Artemis II launch and two Sians

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0:32Attention on the net. This is the launch director performing the final poll for launch. Verify no constraints and go for launch. Attention all personnel. Please clear the launching area. Fire. Fire. Oh baby. I'll give it to you. That looks really good. Yes it does. It's dead on. Okay. Keep the chatter down in this room. Are you ready to begin? Yes. I'm all set. Hello, welcome to a special lunar edition of Space Muffins, marking the launch of Artemis 2. We're in partnership with the Naked Scientists and I'm Richard Hollingham at Cape Canaveral, Florida in the US.

1:15Sue Nelson:And I'm Sue Nelson at Space Muffins Mission Control in the UK. Should we be reassured that you're in control of this? No, not at all. In fact, no missions would get anywhere if I was in control of things. I think you've got the short end of the stick here in this special edition. Very much so. Although the weather today, it's really miserable. It's raining, which, I mean, again, makes you think, I'm so grateful that the launch was 10 minutes late on the day they said it was going to be. It's incredible. Yeah, you are. I had the last launch I was at, which, as you know, was 2015. We had a 24-hour.

1:53Sue Nelson:So we had all the break, which, as you know, there's a lot of waiting around, A lot of waiting around, getting there early. And then to suddenly have, with just like a few minutes to spare, a launch countdown go on hold. You're still excited. And the next day you're still excited. But it's like an endurance, a test of endurance to go on. But I'm delighted it all went as planned. And they're on their way. They are. I mean, it's tremendously exciting. They described to me, some of the other journalists at the launch site, describe me as a lucky talisman uh the fact that i just turned up the day before i went to the launch it happened on time and then i went home again that's it yeah that's right yes well you're you're still you're still in the us now i hasten to add because i'm looking at you uh via via zoom instead of uh or not zoom actually is it it's it's riverside we use proper audio software don't we it's quite expensive actually it's not a free zoom it's not freezing so it's funny seeing you you know on a screen instead of just across uh from the uh recording studio um but yeah so what what's coming up then well the launch of artemis 2 was at 6 35 florida time on the 1st of april 2026 and we're recording this podcast on friday the 3rd very early in the morning here in florida so reed wiseman victor glover christina coke and jeremy hansen are now on their way to the moon And coming up in this podcast, as promised, I'll be sharing my audio diary of a day at the Kennedy Spain Centre as an accredited journalist covering the successful launch of Artemis II.

3:34We also have interviews with two people whose names are spelt S-I-A-N, but one is pronounced Cyan and the other is pronounced Sian. One is an astronaut and the other worked on the Artemis II European service module.

3:51Sue Nelson:Superb. Well, I'm pretty sure Sian is the Welsh pronunciation. Having gone to school just across from the Welsh border, you could see Wales from the Wirral. And so there were quite a few Welsh people in our class and they were called Sian. But, you know, hey, we'll see how that goes. But I'm really pleased that you've got somebody from the European service module, because many news outlets seem to forget that Artemis 2 is actually a joint mission between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, which is why there's a Canadian astronaut on board in the form of Jeremy Hansen, of course. And they wouldn't get anywhere near the moon if it wasn't for the European Space Agency's service module.

4:35Sue Nelson:So, yay, go ESA 2. Now, you said it was sort of 6.30, your time. I watched the launch... well, it was almost midnight UK time. So it was really dark, pretty cold. But you had this glorious blue sky there in Florida. So, you know, before we get to your diary, how was it? Emotional. It was absolutely overwhelming. Yeah, as you'll hear throughout the podcast, there were a lot of concerns about the weather. It was very cloudy at one point. But yeah, It's very difficult to describe, and you see the pictures, but it just really hit you. Just the complete emotional sensory overload of the launch, and I will do my best to describe it a little later on.

5:26But let's get into the day, April the 1st. I was jet-lagged after a transatlantic flight and four hours sleep, and so I was one of the first to arrive at the NASA Press Centre. Well good morning from the Kennedy Space Centre. I'm on the press lawn. It is 20 to 7 in the morning which means just under 12 hours till the first opportunity for launch. behind me the assembled media setting up for the day there are tents from broadcasters around the world at the sort of far end of the lawn to my left the vehicle assembly building that iconic building with artemis written on the side the u.s flag the nasa logo the american flag and then in front of me a stretch of water and in the distance the artemis 2 spacecraft you can see clearly the central tank the solid rocket boosters you can't quite make out any logos or anything on the top and then if I just come around here on the lawn I can see the countdown clock which is minus 11 40 53 what struck me driving in this morning is it must be quite sobering working here and being an astronaut arriving here because of the names of the roads and I suspect this is deliberate you know I drove down a road named after Columbia and Challenger there was a road named after the Challenger astronauts Ron McNair a bridge named after Krista McAuliffe the teacher who died in the Challenger disaster so I mean it just kind of focuses on just how dangerous and and how perilous that this can be and oh god i'll mention this it was the dawn just stunning dawn hardly a cloud of the sky there's a few on the horizon and again this beautiful reflection of artemis 2 in the lake in front of me i mean you know 12 hours to go and Let's hope it launches.

7:44What you don't often hear much about is just how beautiful this area is around the space centre. For obvious reasons, there's no building here. So you've got these big expanses of water, palm trees, these creeks. A little bit disconcerting. I have seen an alligator though, which is really just not very far away from me, just in the water here. But looking across to the spacecraft in the far distance, clouds reflected on the water. Should I be worried about clouds? The sun is coming up. I mean, you couldn't get a better place for a launch.

8:31well we're now just about eight hours to launch i'm getting really tired already and it's only just after nine in the morning i just thought i'd come away from the uh the hubbub of of the media where everyone's just filing stuff writing stuff they're just all stuck in a room feeding news monsters and then behind me the camera crews are setting up there some just seem to be broadcasting since i've got here at six in the morning down at the other end of what they call the lawn i mean it's really just a field uh it's just really lovely and peaceful you've got i think there's an alligator in the water just over there so we'll stay away from the water but beautiful beautiful birds that i can't identify um the lapping water against the banks and then In the distance, the Artemis launch itself, the Artemis spacecraft, and fueling is underway for that.

9:29So, I mean, actually, there's a lot of activity going on just a couple of hundred metres away in the main launch control building and at the launch pad itself. But, you know, right now it's just very pleasant and calming. that's part one of my audio diary how far away were you from the launch I mean I could see you

9:56Sue Nelson:did some great little Facebook reels and some recordings and I know from being there myself it's often when you take photos of things like that it can look so much further than it actually is and in some cases things can be nearer than they are so how how far away were you yeah i don't think the the iphone images sort of do it justice because it did seem to be tiny in the distance but we were the closest you could get i mean you know that's where they put the press site they put it this closest safe distance which is about three miles away from the the launcher itself um but it was big i mean you know that this is an enormous rocket you could see it clearly at any point and it kind of became accustomed to it i think through the day that So I think our eyes can adjust and sort of zoom in on this thing.

10:48But actually, yeah, when I took pictures or when I did those reels, even on Instagram, I got the hang of Instagram, it was just a little sort of pinprick in the distance, which is why proper photographers had proper cameras. Had these enormous lenses. To really capture it. Yeah, exactly.

11:06Sue Nelson:My Florida launch, I was standing there looking at the launch pad like you, and then all of a sudden had a little frisson and everybody moved back slightly as a sort of an alligator. Wandered back a few metres right across from us, a few metres ahead. Did you see any up close? I know you saw some. How close were you? Not that it's a competition. Only in the water, actually. Didn't see any up close. None of them. So it was quite steep banks to the press centre. So none of them came up onto the land, but there was a lot of splashing in the water at one point. I mean, you know, beautiful wildlife, some beautiful bird life.

11:46I wish I could identify the birds, but it was really quite lovely. And you could go to the far end of that sort of press centre grass area and there was no one there. It was like being in a wildlife reserve because obviously around the rocket is this huge, you know, clearance area. So, you know, it's actually a beautiful wildlife site.

12:06Sue Nelson:So what was the press centre like? because I did it via a NASA social, which are absolutely, I totally recommend anybody, you know, getting involved with one if they can. They sort of came to a stop during the pandemic period and for quite a while, but they're sort of back up again. And our access, it felt, was just fantastic. But we didn't go to the press centre. And I think I've mentioned this before. I famously met, you know, John Amos, who's been on the podcast a number of times, former BBC space correspondent. And he was really annoyed because he was working like a dog and was actually unable to do or see much, whereas actually on the NASA social, it was much more relaxed.

12:53Sue Nelson:We got constant meetings with astronauts and engineers who were all working on the mission and the head of NASA at the time as well. So it It actually sort of felt like a press trip, even though it wasn't. But it was much more relaxed because you didn't have the BBC going, give me 30 seconds for this. Give me this for that. Yeah, so the press centre was built in the 1960s. And I don't think there have been considerable upgrades since. So you see on TV the sort of auditorium, which looks quite swanky, where they do the press conferences. And we'll hear a bit of that later on. It's actually a big shed.

13:33I couldn't believe it was the press centre. And then the press centre itself, there's just rows of desks. I was there so early I grabbed quite a good spot. So plus side, decent Wi-Fi. Downside, no coffee. Unbelievably, they had some coffee pods. For Americans, they love coffee. Yeah, unbelievably, they had coffee pods but no cups. So it was a real scramble. so yeah it was you know if you think a room full of journalists the least you can do is have a huge amount of coffee but you know so all the interviews I got through the day and sort of grabbed and there will be other ones in a future future podcasts I guess grabbed I guess grabbed people mostly who were people who were guests for either the various partners involved so Airbus European and Space Agency, the company that manufactures the rockets.

14:26Or there were also astronauts sort of hanging around that had been booked by the TV networks as their kind of presenters' friends. But a lot of journalists, they literally just stayed in that room. It's quite grim room with its rows of desks, just filing constantly and basically watching what was going on and watching events on NASA TV. On a screen. Yeah, on a screen. I mean, presumably they went outside for the launch, but I was wandering around all the time. So because I wasn't having to file for news, I was an incredibly fortunate position.

14:58Sue Nelson:That's the best way. It's the best way to go. That's exactly how I felt when seeing Jonathan. He was exhausted on the plane back. I felt like I could have been on a holiday, a space holiday, because it was just so enjoyable, which I'm assuming that's how you feel as well. It's just been a fabulous space trip. Yeah, I have been working really hard, though. But yes, it was a huge advantage to be working. So I was there on behalf of BBC Future. But, you know, I'm working on long form pieces. So I gathered material that will be used in future pieces. I've previously wrote pieces, you know, the day of the launch.

15:36But you look at the BBC Future website, I've got a screen grab. It's Richard Hollingham, Richard Hollingham, Richard Hollingham, Richard Hollingham. And actually, there is a Sue Nelson there as well. So, you know, we essentially. Yeah, so, you know, essentially, that was my core work. And then during the day, it was to gather material for our lovely podcast.

15:56Sue Nelson:So let's get on to some of that material then. Well, yeah, as I mentioned, many of the media outlets had also brought along astronauts to provide expert commentary. and they included the pilot of the 2021 privately funded Inspiration mission, the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight led by Gerard Isaacman. I'm Siam Proctor and I was the mission pilot for Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to orbit the Earth. What is it like to be here today knowing that with any luck in a few hours' time, four astronauts will be on top of that rocket heading off around the moon? Yeah, this is the most historic launch of the decade.

16:37And that's saying a lot because I flew to space. No, I am a moon celebration baby. I was born eight and a half months after Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. I've always been a moon girl. This is so exciting to be here as humanity goes back. You don't look that old. I don't look that old. I am aging. I like to say it's because I got bathed in Earth light in low Earth orbit that I look not my age. Do you feel that NASA is now with this new plan on a bit of a roll? It's got a plan. It's going around the moon. Then it's going to test the spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Then it's going to land on the moon.

17:16It's a really coherent plan ahead of it. Oh, absolutely. You know, Jared Isaacman was my commander on Inspiration4. he's an incredibly thoughtful and strategic and uh yeah this makes us all excited you know um with a new plan and the direction that we're going in today's launch I just feel so so excited my dad worked at the NASA tracking station during the Apollo missions and he was there for Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 and I and I feel like now that I get to feel the experience and excitement that he felt way back then and that it's historic. That is a good point isn't it because you know you look at the Apollo missions they're so long ago so they're in our lifetimes but barely I can't remember them.

18:08Right I was born like I said eight and a half months after Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon so this to me is our you know Artemis it's the excitement of us not just going to the moon but going to stay and and then using that as a launch pad to you know expand outward into the solar system and to me that is the the ultimate goal and we're we've now got the capacity we've got the plan um and we've got the willpower to do that and and it's really exciting to be here and be a part of it and witness this history now i mean you flew as a private astronaut which is just incredible in itself with jared iserman now running nasa as your commander is there going to be a role for for the private sector in the moon are we going to see so after artemis do you think we're going to start seeing private missions to the moon i mean you could you pilot for example a spacecraft to the moon i would love that opportunity if anybody out there wants to you know put me at the helm i'll take that um no i think you absolutely have to because the whole point of us being able to go to stay is to figure out how we can, you know, solve for space and solve for earth.

19:21And commercial space is a big part of that. Going up there with the research, with the technology, with the innovation, and learning all kinds of ways to use the resources and then bring all that technology and knowledge back here to earth and make us more sustainable. And you got to do that in partnership with commercial. And so how would that play out? So we've got the plan now with Artemis to go around the moon, test the system, land on the moon, establish a moon base. Would it be the same as we've seen in low Earth orbit, where you're starting to see now the private sector take over the role of the space agencies?

20:00Yes, you know, I believe that will be. You know, NASA will always be the cutting edge, like being the first kind of like leading the way. But then you get the commercial industry in there soon afterwards so that we can figure out how to really make an economy around space. And again, using that technology to make us more sustainable here on Earth. And so I would like to think that it won't be that far off that you go from NASA and the government leading the way to an economy with commercial industry coming in and figuring out the best case uses for all the resources that are there. and that's exciting including humans going to regular citizens having the opportunity to maybe take a trip around the moon if you think about the fact that dear moon was scheduled to go around the moon on starship and and so and there was actually a couple of i think private individuals who had purchased stars yeah they prepared to pay for it yes exactly and so and that was before this right and so that future is not far off and i think that that's one One of the reasons why you get the private individuals like me super excited is knowing that not only can I cheer on all of the amazing work that NASA is doing and the NASA astronauts to boldly go and venture into this new frontier, but knowing that maybe I'll get an opportunity too.

21:39Talking about astronauts, we're not so very far away from us. There are four astronauts in the building just across the parking lots. getting ready to walk out and go across to that rocket. What is going through their minds? What was going through your mind when you kind of knew, again, not so far from here, that this was about to happen for real? You know, they are professionals. They've been to space before. You know, when I went, it was my first time. Although Jeremy Hansen, that would be his first time. It is Jeremy's first time. So he's got to be super excited because he's waited a long time.

22:14because I think he was selected in 2009, and that was the year that I was almost a NASA astronaut. I got down to the yes-no phone call, and I can imagine that he's like, yeah, you know, this was worth the wait, right? And I think they just are, you know, ready. They're excited, but, you know, they're professional. They're going through the procedures and making sure that they're crossing the T's and dotting the I's, but also having fun and really knowing the significance of this historic moment. Your mission is inspiration. This is inspiring as well. You could almost call this inspiration because I think that's what we would talk about with going to the moon.

23:00That's the inspiration of one small step or for all mankind, all those sort of phrases. Yeah, no, I think that it is inspirational And that's the kind of thing I feel like we need right now is more inspiration. I am so excited for them to come around the moon and get that Earth rise moment again. Because Apollo 8 changed the way we saw our planet. It's, you know, created the environmental movement of the 70s, you know, that moment. And now we're going back and we've got, you know, four astronauts. It's international. We've got high-resolution cameras. And it's going to be such a beautiful moment for not only them on board, but for humanity.

23:51Do you think NASA, they must have planned for that moment, for that image, for that repeat of that Earth rise? They had to have because the first one, they caught it by accident, right? So this time, I'm pretty sure it's on the plan for them to get. There's got to be cameras pointing everywhere at everything as they go around the moon. And that, again, is the inspiring part of this. And when people land on the moon again, and they will this time, I feel if I said this 10 years ago, it was a kind of maybe. Does it feel certain to you now? Yeah. And I'm excited because, you know, robotics is leading the way.

24:29But we're going to have so many more landers and rovers and opportunity to make it easier for humans to go back. Right. And that's exciting. I watch all of the missions now that are going to the moon and watch because it's not it's not easy. People often wonder, you know, why haven't we been back? You know, the technology's changed. The people who did it the first time are no longer here with us, a lot of them. and you've got to kind of reinvent the wheel. And it's fun to watch as, you know, new companies emerge with this dream of landing their lander or their rover on the moon. Astronaut Cyan Proctor.

25:16And we'll hear the head of NASA, Jared Isaacman, answer a question from me about Earthrise later on.

25:23Sue Nelson:I love her enthusiasm. I've never heard the term moon celebration baby before, but that's a new one on me. I thought it was interesting about how she used several times the use of the word historic. And I got into just a small discussion with somebody on Facebook, not the Space Muffins page. It was actually through the very well-known British space artist, David Hardy. Look up his work if you've not seen it. He's just marvellous. some of the most classic sort of envisioning the future sci-fi space type art. And a lot of it's up at the British Interplanetary Society. And he had put a little provocative post up about, you know, basically spot the floor in this sentence.

26:11Sue Nelson:And some people were saying, oh, it was NASA with like a capital N, small A-S-A. I think it was a BBC headline. And obviously there were a lot of people going, it shouldn't be. It should all be caps and things. And my query was the use of the word historic because a lot of press described this as a historic mission. And I replied, I don't think it is historic because I think it's important and it's significant. But I think, you know, Apollo 8 was historic. Apollo 11 was historic. I don't think you can use the word historic for this. So I know I'm being a little bit of a grammatical pedant. but and you look cynical as well I can see your face going like so you think it is historic I don't I think it's really important but I don't think it's historic okay well two things firstly the NASA thing the logic behind that and I have had this discussion with people is because it's said as NASA so you say NASA you don't say N-A-S-A so that's that and let's not get into that argument now.

27:18Nonsense. Let's not have that argument. Let's not have that argument. And I do think it's historic because anyone who is under 50, and that is the majority of the world, Apollo means nothing to them. And it's not happened in their lifetime. It's not even the later Apollo missions, like Apollo Soyuz or Skylab. This is their Apollo. So in that respect, I think it is absolutely historic.

27:49Sue Nelson:I'm going to stop you there, Richard. That's an absolutely ludicrous argument because let's face it, none of us were around for the building of the pyramids and you would not downgrade anything historic or that something has happened just because we weren't around. No, can we compromise and say they're both historic? Because I think, you know, obviously Apollo's historic and this is historic as well. It absolutely is because it's the start of a much longer term project to build, to establish bases on the moon, as Sian talked about. No, this is Space Boffins. We're in partnership with The Naked Scientists.

28:28Sue Nelson:Do get in touch with us on all the usual channels, Facebook, Instagram, X, email, or send us a postcard. We always like to hear from you. And by the way, I saw someone comment on your picture on the Space Boffins Facebook page. I think you're standing there with a microphone outside the Vehicle Assembly Building. And somebody had just written, why don't you send a postcard there? So I really think you should try. Although I know the fact that buying a stamp and finding a post office in the States is a little bit trickier than popping down to your high street in the UK. But do check out Richard's Reels on Instagram.

29:08Sue Nelson:And they include some of those behind the scenes of the press centre. Yeah, some of them have done pretty well, actually. I'm just going to mention, we teased this in the last podcast, that we had an email from Owen Gwynne. And he asked us, I mean, I guess I'm going to read the first paragraph actually as well, because he says, in your fantastic episode 228, really 228, wow, on the Artemis II launch, Richard had a great interview with Fiona, one of the many flight directors. One question that I would have been interested to have asked is, all the Apollo missions to the moon, whether for landing or not, were made while the moon was waxing.

29:47So that's between new and full moon. And the same was for Artemis 1. Is there any specific reason why Artemis 2 is uniquely approaching while the moon is waning? Well, that was Owen's question. our friend Robert Massey at the Royal Astronomical Society gave a presentation to the four Orion astronauts and he emailed Reid Wiseman and this is Reid Wiseman's response to your question Owen. So the commander of the Orion capsule. Our April the first date is definitely suboptimal for lighting. While it's true we're usually launching into a waning crescent, it's more due to power and heat shield constraints than an intentionality to target a particular lighting condition.