Artemis II is ending, how long before NASA gets back to the moon?

0:00After looping around the moon, witnessing an eclipse from space, surpassing the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth. And yes, doing some high-stress repairs on their space toilet. NASA's four-astronaut crew of Artemis II is coming home. Here's Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen marking their record-breaking journey. He and the crew traveled 252 ,756 miles from Earth. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and in the next to make sure this record is not long lived.

0:48Make sure the record is not long lived, Hansen challenged. Consider this. It took more than 50 years for humans to return to the moon. Is it going to take another 50 before NASA can get back?

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1:59It's Consider This from NPR. 54 years. That is how long it's been since human beings last traveled beyond Earth's orbit, since the crew of Apollo 17 left the moon behind in December 1972. This week, NASA's Artemis II mission changed that. Four astronauts flew around the moon aboard their Orion spacecraft, snapping stunning photographs of Earthrise and Earthset, and setting a new record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. By any measure, it was a milestone, but it also raises a bigger question. one that has followed NASA for decades. Why did it take so long? And given everything we know about the agency's plans, budget battles, and the growing shadow of China's lunar ambitions, is the road ahead actually realistic?

2:45Joel Achenbach is a science reporter who's been tracking Artemis since the beginning. Welcome. Well, thank you for having me. Let's just step back a moment. What did this week represent to you? How significant was this for NASA? This was a huge win. I mean, it has just been so exciting. The astronauts have been amazing. NASA needed a win. I mean, NASA has had a rough time in various ways, including how long it's taken to get back to the moon. You've got to keep in mind the idea of going back to the moon surfaced after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. And President Bush, George W. Bush, said we're going to go back to the moon.

3:22That was 2004. So that's 22 years ago. And it's been a start and stop process. many delays. You know, I'll be honest, I often wondered, is this really ever going to happen? Are we really going to send astronauts back to the vicinity of the moon? And you and I are talking hours before the planned splashdown. So that's obviously the big question hanging in the air right now. Let's talk about what NASA got out of this week. Obviously, it got a lot of PR. It got a lot of positive attention and energy from this mission. What do you think the most important engineering and scientific gains from Artemis II have been, and what would a successful splashdown prove?

4:04Well, it just proves that NASA can still do these amazing things. It can send people to the moon and bring them back safely. You can make an argument that this mission didn't prove that much. NASA doesn't have a lander for its Artemis program to actually land people on the moon. And so that's probably going to take a while before they get their contractors, SpaceX or Blue Origin, to produce a lander. But, you know, I was old enough to watch the Apollo program, and it was thrilling and exciting. We did not have back in 1969 and 1970 and 71 anything like the ability to document a moon mission like we do today.

4:49So visually this has been stunning. The astronauts also, they're doing a lot of experiments. There are a lot of biological experiments to see what happens to their bodies. This is different from going up to the International Space Station, which is about 250 miles above the surface. You know, they're out there, you know, 250 ,000 miles away. I mean, yes, we've been to the moon before. And frankly, you know, Apollo 13 did a kind of a similar kind of mission where they did the flyby. But we have the ability scientifically to do experiments that no one did back in the late 60s or early 70s. Let's just reality check the next few steps because the plans for Artemis going forward have changed many times, changed again recently under the Trump administration.

5:41And you just mentioned the most important thing. They don't physically have the lander to go down and land on the moon as is planned right now. What are your biggest question marks and what are you looking ahead to over the next few years to reality check this? Well, I mean, there is this notion that we're in a race against China to get to the lunar South Pole where there are resources that are coveted by both countries. There's water ice. Permanently shadowed craters have water ice in them. There are some mountains there that are always in sunlight where you could potentially have solar panels and energy sources.

6:23And there is a notion that in the coming decades, you know, there is going to be a trillion-dollar space economy and the moon is a good platform for operating. But this has been a great week for NASA. So let's just applaud them at the moment for how well this has gone and how brilliant the astronauts have been. And it's just been fun to watch. And it's hard not to feel, hey, we're back in the game. Joel Achenbach, a science reporter who's been tracking Artemis and NASA, thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. This episode was produced by Lina Muhammad and Karen Zamora. It was edited by Courtney Dorning.

7:09Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. Thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors, and they unlock bonus episodes of Consider This. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.

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