04so the parachutes can deploy safely.
27:08This happened on Artemis I.
27:12But now they're testing the same mechanism
27:14for Artemis II
27:17with a replacement forward bay cover.
27:21It takes less than a second
27:24for the pyros or explosives
27:27to separate that cover.
27:28But it takes months to plan,
27:31months to make sure that everything is set up.
27:33Like, we're looking here at a catch system
27:36so the forward bay cover will go into that net,
27:39the bungee cords then will keep attention
27:41so it stays in that.
27:43And then we have very high-speed photogrammetry cameras
27:46that are set up with extremely bright lights
27:49that are focused on the hardware
27:51so the engineers can analyze it
27:53and see if all the systems
27:54are performing as expected.
27:58If any wires or bolts
28:00have come loose from the shaking,
28:01the mechanism won't function properly,
28:06potentially delaying the launch of Artemis II.
28:12Ready to test?
28:13All right.
28:15Let's go test.
28:19Testing does end up requiring more time
28:23to be put into the design development process
28:25of spacecraft,
28:28but it's necessary
28:31at both the component level
28:33and all the way up to the entire system level.
28:37That's how we fly spacecraft safely.
28:42On my mark, all fire MPC Pyres.
28:48Three...
28:50Two...
28:52One...
28:57Yes!
28:59Woo!
28:59Woo!
29:02Woo!
29:02Woo!
29:02Woo!
29:03Woo!
29:03Woo!
29:03Woo!
29:03Woo!
29:03Fire is firing.
29:05Woo!
29:06Woo!
29:08Woo!
29:10The Fortward Bay cover has detached cleanly.
29:14The capsule's design has passed its test.
29:20But all is not well with Orion.
29:29When Artemis I splashed down, the mission was hailed as a great success.
29:35But in reality, there were problems with the capsule.
29:40When it was hauled onto the recovery ship, it was quickly examined by engineers.
29:46Their biggest concern, the heat shield.
29:50How was it affected by the intense heat of re-entry?
29:57Its epoxy resin tiles were meant to melt and vaporize, taking heat away from the capsule.
30:07But it didn't work out like that.
30:12This report caused quite a stir when it came out.
30:15It makes some pretty sort of damning claims, really.
30:20What I'm looking at here especially is the pictures of the Orion heat shield.
30:25What you can see is sort of cavities and some burn marks on these areas.
30:30And it is pretty scary because this was the technology that's going to be used to get people to the
30:37moon.
30:37And yet there is this degradation.
30:41And the Inspector General actually says,
30:44In our judgment, the unexpected behavior of the heat shield poses a significant risk to the safety of future crewed
30:52missions.
30:52And sort of having something like that written in a report means a response is needed.
30:59Something has to change because this sort of charring of the heat shield could risk human life.
31:07The material is ablative, so it sort of burns away slowly and you expect that, but you didn't expect chunks
31:13of it to fall away like they did.
31:20When you see something that anomalous on a critical system like the heat shield where there's no backup, then that
31:26really raises your concerns.
31:31The technologies that we thought would be ready or not, because there was some charring on Artemis 1, that was
31:42one of the unexpected things.
31:46The dangers of re-entry are all too familiar to NASA.
31:50It looks like you can see pieces of the shuttle coming off.
31:57Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.
32:03Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.
32:08Damage to the thermal protection system led to the breakup of Columbia on its return to Earth.
32:16As with Challenger, seven astronauts lost their lives.
32:22The space shuttle had two major disasters and 14 astronauts died.
32:27That has weighed heavily on NASA, on America.
32:31And it's definitely something that has affected this mission and other human spaceflight missions.
32:37The launch of Artemis 2 is postponed as NASA investigates what went wrong with the heat shield and how best
32:45to proceed with the mission.
32:51While engineers search for a solution to the heat shield problem, the astronauts continue training.
32:58Today, they're in the Orion simulator, practicing each maneuver, engine burn, and course correction.
33:07Even communicating with mission control is a training exercise.
33:12Copy, Vernon.
33:14Copy.
33:17There is a lot of training.
33:18If we were to boil it all down, we could probably get it done in under a year.
33:23But we are also flying this vehicle for the first time.
33:25So we do need to spend a lot more time than the next crew will have to spend on just
33:30all of the what-ifs.
33:34All right, we're starting to plow.
33:36I see good numbers.
33:37I concur.
33:40During the mission, they'll be testing the human systems that couldn't be tested on Artemis 1.
33:47Flight control, navigation, and life support.
33:52We are talking to the engineers, going through every single detail with them.
33:56We're road testing the training.
33:57We're road testing the preparation towards launch.
34:00We're road testing all of that.
34:01That's our job.
34:03There's the moon.
34:06Nice.
34:06Boom.
34:08Looks like we're pointing in the way driving.
34:11There is no substitute for preparation.
34:14There's no substitute for having an intimate knowledge of what you're doing.
34:18And what that allows you to do is generate options when things go wrong.
34:21As we say in the military, you train hard, you fight easy.
34:28On the Artemis 2 mission, the astronauts aren't going to do much flying.
34:32They're going to do some demonstrations, but that's not essential.
34:35Orion could fly itself to around the moon.
34:37But in emergencies, you do want humans flying.
34:41That's what they trained for.
34:52I often get asked, why put people in space?
34:56We have robotic missions.
34:57We have AI.
34:58Why have humans?
35:02To me, they are critical, because they are literally the eyes and the ears of the mission.
35:08If something goes wrong, you just need that human ingenuity to find solutions.
35:15NASA had a stark reminder of this in June 2024, when the Boeing Starliner malfunctioned.
35:23And we have our first views of Starliner from the International Space Station.
35:31Starliner mission, that was supposed to fly itself essentially to the space station.
35:37And as it got sort of to within a few kilometers, thrusters started blinking out.
35:46Butch Wilmore, who was the commander of that mission, took control.
35:51Estimated conduct, a little bit more than two minutes.
35:56His actions were pretty heroic in terms of guiding that spacecraft to the space station safely.
36:08Capture.
36:10If a human had not been on board, that mission would have been lost.
36:15Nice to be attached to the big city in the sky.
36:20After a two-year investigation into the safety of the heat shield, NASA finally announces its conclusions.
36:29They blame the damage on the skip entry maneuver, which was used on Artemis 1 to slow down the capsule
36:37during re-entry.
36:40This is a technique we use coming back from the moon, because the velocity is much greater than coming back
36:49from low Earth orbit.
36:53They were trying a different re-entry procedure, a skip entry.
36:58So that's where the spacecraft dips into the Earth's atmosphere once.
37:03Then it creates a small amount of lift.
37:06It exits the Earth's atmosphere.
37:08And then it comes back in a second time for the re-entry.
37:15And by doing that skip maneuver, it meant that layers of gas were trapped inside the heat shield.
37:21So when it came into the Earth's atmosphere for the second time, those gases had to escape.
37:26And that caused cracking and chunks of the heat shield to come off.
37:34NASA decides to keep the existing heat shield design for Artemis 2, but to ditch the double-dip skip entry.
37:46Instead, Artemis 2 will make what engineers call a ballistic entry, with a single, steeper profile, as if the capsule
37:55has been fired like a bullet from a gun.
37:59But will it work?
38:03We don't know.
38:04Now, I mean, engineering, the models, all the modeling suggests it will work.
38:10But all of that data suggested that with the skip re-entry on Artemis 1, there wouldn't be heat shield
38:16loss.
38:19This is a compromise.
38:21They're keeping the existing heat shield because to design a new one would take an awful long time.
38:25But with all space missions, there is a risk.
38:29They've mitigated the risk as much as possible,
38:31but there is still always that risk that there could be a catastrophic failure and loss of life.
38:38I do think, ultimately, if Artemis is going to be carried out on any kind of a, you know, reasonable
38:45timeline,
38:45there will have to be some risks taken.
38:49I think we're seeing that with the Orion heat shield being flown as is on Artemis 2.
38:57We'll be nervous coming in.
38:59You can't be not nervous.
39:01But you trust the architecture, you trust the engineering, and it's going to work out.
39:22Now, this is the start of a very long journey.
39:26We ended our last human exploration of the moon in Apollo 17, the 17th mission.
39:33And I hope someday my kids are going to be watching, maybe decades into the future, the Artemis 100 mission.
39:40We should be able to undertake repeatable, affordable missions to and from the moon.
39:55You four are about to fly farther into space than any humans have ever flown.
40:00But how are you training your families as you get ready to leave them behind on Earth?
40:07Trying to train them honestly and openly.
40:10With my kids, I told them, here's where the will is, here's where the trust documents are,
40:14and if anything happens to me, here's what's going to happen to you.
40:16It's our families that we think about the most on launch day.
40:20After 12 hours, the rocket arrives at its destination, launch pad 39B.
40:34But in February, it has to roll back again into the Vehicle Assembly Building.
40:41Engineers have discovered two problems, a hydrogen leak and a helium flow issue.
40:53By March, the rocket has been repaired, and it rolls out again.
41:00NASA sets a new launch date, April 1st, 2026.
41:10About nine hours prior to liftoff, we'll wake up.
41:13They're going to take our temperature, our weight, our blood pressure.
41:16Once that's complete, it's time to go start getting dressed, and we'll go into the suit room.
41:23They'll leak check us, make sure our suit holds pressure.
41:28And then when that's complete, we wait until it's time to walk out.
41:41From the moment that you walk out to go out to the launch pad,
41:45you're on this extremely choreographed timeline.
41:51We are now under an hour from the opening of our two-hour launch window at 6.24 p.m.
41:59Eastern Time.
42:01Rocket science has hundreds or thousands of things that all have to go just right.
42:05It all has to be perfect.
42:07The rocket has to launch within this window.
42:09If it doesn't launch in this window, it can't go today.
42:16You get to T-minus 10 minutes.
42:1810 minutes to go in the countdown.
42:20They'll pause it there for about 30 minutes.
42:22They'll go through and ask basically everyone if they're part of the rocket or the spacecraft is good to go.
42:28MCO.
42:29TO is go.
42:31Houston flight.
42:32Houston flight is go.
42:33If there's a reading out of bounds during that time, then the countdown will be stopped and the launch will
42:38be scrubbed for the day.
42:40Artemis 2 crew is go for launch.
42:44I copy that.
42:45Good luck.
42:47Godspeed, Artemis 2.
42:49Let's go.
42:5210, 9, 8, 7, RS-25, it is hit.
42:594, 3, 2, 1, booster ignition and liftoff.
43:06Go!
43:12The crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon.
43:17Humanity's next great voyage begins.
43:21Good roll pitch.
43:24Roger, roll pitch.
43:34Mission Control Houston seeing good performance in the loading engines.
43:37Three miles in altitude.
43:40Traveling more than 1,200 miles per hour.
43:45The rocket powers its way into orbit, as designed by the engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center.
43:56Confirmed separation.
44:01Now passing 5,000 miles per hour.
44:05Houston Integrity, good.
44:07Last genesis, great view.
44:10Integrity, nominal NECO, core stage separated.
44:15For this voyage, the crew has named their ship Integrity.
44:22It's now traveling beyond low Earth orbit.
44:26Heading for the moon.
44:30We know that there was some talk about some burnt smell from the heaters.
44:36So we just thought we'd check in with you.
44:39The astronauts test the life support systems.
44:44Exercise for 30 minutes daily.
44:47Christina Cook taking the camera.
44:50And even deal with a toilet issue.
44:53To show us a wastewater dump.
44:55As they adjust to life in deep space.
44:58Your body is being bombarded by galactic cosmic rays.
45:03And actually we see that as astronauts when we're falling asleep.
45:06You close your eyes.
45:08And before you actually drop off, you'll see several flashes.
45:12Like bright streaks of light going across your eye.
45:15And you know that that's a high energy particle striking the back of your retina.
45:19It's quite pretty to look at.
45:21But it's not when you realize the damage that that could be doing to your body.
45:25And that could cause some form of cancer.
45:35Good morning, Houston, from Inside Integrity.
45:39On day six, Integrity reaches the moon.
45:45The crew will do a seven-hour flyby.
45:48Capturing high-quality images of the moon's surface.
45:53Going farther from Earth than any crew has gone before.
45:58But first, they want to name a crater.
46:01Located at the western edge of the moon's near side.
46:06A number of years ago, we started this journey.
46:08In our close-knit astronaut family.
46:11And we lost a loved one.
46:14Her name was Carol.
46:16The spouse of Reed.
46:17The mother of Katie and Ellie.
46:21And we would like to call her Carol.
46:24And you spell that C-A-R-R.
46:27Oh, hell, hell.
46:41On the ground, the science team is receiving live reports
46:44as the astronauts fly by the moon, observing different geological features.
46:51I think Copernicus is the easternmost feature that we can see.
46:56A very nice ring to the north.
46:59And the south is with a lot of terrain, shadow features.
47:05We are getting a sneak preview from one of our saw cameras
47:09at what you're looking at.
47:10And we see some of what you're describing.
47:13We love it.
47:16The Artemis 2 crew has been trained to observe the moon,
47:20to find significant features.
47:23As a spacecraft goes around the moon,
47:26an astronaut can look at a spot from different angles.
47:28It might take a spacecraft years to have that trajectory
47:31where they can see all those angles.
47:34Something I've never seen in photographs before,
47:37but it's very apparent.
47:38All the new craters, some of them are super tiny.
47:42There's a couple that really stand out, obviously.
47:44And they are so bright compared to the rest of the moon.
47:50The flyby ends with a final flourish.
48:00A total solar eclipse, seen from space.
48:05The sun has gone behind the moon,
48:09and the corona is still visible.
48:12And it creates a halo almost around the entire moon.
48:15But when you get to the Earth side,
48:16the Earth's shine has already shown,
48:18and the moon is just hanging in front of us.
48:21There's this black orb out in front of us.
48:25Wow. It's amazing.
48:29No matter how long we look at this,
48:31our brains are not processing this image in front of us.
48:36There's no adjectives.
48:37I'm going to need to invent some new ones
48:39to describe what we are looking at out this window.
48:46Wow.
48:47This is so cool.
48:48But as the sun comes out,
48:51it's time for the Artemis crew to head home.
49:00On day 10,
49:02integrity separates from the service module
49:06and falls to Earth.
49:10Reentry, I think,
49:12is probably the most critical part of the mission.
49:14You can see the reflection
49:15of one of the crew members in the window.
49:18You're testing the Orion heat shield,
49:20which had some failure during Artemis I.
49:24In terms of pucker factor, for me,
49:26that reentry will be the highest part.
49:31There's no getting around it.
49:33It is a time of trepidation,
49:35and it is one of those moments
49:36where you wish them Godspeed.
49:40And we have crossed the threshold,
49:42now entering the Earth's atmosphere.
49:48This will be a six-minute blackout period.
49:50No voice, no data from the crew.
49:54Integrity's traveling 25,000 miles per hour,
49:58faster than Artemis I,
50:01whose heat shield was badly damaged.
50:05So that pinpoint of light shows the vehicle,
50:09the first tug of gravity being felt
50:10by Integrity's astronauts.
50:13The minutes tick by.
50:18We're getting intermittent views.
50:22Still waiting to establish voice communication.
50:30Comcheck post-blackout.
50:35Houston, Integrity, we have you loud and clear.
50:39Big cheers from the viewing room here in mission control
50:42as voice communication reestablished
50:45with Commander Reed Wiseman.
50:47We see three good-looking parachutes.
50:51Integrity copies.
50:57NASA's gamble has paid off.
50:59The heat shield has done its job.
51:04Mission accomplished.
51:06Land in command now.
51:08Splashdown confirmed.
51:16The first crew member is out of integrity.
51:21My hope is that this is just the beginning
51:24of not Artemis 3, 4, 5, but Artemis 30, 50,
51:28and then you have a growing community on the moon,
51:32potentially on Mars, throughout the solar system.
51:36The really hard work for Artemis is still ahead of us.
51:55To be continued...
52:02To be continued...
52:33Transcription by CastingWords
53:03CastingWords
53:07CastingWords
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