Why NASA is going back to the moon after 50 years
Sam Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal Land. This is ABC News Daily. It won’t be cheap, but it is feasible that tourists could soon be traversing around the moon. And not only that, there could be a permanent human presence there. That’s because in its latest mission, NASA is betting on finding enough water on the lunar surface to make it habitable. Today, The Washington Post’s space reporter Christian Davenport, on how that could then lead us to Mars.
Bill Nelson: It’s a new era of pioneers, star sailors, thinkers and adventurers.
Advertisement: Our destiny is always to go and see what’s further.
Sam Hawley: This week was big for space because we, as human beings, we’re heading back to the moon.
Christian Davenport: Yeah, this is NASA’s Artemis program. And now we’ve got these faces attached to to the mission, which we didn’t before.
Bill Nelson: This is humanity’s crew. May I introduce them to you all?
Christian Davenport: We know who’s going to go. And this is the first time that humans will be back in the vicinity of the moon in more than 50 years since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972.
Bill Nelson: She’s an engineer who got her start at Goddard and is no stranger to breaking records, logging the longest continuous spaceflight ever by a woman. Your mission specialist, Christina Hammock Koch.
Sam Hawley: Their slightly more diverse, I guess, than we had in 1972.
Christian Davenport: Yeah During the Apollo program, there were 12 men who walked on the surface of the moon, all white men and now you see that diversity on display. You see Christina Koch, a former NASA engineer.
Christina Koch: And then if everything looks good, we’re heading to the moon.
Christian Davenport: She would be the first woman to go to go to the moon. And you’ve got Victor Glover, who would be the first African American to fly to the moon.
Victor Glover: Wow, what a day look at all of this. This is amazing, isn’t it? I mean, after all of that, I feel like Denzel Washington should be up here talking to you.
Christian Davenport: A Canadian astronaut as well. So it’s an international group. It’s not just made up of of Americans so this is really a big deal.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, big deal. We haven’t been to the moon for half a century. I noticed that Bill Nelson and NASA administrator said it’s a mission to go to the moon, Mars and beyond. So it sounds rather impressive.
Bill Nelson: The plan is to get ready to go with humans to Mars late in the decade of the 2030 and then even further beyond.
Christian Davenport: Yeah, I don’t know about the whole Mars point at this. As of right now, NASA doesn’t really have the budgets or the technology yet, if we’re being honest about it, to go to Mars. I know that the administrator is very keen on that. But the Artemis program really is a moon program.
Sam Hawley: Just tell me, what sort of spacecraft is it? I gather it’s slightly more sophisticated than what we had back in the 70 seconds.
Christian Davenport: The spacecraft is the Orion spacecraft. It is more sophisticated than what we had, you know, back in the Apollo era. But it’s not capable of landing on the surface of the moon. This is going to be a flyby around the moon and then it’ll come back to land on the moon in the next mission, the next Artemis mission. Artemis three. That Orion spacecraft will actually rendezvous and dock with in lunar orbit with SpaceX’s starship spacecraft, which will take the astronauts down to the surface of the moon and then back up to Orion for the trip home. And that’s also a revolutionary new spacecraft.
Sam Hawley: A high stakes homecoming re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere marked the single most critical phase of Orion’s journey, a test to see whether its newly designed heat shield could withstand atmospheric friction and safely protect astronauts that will be on board in future. Let’s talk more about this Artemis program, because it’s in three sections. As you mentioned, we’ve had the first section, Artemis one already, and now these astronauts, they’re going to be part of Artemis two. So what is Artemis two about? What are they looking for up there?
Christian Davenport: Well, Artemis two is a test flight to put the astronauts on the spacecraft and test it out and to see how it works and to make sure that it’s capable to fly human beings. So they’re going to test the systems out. One of the things they’re going to do is when the spacecraft separates from the rocket, they’ll actually turn the spacecraft around and orient it as if it’s sort of practice. They want to test the parachutes and the heat shield and the avionics and all of the the human life support systems. That’s what this mission is all about. And they want to make sure that they get all of that tested so that when they put astronauts on board to land it on the moon, they know that those things work.
Sam Hawley: And that would be Artemis three. Would it?
Christian Davenport: Yes. And Artemis three you have the lunar landing and that’s when they go to the south pole of the moon and they start prospecting for water in the form of ice. And of course, NASA will send up some probes and they’ve got another program of robotic missions that would go to the South Pole, You know, ahead of and, you know, concurrent with some of these human missions, to begin to probe the South Pole and to set up a more permanent presence there.
Sam Hawley: Okay. So just so I’ve got this straight, they want to establish through this Artemis program, these three missions that there is water on the moon’s South Pole. And if there is, that would mean what that a human presence could be there. It could be a permanent presence on the moon.
Christian Davenport: Yeah, water is significant for human life. I mean, not just water to drink and air to breathe, but if we are able to to access it and we know from from the orbiters that have gone around the moon and have imaged this, that there is a fair amount of this water in the form of ice in these permanently shadowed craters. And if we can access that, you can take its component parts, the hydrogen and the oxygen and that also can be used as rocket fuel so that then the moon becomes this gas station in space and you can go further out into the solar system beyond just the moon, perhaps even on on to Mars. But if you want to have that permanent presence, knowing that there are resources like water there, that’s really important.
Sam Hawley: And it’s just it’s incredible, really, isn’t it? I can even see that there’s a goal to build a nuclear reactor on the moon to provide power, which seems extraordinary.
Christian Davenport: Yeah, if you think about it, if you’re going to build a sustainable presence on the moon, you need power. And nuclear reactor is one of the options that NASA is working to develop to have that on the moon. They’re also looking at solar energy and solar farms. Transportation. They need rovers. They need to be able to get around. Manufacturing, 3D printing and technologies to use the lunar regolith at lunar dirt, to build building blocks, to make habitats to protect astronauts from radiation. I mean, if you think about any, you know, settlers or pioneers, ultimately they were able to live off the land. I mean, they could chop down trees and build houses. That’s what NASA wants to be able to do on the moon, to use the resources that are already there. But in order to do that, they really need to invest in the technology. But they are and they’re beginning to to do that so that they can then build that permanent presence and try to go further out into the solar system.
Sam Hawley: Um, but, Christian, that all sounds rather expensive.
Christian Davenport: It’s very expensive. You know, we’re talking about, you know, billions and billions of dollars. But what NASA is doing this time that makes the Artemis program different is partnering with the growing commercial space sector. A companies like SpaceX.
Sarah Ferguson: Nasa awarded Musk a nearly $4 billion contract for his starship to be the lunar lander, taking astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1960.
Christian Davenport: And Blue Origin, which is run by Jeff Bezos on board.
Reporter: Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft. This is the moment William Shatner became the oldest man in space.
William Shatner: What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine.
Christian Davenport: Companies like Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic and also rely on international partners from all over the world as part of what are called the the Artemis Accords. And what’s also driving it is some of the same old forces that we had during the Apollo era, and that’s this geopolitical tension. In this case, it’s a little bit of a space race or maybe more than a little bit of a space race with China.
Reporter: China successfully launched the core module of its space station into orbit. It also has put two rovers on the moon and brought lunar samples back to Earth.
Christian Davenport: And their real concern that China is going to get to the moon and get to the South Pole first and claim it for themselves. And that is driving NASA and the United States political system to invest in this and to try to move fast.
Sam Hawley: It sounds like it is moving pretty fast. Tell me, it sounds like there’s a vision to make the moon accessible and not just for ultimately astronauts. Is that right?
Christian Davenport: Well, I think there’s a long-term vision by companies like SpaceX that have that goal for sure. There’s already a Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, who has bought a ride from SpaceX and had a contest and has now had several people sign up and would join him and they would take a trip to fly around the moon. All private citizens, civilians, not NASA astronauts who would be part of that mission. Now, we’ll see when that comes together. That starship vehicle has yet to fly. But if they are able to get it going and land astronauts on the moon and fly it safely, you could see private citizens doing this for sure.
Sam Hawley: It sounds pretty fun. It’d be an expensive trip, I’m sure, at the moment. But why not? Now tell me, Christian, where to next then? We mentioned the moon and then Mars. I mean, do you think Mars is the next stop? And then what’s beyond Mars?
Christian Davenport: Well, for human exploration, yeah. I mean, I think first, you know, getting to the moon and building that sustainable presence and, you know, 20, 30 years from now, if the starship vehicle is working, if they have a permanent presence on the moon, if they’re able to access the water ice on the surface of the moon, if they’re able to build what’s known as the gateway, which is a would be a space station in orbit around the moon, that would serve as a way station. And if there are propellant depots in Earth orbit where spacecraft could fly to to refuel and then move on further, you could see Mars as a possibility. I think Mars is always 20 years out. It’s a very difficult place to live. It’s not very welcoming to human life. A lot of people say if you want to go live on Mars, try living on the top of Mount Everest or living in Chernobyl on the top of Mount Everest, given the amount of radiation that’s there. But, you know, it is technically feasible. So I think perhaps we could see that in the next 20 or 30 years.
Sam Hawley: Okay. Leave it for the aliens for now, though. All right. All right. Christian, thank you so much.
Christian Davenport: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Sam Hawley: Christian Davenport is a space reporter with The Washington Post. Artemis three, which will mark humanity’s first return to the lunar surface in more than 50 years, is currently planned for 2025. This episode was produced by Flint Duxfield, Veronica Apap, Chris Dengate and Sam Dunn, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is Stephen Smiley. Over the weekend, Catch This Week with David Lipson, where he’ll be looking at Australia’s housing shortage and the ban of TikTok on government devices. I’m Sam Hawley. ABC NewsDaily will be back again on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.
