Why the Artemis II mission is only the start

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:10The crew of Artemis II have gone the deepest into space of any human. Their success has brought a mission to Mars ever closer. And this is why.

0:28Hi everyone, I'm Gareth Marlow and you're joining us on This Is Why. Integrity, we have you loud and clear. Tell me. Houston, we have you the same and it is so great to hear from Earth again. The crew of Artemis is two's first words with Earth after breaking the record for human travel, which has been held by Apollo 13 since 1970. Here's astronaut Jeremy Hansen. As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever travelled from planet Earth, we do so in honouring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. So one mission accomplished for NASA, and also a major step towards their stated goal of, quote, maintaining US superiority in exploration and discovery, which Donald Trump has praised.

1:19Today you've made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud. We have a lot of things to be proud of lately. So what have we learned from this mission so far? And does it mean we're ever so slightly closer to getting to Mars? To discuss it all is the journalist Kate Arclis-Gray. Let's talk about Artemis so far. There had been a lot riding on the whole project because the US is putting so much emphasis on getting back to the moon, on that base on the moon, getting to Mars in due course as well. With all of that in mind, how important was it that this mission is a success? So the Artemis II mission is part of a wider Artemis program, which, as you say, is aiming to get first humans back onto the surface of the moon.

2:06And then more recently, they've sort of changed the plan around a little bit and they've prioritised putting a moon base on the moon as well, which is also something that there are other players in the world trying to do. So I think there was maybe a bit of a conversation about how much progress the others were making. They're taking a more stepwise approach now, like they did in the Apollo days. So Artemis 3, which originally was going to be landing humans on the moon, will now be a test of rendezvous and docking. So they'll take the Orion spacecraft up into low Earth orbit, a lot, lot closer than the moon.

2:39and they want to try docking that with either the human landing system from SpaceX or the one from Blue Origin or maybe both. Now whether they will be ready for that test which is due to happen next year we shall wait and see but they're also hoping to land them without a crew on the lunar surface because of course you want to check that they can land before you put people on them. I also want to talk about the distance because we've gone further than we've ever gone before a quarter of a million miles. How important was it for Artemis 2 to do this loop of the moon and get to the far side that we so very rarely have seen before?

3:16Yeah, so it's interesting. The trajectory that they've taken is actually with safety in mind. So unlike Apollo 8, which was the first time humans went around the moon, they actually orbited the moon several times before they came home. Artemis 2 has done what we call a free return trajectory. So this is the same sort of manoeuvre that was used to get the Apollo 13 astronauts back after they had that disaster on their spacecraft on the way to the moon, which is why they never got to land on it. So what it means is they're using the lunar gravity to sort of pull them into the moon, take them around the back, and it sort of slingshots them back towards Earth, at which point Earth's gravity kind of pulls them back, and it brings them home without them having to do like a major engine burn.

3:59Because this is the first time that humans have flown on this spacecraft. Artemis 1 tested the Orion capsule, but it's a whole different kettle of fish when you've got people inside it that you need to keep alive. You know, there's temperature controls, there's humidity, there's breathing air, and then scrubbing the carbon dioxide out, feeding, drinking. The universal waste management system has had a lot of press, alternatively known as the space toilet. That's been one of the only things that has really had kind of major issues. Well, even those have been solvable during the mission. It's gone very, very well.

4:32I think the teams at NASA will be delighted and actually not just at NASA, because this is an international mission. Not only do we have Jeremy Hansen, first Canadian to go around the moon, but we also have the European service module, which was created in Europe and was the thing that did this all important translunar injection burn, which is what took them off on this course around the moon. So it is an international affair. We're seeing that more and more now. The saying goes, if you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together. And for projects like getting people to Mars, that is a very, very expensive project.

5:10There are so many technical challenges that we haven't figured out yet. And even just the psychological challenge of seeing the Earth fading into like just a pinprick of light. On this mission, they've seen the Earth get smaller and smaller out of the window as the moon gets bigger. And some of those images of the crescent Earth are just stunning. The crew is remarkable. You've got a single father of two teenagers whose mother died several years ago. You've got the first non-American to go to the moon, the first woman to go to the moon, the first black person to go to the moon. What will that crew of four learn along the way so far that we didn't already know?

5:46This crew, you're absolutely right. They're brilliant. But the things that they're learning, not only are they learning about the spacecraft, they've also put it through its paces where some of the engines purposefully stopped working to see how they would manage with that. They've also been doing tests of the Orion Cruise Survival System suits, those bright orange suits that they've been wearing for the launch. They'll wear them for landing. But if there was anything to go really horribly wrong, if a meteoroid hit the capsule and it started to depressurise, That would generally be like game over.

6:17But no, NASA has designed these suits that they could live in for up to six days. It wouldn't be pleasant because you would literally have to eat, drink, sleep, go to the bathroom, everything in these suits. But if there was a sudden issue now, they would still get home and be safe. And reticent to say wrong. So let's say, has anything gone not quite right instead? Well, they have had some issues with the space toilet. But one of the main issues they've had is that when they try to vent the urine out into space, get rid of it, they found that some of it is actually just frozen. It's so cold out there.

6:49So they've had to change the attitude of the spacecraft slightly to get the sun shining on it and warm it up. One of the bigger issues, which is actually really good for a spacecraft that hasn't had humans in it before. So just before they did this trajectory maneuver that was taking them around the moon, an alarm came up that said cabin leak detected. I mean, this is the stuff of, you know, films. This is absolutely the thing you do not want to see. And had that been a real leak in the capsule, that would be it. They would have come home. They would not have gone around the moon. So it learned out, because this is a test flight, it was just the parameters had been maybe set a little bit, you know, too carefully.

7:27And as mission control had been changing some of the fans around or something, it had triggered this light. There's some big names in space. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos amongst them. Talk to me about how they're getting involved in all of the Artemis project. So you've got two contractors who have been busy building the human landing system. So one of them is SpaceX. They have been working on Starship. So this is the really huge, very powerful rocket that's been in testing and, you know, occasionally blowing up. Sometimes I hear people saying, well, you know, why do we even need NASA? If this was down to SpaceX, they would have got to the moon already.

7:59You have to remind them, well, actually, in this Artemis program, SpaceX is a key part of that. SpaceX and their human landing system, Starship, that's apparently going to take humans down to the moon, but that hasn't even managed to do a full orbit of the Earth yet. And to get that to the moon, it's pretty complex. It's such a big vehicle. It needs so much fuel that it can't launch with all the fuel that it needs to take it to the moon. So they're talking about doing in-orbit demonstrations of refueling, and they'll have to do all of that and then get it out to the moon and then practice landing it.

8:36Now, one of the places that we're looking at for creating a moon base is the lunar south pole. Now, down there, there are some craters so deep and at such an angle that they don't get sunlight. So water ice is thought to be at the bottom of them. But if you're going to land somewhere that's got areas that never see sunlight, you've got to be really accurate with your landing. Because if you fall into one of these craters, that's it, all of your solar panels, they're kaput. You don't have power for your mission. So there's going to be some hard engineering tasks to do. And also, I mean, the size of Starship, it's so tall that we've seen a lot of these smaller uncrewed landers from the private companies.

9:17A lot of them have sort of landed and then tipped over. The Blue Origin moon lander looks a lot more similar to the old Apollo style lander, which looks like it's got a bit more of a solid base. So it'll be really interesting to see which of those is ready for the docking test and which of them they will manage to get up to the moon next year, potentially to test that landing. How does this first leg, this short leg, dare I say, prepare us for the long leg to come? So what we've been really good at in the last few decades is learning to live for long durations in low Earth orbit. But we haven't sent humans any further than that.

9:56Low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station is we're talking about 250 miles above the surface of earth the moon it's a lot further away you know more like a quarter of a million miles away and we need to have a better understanding of how that affects the human body you know things like radiation so there's a whole bunch of sciences aboard this mission you've got radiation sensors around the capsule itself and then the avatar experiment is really interesting they've taken blood samples from each of the crew members developed stem cells and bone marrow. They call it orbit on a chip.

10:32They're sending them up in the spacecraft with the astronauts. And they also have a control version, which is staying on Earth. So they'll be able to compare, you know, what has happened to those tissues? Did they develop differently? Did they react differently to space? And the idea of that is hopefully they can start creating personalised medicines for astronauts doing these longer journeys. There's a lot that we need to learn? It's worth also noting, is it not, that space is a new frontier for many countries now, countries that 50 years ago just did not have the capacity at all to dabble in space exploration.

11:06And it's now not the Russians that are maybe the big competitors at the moment. It's the Chinese, followed by people like the Indians, also the Japanese as well, and then also the Europeans. Europe has got a pretty impressive history. Even the UK, We were one of the first countries to send not only our own satellite, but to do so on our own rockets. Sadly, that program got cancelled. And yeah, the UK doesn't have its own rocket, but the European Space Agency does. And we were one of the founding members of that. It's basically a democratizing space. It's cheaper to send things. There are more opportunities.

11:42SpaceX now, they're actually launching rockets every few days. It's no longer such a rare occurrence to see a rocket launch. And that means, you know, if you're a student at university, if you're studying aeronautical engineering, you're probably building a cube satellite. Things have got smaller. It used to be, you know, satellites had to be the size of a bus. But as they get smaller, it opens up opportunities for more nations to get involved. And it's yeah, it's really exciting to see new countries coming to the fore and being able to send humans to space. Again, it used to be the Soviets and just the Americans.

12:16But now China, they've built their own space stations. They've got human launch vehicles. They've even managed to land something on the far side of the moon. And that is seriously impressive. They've brought back a sample from the far side of the moon. So they're doing some really exciting things. The research that goes into satellites and rockets or keeping the astronauts healthy in space, it has these real life impacts here on Earth. You've probably got a piece of space technology in your hand right now with your phone. The sensor in the camera, that was originally designed for space. There are drugs like bisphosphonates.

12:53They help reduce bone density loss. So a brilliant thing for anyone suffering with osteoporosis. Originally, it was developed from research in space because astronauts are losing bone and muscle mass while they're up in space unless they're really working hard to keep healthy. So they're doing like two hours of exercise every day on the International Space Station. But again, if we're thinking about going further into space, these are challenges that we need to solve. How can you keep the body healthy for a journey of, say, eight months and then landing on Mars without anyone to help you out of your spacecraft?

13:31Will you have the strength to even open the capsule? You've been listening to Kate Arnott's Grace, space journalist. You've been listening to Gareth Marlowe. and you've been listening to This Is Why. I'll be back again at the same time tomorrow.