In short
NASA’s Artemis 2 launch—first crewed Moon mission in over 50 years—using the SLS rocket and Orion capsule to fly around the Moon (no landing), pushing humans farther into deep space than ever before.
Guests (backgrounds)
Tim Peake, British astronaut with prior deep-space experience; Richard Luscombe, Guardian US reporter based in Miami who recently visited Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center.
Key claims
Artemis 2 is a “giant leap” and a test step toward a permanent Moon presence and later landings (Artemis 4 targeted for 2028). Space exploration yields practical technologies (e.g., MRI scanners, Velcro, Teflon) and scientific benefits. Artemis has faced delays and safety concerns, especially Orion’s heat shield; two veteran NASA scientists cited serious risks. U.S. motivation includes maintaining space supremacy and countering China’s Moon plans.
Notable examples
Orion is described as “camper van” sized inside a 98-metre SLS rocket; mission includes a far-side blackout period and a high-heat re-entry (over 1600°C) before Pacific Ocean splashdown. Crew personal items: Jeremy Hansen (maple syrup), Christina Koch (handwritten notes), Victor Glover (Bible), Reid Wiseman (notebook).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Artemis 2 Mission Explained
0:45 to 3:20
Discussion about the Artemis 2 mission, its significance, and preparations.
“This week, NASA will blast Artemis 2 into the Florida sky and far, far beyond, in a mission to send three men and the first woman to fly around the moon.”
Rocket Details and Emotions of Astronauts
3:20 to 6:00
Insight into the rocket design and the emotions astronauts experience before launch.
“Today in Focus, a giant leap, again, for the first moon mission in 50 years.”
Historical Context of the Artemis Program
6:00 to 7:20
Overview of the historical significance of the Artemis program and its goals.
“Well, the Artemis program was designed to send humans back to the moon.”
Challenges and Risks of Artemis II
7:20 to 10:00
Analysis of the challenges and safety risks facing the Artemis II mission.
“They're going to go several thousand miles beyond the moon and come back.”
Impact of Space Exploration on Earth
10:00 to 13:00
Discussion on the benefits of space exploration for scientific advancement.
“You talked about the sort of supremacy of the space race, and I don't want to bring everything back to Donald Trump, But he does play a part in this, doesn't he?”
NASA's Current Position and Future Plans
13:00 to 14:00
Exploration of NASA's current status, challenges and future missions.
“kinds of problems docking it, there were problems with leaks on it, and the two astronauts that were meant to come back to Earth within two weeks were stuck there for nine months.”
The Artemis Program Overview
14:00 to 17:34
Learn about NASA's Artemis missions and their significance for lunar exploration.
“Quite the history that NASA and the US have with space exploration, specifically with the moon.”
Mission Breakdown for Artemis 2
17:34 to 21:22
Discover the detailed timeline and activities of the Artemis 2 mission.
“Well Richard let's dive specifically into this mission and what it's actually going to look like for those four astronauts who are in very small quarters.”
Meet the Astronauts of Artemis 2
21:22 to 26:00
Get to know the astronauts and their personal motivations for this mission.
“Richard, could you tell me something about those four astronauts, you know, the characters who have taken on this mission and who will be doing this huge journey?”
The Emotional Impact of Launching to the Moon
26:00 to 28:01
Explore the historical significance and emotional weight of this lunar mission.
“Richard it seems there is a lot riding on this mission what would success look like for Artemis 2?”
Show all 12 chapters
Emotional Significance of the Launch
28:01 to 28:22
Learn about the emotional weight and historical context of the upcoming moon launch.
“extra special beyond that, knowing where they're going, knowing the history of it.”
Further Coverage and Related Content
28:33 to 28:56
Explore additional resources and related discussions about the Artemis mission.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Tim Peake:This is The Guardian.
0:08Richard Luscombe:Today, boldly going where no one has been before. Kind of. A mission to conquer the moon.
0:20Tim Peake:The countdown clock will resume on my mark. Three, two, one, mark. T-minus nine minutes and counting.
0:30Richard Luscombe:In the run-up to launch, it's a really interesting period because actually things kind of come into focus, as you can imagine. It's quiet for the astronauts in comparison to what life will have been, all that training and preparation leading up to the mission. All right, folks, close here. So go, no go for Artemis 1 launch. This week, NASA will blast Artemis 2 into the Florida sky and far, far beyond, in a mission to send three men and the first woman to fly around the moon. T-minus six minutes and counting. It's the furthest humans will ever have gone into deep space. A mind-boggling feat of human ingenuity.
1:15Richard Luscombe:And one that the British astronaut Tim Peake has some experience with. Of course there'll be nerves, there'll be apprehension, there'll be an emotional farewell with families, but also there'll be this absolute burning desire to get on board that rocket and carry out the mission that they've been training for. One minute, 30 seconds.
1:40Richard Luscombe:For me, it was a relatively small rocket, about 50 metres. This rocket, the SLS, is about the size of Big Ben. GC. Go. Booster. Go. Control. Go. TNC. Go. You know, you've got a longer elevator ride up there. There's an awful lot of fuel they'll be sitting on top of. That rocket has got to have, you know, the ability to carry them to the moon and back. So that moment as you're kind of going up, it's all very real at that point. Very real, very rewarding, but so very risky. You're in your spacesuit. You're waiting to get into the vehicle. You're going to be connected to it with electrical connectors, with life support system, oxygen, communications.
2:28Richard Luscombe:And at that point, there'll be real focus, you know, from the crew. Propulsion. Go. Hydraulics. Go. Pneumatics. Go. LO2. Go. Water. Go. Launch is a really mixture of emotions. And I think it would be fair to say every astronaut at some point has considered the risks involved. And so there's an element of fear, but rather it being kind of paralyzing fear, I would just describe it when you're sat on top of that rocket. It's an awareness of the risk, but far more overpowering is the excitement of what you're about to do. Weather and clear to proceed. Go. Five, four stage engines start.
3:08Tim Peake:Three, two, one. Boosters in existence.
3:20From The Guardian, I'm Nosheen Iqbal. Today in Focus, a giant leap, again, for the first moon mission in 50 years.
3:35Richard Luscombe:Richard Luscombe, you're a reporter for The Guardian US based in Miami, and you've just come back from Cape Canaveral, which I know on Florida's space coast because you are wearing the NASA cap. and we're expecting to see a really historic mission launched there in the coming days. Clearly very exciting. What's the feeling like there?
3:53Tim Peake:I've been up at Cape Hanabral for the last few days and the excitement up there, you can see it everywhere, like hotel signs have Go, Artemis 2 crew around. It's a really big moment there. This is the Space Coast. It's where every human who's ever launched into space from the US has gone from. This one's really special because it's the first crewed mission to the moon for more than 50 years. So around town there, all the hotels are booked out for the first launch attempt. And people that you speak to just in and around town up there, they're just really excited to see this rocket launch. It should be fabulous.
4:26Richard Luscombe:And can you describe said rocket to me? Like, can you just tell me what it looked like and how close you were able to get up to it?
4:32Tim Peake:Yeah, well, I was lucky the NASA press team took a few of us out close to the launch pad, just a few hundred metres away from the launch pad to watch the sun rise behind it. And it's a pretty impressive vehicle. It really is. It's 98 metres tall. You have the rocket, then you have a big orange fuel tank and two massive rocket fuel boosters beside it. Probably the biggest thing I've ever seen on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral. And all the more emotional because, you know, at the top there, there's a crew capsule that's going to have humans in it.
5:01Richard Luscombe:And that's quite a tiny sort of spaceship at the top of this huge rocket, right? I mean, can you give me a sense of that space?
5:07Tim Peake:Yeah, the capsule itself. I mean, you have this massive rocket, but it's mostly all fuel tank and rocket to get it there. You have the crew capsule on top. It's called the Orion crew capsule. There are four astronauts in it. And it's a really small thing comparatively. It's about the size of a small camper van. It's no more than like three meters tall and a few more across. Everything that they're going to need for this 10-day mission is in this one small space, like the toilet they have set in the floor, a little exercise machine that they do their revving on, and four seats slash beds that fold down and go on the floor.
5:40Tim Peake:But it really is a very small working space they have in there to share for those 10 days they'll be up there.
5:59Richard Luscombe:Can you explain to me why this mission, Artemis II, why in particular is it so special?
6:05Tim Peake:Well, the Artemis program was designed to send humans back to the moon. The last time humans were there was 1972, which was the final mission of the Apollo program. And the Apollo program was all about getting to the moon, exploring it, and just to say we could.
6:20Richard Luscombe:But why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal...
6:36Tim Peake:But this takes it much further beyond there. It's all about that permanent presence now on the Moon. So there's been this pretty intensive effort over the last few years now to get the Artemis program together into shape. So Artemis 2 is the second mission. And liftoff of Artemis 1. We rise together back to the Moon and beyond. The first one, Artemis 1, was an uncrewed mission that went around the Moon in 2022, came back. It had a few issues, nothing major, but now we have Artemis 2. And then there are several missions beyond that that will build hopefully a human permanent presence on the moon's surface.
7:15Richard Luscombe:And if that wasn't impressive enough, am I right in understanding it is the deepest interspace that humans will ever have been?
7:23Tim Peake:It will be if all goes well. They're going to go several thousand miles beyond the moon and come back. This obviously is not a landing on the moon. They don't have that capability yet. But in the Apollo missions, they got to the moon a little way beyond. This one is a flyby.
7:37Richard Luscombe:NASA's hoping to lift off on Wednesday, the start of a six-day launch window. Artemis II's crew will orbit the Earth twice on their first day, then head off for the moon. They won't land on it. They'll fly around its far side, pushing farther from Earth than humans ever have before looping back to Earth.
7:55Tim Peake:They get, what, 3 ,000 miles, 4 ,000 miles, as close to the moon's surface as they go around the far side and come back. But yeah, they'll be extending further beyond than anyone has ever gone before.
8:07Richard Luscombe:Richard, if we could zoom out for a moment, could you just explain the importance of space and lunar exploration and why it matters to actually science and research and all the rest of it down here on planet Earth and why to quell some people's cynicism, it isn't all just a massive waste of money? Astronauts are about to board the spacecraft, Orion, a spaceship more than two decades in the making. The cost,$40 billion.
8:35Tim Peake:Well, two things can be true here. Sure, there's a lot of money dedicated to it and a lot of people argue, don't we have enough problems here on Earth to solve? And sure, yes, we do. But there's that spirit of human exploration that sort of, any astronaut will tell you this, that it's embedded in all of us, they think. this passion to explore, whether it was exploring the new world back in the 1600s or whenever, and just that passion to just find out what's there. There's a purpose, it's science and discovery. And from the Apollo missions, the kind of things just like Velcro and Teflon in cooking equipment.
9:11Richard Luscombe:MRI scanners.
9:13Tim Peake:Yeah. The list is virtually limitless of the things that space exploration has sort of achieved for humankind. The scientific advances that have been made, like weather surveillance, weather satellites, the ability to predict hurricanes and extreme weather events on Earth. And I think largely, yeah, it's that spirit of exploration, wanting to know what's there, the purpose of can we survive somewhere else, the science aspect to it, finding out what is on the Moon, what is on Mars. Could there be life there? Could there ever have been life there? And what's beyond all that? I think it's a natural human desire to want to know about those kind of things.
10:08Richard Luscombe:You talked about the sort of supremacy of the space race, and I don't want to bring everything back to Donald Trump, But he does play a part in this, doesn't he? I mean, in 2017, he signed the Space Policy Directive with the intention of returning humans to the moon. The directive I'm signing today will refocus America's space program on human exploration and discovery. It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long term. How does this mission and how does Trump fit into what we're seeing in the coming days?
10:42Tim Peake:Well, if there's one thing we know about Donald Trump, he will enjoy a flag-planting moment. And he's very, very keen, obviously, to have U.S. footprints back on the moon. We're going back now partly because the U.S. doesn't want China to steal a march in space. China has its own plans for a moon landing before the end of the decade. And the U.S. has suddenly realized that, you know, we need to maintain our supremacy here in space. It's pretty widely felt within the U.S. government beyond that. if you have that first base there, you have the access to the minerals, the ice for water on the moon and can build that human presence there first, then you have that supremacy.
11:18Tim Peake:And it's also built into further journeys towards Mars as well. Moon is very much seen as a staging post for the ultimate goal of getting to Mars, which is still many, many years out. We don't have the capability for that yet. They're working on it.
11:32Richard Luscombe:As I understand it, as is the way with space missions, it's quite a rocky road to get this launch for NASA to be at the place where it is now. I mean, can you tell me what that journey has been like?
11:44Tim Peake:Yeah, well, overall, the Artemis program is many billions of dollars over budget, many, many years behind schedule. The original plan was to have astronauts back on the moon at the start of this decade. That didn't happen. But also remember, these are test flights as well. So things are expected to go wrong. On Artemis 1, they had a problem with a heat shield coming back in. Bits were falling off and they had a many, many months long investigation into what had happened.
12:09Richard Luscombe:In your view right now, is it safe for astronauts, humans to go on this mission on Artemis II? I would say no. Two veteran NASA scientists say they believe there are serious safety risks ahead of the mission's planned launch as soon as next month. Their key concern centers on the Orion spacecraft's heat shield, a system designed to protect astronauts from the extreme heat when they re-enter the atmosphere.
12:36Tim Peake:So yeah, delays are expected. We had them earlier with this very rocket. It was originally slated to launch in February and then March. They had a problem with a helium leak on the rocket, so they had to roll it back for repairs. And then it's back out on the launch pad again now. And of course, there's also the reputational damage to NASA as well. You may remember last year there was the ill-fated Boeing Starliner mission, where a capsule that was meant to go to the International Space Station for a 9-10 day mission, they had all kinds of problems docking it, there were problems with leaks on it, and the two astronauts that were meant to come back to Earth within two weeks were stuck there for nine months.
13:13Richard Luscombe:And splashdown, Crew-9 back on Earth. Those spectacular images from off the coast of Florida. Tonight, astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore are back on Earth after their eight-day mission that turned into more than nine months in space.
13:28Tim Peake:And there was a big inquiry into that. So the delays are frustrating, but people have to be patient as well. You know, these problems are expected, they deal with them step by step, and they do not fly until it's safe.
13:40Richard Luscombe:All this stuff that we've heard about the privatisation of space exploration with the likes of Bezos and Musk coming into it, it hasn't necessarily hindered things for NASA. It's actually been somewhat of a help is that right?
13:52Tim Peake:Very much so it's fruitful partnerships I mean yes Artemis is a NASA mission but it has all kinds of international partners and all kinds of private industry partners as well SpaceX and Blue Origin are the two big ones that spring to mind now SpaceX operating capsules as well to the space station and SpaceX is developing one of the the landers which will get the humans to the moon and they'll be the focus of Artemis 3 which is scheduled to launch next year that will be a docking in lunar orbit to see how that all melds together so this mission Artemis 2 that this week gets the folks around the moon Artemis 3 next year also won't touch down but it will test those docking elements to the landers so each mission in Artemis is a step forward towards the ultimate goal of Artemis 4 currently scheduled for 2028 which will be the first human landing on the moon since 1972.
14:49Richard Luscombe:Quite the history that NASA and the US have with space exploration, specifically with the moon. I mean, can you remind us a little of that timeline and how many missions there have been?
Read the full transcript
15:01Tim Peake:Apollo was a long time ago now.
15:07Tim Peake:Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. Roger, Twink. Tranquility, we copy on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot. So the first moon landing was 1969, and that followed several years of the Apollo program sending uncrewed missions up there and then crewed missions around the moon and culminating in that landing in July 1969. I'm going to step off the land now.
15:38Richard Luscombe:That's one small step for man.
15:44Richard Luscombe:one giant leap for mankind.
15:47Tim Peake:The Apollo program lasted on the moon from 1969 to 1972, a short period of time. There were six crewed landings. Only 24 astronauts have ever been all the way around the moon. Only 12 of those have ever landed on the moon.
16:03Richard Luscombe:This is Houston, say again, please. Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main beam on a boat.
16:10Tim Peake:And only four of those are still alive. So it's been a long time since we've been there. When Apollo ended in 1972, it was largely financial. There was no money left. The public's appetite had waned for the space program. The US had beaten the Soviet Union in the race to be the first to land on the moon. They'd done that. And their successive missions weren't really achieving that much more. Sure, they had a rover that drove around the moon for a bit, and one of the astronauts hit a golf ball. I was strolling on the moon one day In the merry, merry month of December How may, may, when they're much to my surprise It became, I think in some people's eyes, a little bit gimmicky and certainly very expensive.
16:55Tim Peake:So Congress pulled the plug on that. The final three Apollo missions were cancelled. And for all those years, NASA concentrated on lower Earth orbit, building the International Space Station. and we had the Space Shuttle Programme for 30 years, which, contrary to a lot of people's thoughts, never went anywhere near the Moon. It was lower-off orbit, 250 miles up, orbiting, and that was as far as we've got until the Artemis Programme has now reignited that passion to get back to the lunar surface.
17:34Richard Luscombe:Well Richard let's dive specifically into this mission and what it's actually going to look like for those four astronauts who are in very small quarters.
17:44Tim Peake:As we said they're going to be in a very confined space together for 10 days. They have a very strict timeline, everything's planned out virtually down to the last minute on this mission. It's a combination of travel days and big event days.
18:05Tim Peake:So you have launch day, day one, they fire up into Earth's orbit, they circle Earth for a few times, and at that point they're checking out the spacecraft, making sure it's working well, and that they're ready for what's called the trans-lunar injection burn, which is the big fiery burn that sends this rocket on its journey to the moon. Once they've decided to go ahead with that, there's no coming back from that. If there's a problem before that, they can return to Earth, they can abort. But once they've decided and they go for the burn, that's it. They're going to the moon, no question.
18:34Richard Luscombe:Wow.
18:37Tim Peake:That's day two after they've done a few orbits and they're ready to go. They sort of press the metaphoric button and off they go. So then there's three days traveling to the moon. It's a quarter of a million miles away, and they'll be doing various scientific experiments there, mostly sort of checking out the spacesuits and all kinds of life preservation systems they have. It's all testing, discovery, making sure that everything's working well. About day five, they're close to the moon now. They start to fill the moon's gravitational pull and less of Earth's gravity, and they're pulled into that lunar orbit.
19:11Tim Peake:And then day six out of the ten, that's the big day. That's as close as they get to the moon as they go by. about 4 ,000 to 6 ,000 miles as close as they'll get to the lunar surface. They'll all be there with their cameras out the windows. They have a set period of time where they can take their photographs and just watch the moon go by.
19:27Richard Luscombe:I mean, you'd do it just for the selfie, wouldn't you?
19:29Tim Peake:Wouldn't you just? How fantastic is that? That's for sure going to be the highlight for those astronauts, and they've spoken about that. That's the big moment of the mission. Oh, my God, all that training. Absolutely, for the time they go beyond. And then when they're around the far side of the moon, which is looking at parts of the moon that we never see from here on Earth. They'll be out of contact for just shy of an hour and they're the really nervous moments for mission control down on Earth. The astronauts are out of sight, out of range, out of audio contact.
20:02Richard Luscombe:Oh, I said that's the bit where it's all, there's a bit of blackout. It's complete blackout.
20:06Tim Peake:That's the blackout and then everybody's praying and hoping for that period when it crackles back into life and they come back round again and they're back in contact again. so that's sort of day six and then the rest of it is preparing for that journey home again the re-entry into earth's atmosphere on the final day day 10 as it will be is the most risky part of the mission um i mentioned earlier they had problems with a heat shield on artemis one i mean phenomenal temperatures that like more than 1600 degrees celsius they're going to be hit with on the way so that they have to be sure that the capsule can withstand that heat as they come back through this atmosphere and then they splash down in the pacific ocean some point later on day 10 three giant parachutes will deploy and the capsule will glide gently down to a landing on the pacific ocean at about 17 miles an hour and from there then recovery crews and helicopters will go out and rescue them and take the hatch off and the astronauts will come out again and in the days beyond that we can look forward to hearing from them about their experiences what they saw what they experienced and how the overall success of the mission that we hope it will be can feed into the missions that are to come.
21:18Tim Peake:So this really is a huge mission for NASA and human spaceflight as a whole.
21:31Richard Luscombe:Richard, could you tell me something about those four astronauts, you know, the characters who have taken on this mission and who will be doing this huge journey?
21:40Tim Peake:Three of them are veteran space flyers, three American, three NASA astronauts, and one from the Canadian Space Agency, an astronaut called Jeremy Hansen, who's taking up some maple syrup with him from Canada, sort of a mento from his homeland into space. Of course. Christina Koch has flown before to the space station. She's planning on taking up some handwritten notes from loved ones. And Victor Glover, who's the first astronaut of color to travel to the moon and back, he's a very religious man. He'll be taking his Bible with him. And then Reid Weissman, who's the fourth member of the crew, actually the commander, is going to be taking up a notebook and a pen, he says, so he can write down his thoughts from the journey and be able to share those.
22:24Tim Peake:Astronauts are some of the most sort of well-grounded, no pun intended, people that you could ever hope to sort of meet. They're very practical people. They're sort of very mission-orientated and everything. But imbued in all of them is this sort of sense of wonder and desire to discover and explore and all that kind of thing. That's the driving force in any astronaut.
22:49Richard Luscombe:It's very easy to know when you're in space because the main engine cuts out and that's the massive jolt. It's the biggest, biggest jolt of the whole launch.
23:02Richard Luscombe:Tim Peake, the British astronaut, spoke to us about what it's like to go up there. You've been kind of 8 minutes and 48 seconds travelling at over 17 ,500 miles per hour, doing quite high g-forces. So it's a very violent experience being launched into space. And when the engine cuts out, everything gets very peaceful very quickly.
23:28Richard Luscombe:There's suddenly very little sound. you don't feel any motion you feel weightless for the first time everything's floating in the spacecraft and you have this amazing view out the window and that is a very sort of overwhelming but also very beautiful thing to look at and that's the moment you know that you've safely made it there when i looked out the window for the first time we were going from day to night we were coasting out over the sea of japan and then we went quite quickly into darkness but then as soon as we did the moon rose and it was just the most beautiful moon rise over the Pacific Ocean.
24:05Richard Luscombe:And then of course, 45 minutes later, I had my first sunrise and then I got to see Earth in all its beauty in the daylight. And it's just incredible. I mean, both sides of the planet by day and by night are utterly breathtaking.
24:21Richard Luscombe:Over the last few weeks, Tim has been in close contact with the Artemis 2 crew. I know them all really well. We're quite a close knit community. I'm close friends with all of them. I was speaking to Jeremy just on Tuesday and we know their families as well. When I was doing my spacewalk, Reid Wiseman, who's the commander, he was actually leading my spacewalk from mission control. So he was the voice I was hearing in my headset when I was outside the space station. They're an amazing group of individuals and I've got every faith that they're going to have a fantastic mission.
25:00Richard Luscombe:I can guarantee that every single astronaut would like to be one of those four on top of that rocket. You know, a moon mission is phenomenal. We haven't been back for over 50 years. It's been something that we've been working for for so long. We've been enjoying low Earth orbit and long duration stays on the International Space Station. But Artemis 2 represents a new era of space exploration, breaking out of low Earth orbit once more, going back to the Moon, this time in a much more sustainable way, this time to look at the south pole of the Moon, somewhere we've never been before, where there's water ice, this time to set up a habitation module where crews can go and live and work for months at a time on another celestial body.
25:44Richard Luscombe:and this time to learn the lessons that we need to go to Mars. So this really is us building on Apollo but embarking on the next steps of expanding humanity's presence throughout the solar system. Coming up, what comes after Artemis II?
26:15Richard Luscombe:Richard it seems there is a lot riding on this mission what would success look like for Artemis 2?
26:21Tim Peake:Success will be when those four astronauts touch down in the Pacific Ocean on the final day of their mission safe and sound that the spacecraft has behaved well and once that knowledge is in then that's a solid building block to what's to come beyond. We already knew from an announcement last month that Artemis 3 the next mission that was going to be the first lunar landing that has been pushed back to Artemis 4 and Artemis 3 will be this docking in space where they test out the landing systems. So we have a timeline whether we're able to keep to that remains to be seen and Artemis 2, obviously the success of that plays into that.
26:58Tim Peake:And there are all kinds of other things going on in between. Like in 2028, regardless of the landing missions, they're going to be testing a nuclear reactor in space as well. There's a mission to see and that would be what would power this ultimate moon base when they get that built.
27:14Richard Luscombe:Final question, Richard. Where are you going to be on Wednesday when this rocket takes off?
27:20Tim Peake:All being well, I'm going to be at the press site at the Kennedy Space Center. It's a place I know very well. And at the press site, you're just a few miles away. You're about as close as any human is safely allowed to be from the launch pad. And there are rocket launchers every week now, sending uncrewed rocket launchers, satellites, Elon Musk, Starlight and everything. From my home in Miami, 200 miles away, on a clear night, if there's a launch, I can walk out of my front yard and I can see a ball of gold racing up into the sky. And that never gets old. But I can tell you there's something really more powerful about knowing that there are human beings on a spacecraft that's lifting off from that launch pad.
27:57Tim Peake:I always felt it at the end of those shuttle missions. And this week's launch is going to be something extra special beyond that, knowing where they're going, knowing the history of it. It's the first time humans are going to the moon since 1972 so there's a lot of emotion a lot of you know sort
28:15Richard Luscombe:of power built into that moment well literally beyond incredible richard thank you so much for
28:22Tim Peake:your time you're welcome it's a pleasure to be with you
28:33Richard Luscombe:that was richard luscombe from guardian us my thanks to him and of course to tim peak catch all of our artemis coverage including tomorrow night when inshallah the thing fires off into space all at theguardian.com science weekly is also out today where they ask if there's still any point in going to the moon, speaking to the former Director General of the European Space Agency. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Nosheen Iqbal. It was produced by Natalie Khatena, Tom Glasser, and Guy Suffman. Sound design is by Rudy Zagadlo, the executive producer with Sammy Kent. We'll be back again this afternoon with the latest, and today in Focus, we'll be back with you tomorrow morning.
29:31Tim Peake:This is The Guardian.
