NASA in Silicon Valley Live: Apollo 50th Anniversary Preview

Questioner which was seriously. They had to go to sleep. Took. Out the seats in the Apollo 11 landed, they, were just like sleeping, on the floor really, they're you know they put a hammock in but still in order to save weight they got really shakes. It's. Interesting to fly the lunar, module so I've actually got some, some. Stick, time in, our simulator. For, the. Land. On the moon it was both rusty, Schweickart and Charlie, Duke who were both hello, lunar, module pilots and. You're. Standing up you're flying the thing you know there is no seats if you're staying up and you, know bringing the thing in and flying it and of, course both, those guys are. Crackerjack. At it because they. Flew the real thing, they're. Both they were both still very good at it, you know much better than us but just. That experience of what's what's it really like to, try and go fly and land on the moon it's it's not like flying an airplane it's not like flying a helicopter it's, a completely, unique and different experience, it, has to be right well and we're on the verge of having to relearn that, all again, for a new program and we're smarter too they said we learned so much by you, know some, of the videos. Of buzz and Neil. Jumping around the surface Apollo, 11 you'll see them they're trying out different steps, because, they're trying to figure out how to walk in 1/6, gravity huh, with the bulky spaceship, right so you see them hostage yeah so. This I was also part of experiments, well you know I wouldn't know how could we work and live in this environment. In. The moment and learn exactly, those. Questions, that we did not know cuz you can only simulate, so much you have to go there yeah and that's where you're gonna make the big leaps and knowledge understanding it's, like smooth, Master says moving in those suits is insane. Look. At off your shoulder all that yeah the lunar module is your favorite spacecraft. My. Favorite spacecraft. Yeah well. I want you to know that aperture, combines says my grandfather, helped, with the design of. Thing. I like the reason, the lunar module is my favorite, is because. You. Know it's it's, one. Of the few vehicles, that, we've ever built that is really, designed only, for the, space, environment yeah, never has to go through an atmosphere oh right right and so it doesn't it doesn't look like an, atmospheric, vehicle, and you. Know the International Space Station is another example but there's not very many that are like that almost everything, else either at you know it's got to go up through an atmosphere it's got to come back through an atmosphere and, so, it's just a very distinctly, different kind. Of vehicle I really, like them I, can see that yeah for those of you who build spacecraft. Instruments. For them yeah that, matters very. Cool so, one. Cool thing about celebrating, the anniversary is that we've been gathering, people's, memories and so. I thought about what's, my memory, of, Apollo I was, important then but, it made me think oh my gosh my dad had, this. Video, tape that, he sat, me and my sister down in front of he popped it on the VCR it. Was this weird greeny, black-and-white. Footage, I even know it was but. It was the Apollo 11, moon landing and. At the time I was. In elementary school or something and I didn't get it but I knew that this mattered, to my dad you made us watch it. Trying. To think about just being back there and just you know it was, a defining, moment in. History in, that century the world just, for the whole world tuning. In and watching this I think. That's amazing right just like everyone. Across, the entire group looking up at the moon just, all, at once that's just amazing right do. You have some of those memories to, share with, us from I do so, we have more, stories and they're actually from you all we, invited, people all over the world to serve it sure they're Apollo 11, minute moon landing, stories. And so we collected, their responses, and. They. Are part of our NASA Explorers, your Apollo stories podcast, and. Here's one we have here from Ellen. In Calistoga California. We. Are all glued to our television, that day mind. You this, is a television that only got, three channels so, I'm grateful that we were able to watch it, was quite fuzzy but, it was so exciting, and me. Being, young I immediately, went outside with a pair of binoculars to stare at the moon to see if I could see Neil Armstrong, walking.

On The moon you. Know when you're young anything. Is possible. So. Nice that's. Amazing, so if you all want to hear more stories like Ellen's, you can go to. Www.hsn. Do. You want to lead us off into rapid-fire. Questions Mir. Really really quickly okay, so, we, have here from. An. Easter. Egg. My. Question why the moon before Mars, I. Think. There's a number of reasons the the. Biggest, challenge, with sending, humans to Mars is that. You know it's so much further away it takes a lot longer to, get there than, going, to the moon and. That. Duration, introduces. Lots, and lots of big. Problems. Right there's longer. Exposure, to radiation longer. Exposure, to really. No gravity. You. Know living in a basically a tin can for. Potentially months. Plus. All of the technical. Devices. And systems that. Have to be reliable, enough to last that long and rather. Than just make, a go of it and give it a give it your best shot it's. Easier, to prove all that out a little bit closer to home you know we've got a long period. Of having. Humans, in Earth orbit on the space station. The. Next big step is. Go for that much further, away. From us and to spend that much more time that, takes us to the moon and. The Mars is a very different mindset as well right, you know communication. Could be at much 20, minutes 30 minutes something. Very, independent. When you're out there on your own space. Exploration. Here's, one from stinkbutt, 34 how much fuel did it take to lift the lunar, module, the LEM off the, moon you, guys happen to know that's a good question you know I remember, seeing the the, number for. The the. LEM. Crew, module, and I want to say. Don't. Quote me on this but I think we didn't tear out. You. Know a few let's say a few hundred gallons it, was not a huge. Not. A huge amount but it only had that one job to do, ahead. Of work that one time yeah, I know the numbers published, I just, don't have it at the tip of my tongue but that's, there it's addressed all the Apollo technical, documents, they are out there you can go online and download, all the Apollo reports all the experience, reports and. Like. All those technical details, they're all in there you can just go look them up it's really cool to just browse through it and. There. Are some excited, comments, like can't wait to experience the same thing in five years as some did 50 years ago that's. Right where the Artemis, generation, we are the argument generation, holla we're is Apollo but we learned, from Apollo building, on the shoulders of Apollo yeah. We. Actually have a question I think it's because we talk so much about the astronauts, from it's, crazy, K what did it take to become an astronaut, ooh good, question would, it the astronauts. Have to do in order to land. On the moon an education. Skill. Determination. A, little. Luck right. The I think the last astronaut, class had. Something, like 18,000. Applicants. Shows. About yeah I. Want. To be nicer when I grow up. Yeah. Yeah and our future, astronauts, for he. Sustains, humans. In space you know we're gonna need all different, types you know engineers, and scientists, but we're gonna need people, who can keep the machines working you know any, plumbers, or any surveyors, we're, gonna need folks. Who are you can climb down you know canyon, walls spelunkers. Need. All types of. All. Kinds of specialties. Here's a really good question maybe this should be our last for, now but we'll get back to more your questions later but Latino. 67 su Kimberly how long did you go to college to get the to. Get the knowledge for your current job what'd, you get here as, I say I stayed in school for a very long time I, did four years as an undergraduate, got. A physics degree physics, is a great degree to learn, how to help solving problems then. I did four years in grad school I, got, PhD in astrophysics. And, so, yeah stayed in school and I remember um when I got my first job which was called a postdoc, it's what you get after your doctorate, I went to another University, and my dad would call me up are you still school still in school. Schooling. Outside of high school. We. Never stopped. I. Mean a job here working, in the space business you never never stop learning yes in a good way obviously. I think by the time you're doing your PhD you're doing something you're passionate about and so you're in loving it right I do, think that school.

For At least for me school got even more, fun and exciting more. Years of it I had yeah, you, know I think back to like my freshman year of college and it was a lot of work, and it was really challenging, and I didn't know what I was doing and as I, spent more years in my academic. Career it actually got easier and more fun that, didn't stop being challenging, yeah but it be can take on a different note so if you're if you're just starting in college, or. If you're in high school or even in elementary school you know. It does get easier and. I. Would argue it gets more fun as you as you go along so don't be afraid of spending watching free-school. That's. Great excellent. Alright, so we're gonna get back to more questions later and before we move on I just. Want to let people know I want to invite you to join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and. Hear about our future plans to, go. To the moon and then on to Mars by. Tuning in to a special two-hour live. NASA television broadcast, that's tomorrow, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific so. To learn about the show and how to watch you can go to. WWF. And. Click, on events. Are. You gonna watch definitely. I will be watching I'm excited, this stuff is really really cool it's, nice to you know go back in time and revisit history and see that you know what Amy yes, and so let's dig a little bit deeper into. The Apollo history and talk about, all. Of those those, cool cool, facts thing you don't know about you know in order to do that we have our history year, James. Tell. Us about, yourself, so. My name is James Anderson and I'm the nasa ames historian. I've been here for a couple months right in all, the excitement leading up to. Jump, Dryden and. The last few months have been really. Wonderful we've had, an opportunity to, meet a, lot, of Apollo era veterans, who, worked at Ames and. Just getting to hear. Even. More stories, from. That time, many. Of which you know we're not the ones that, yeah. But you hear you know sort of all the time again. So. What what do you know about that time at Ames. It. Was an. Exciting time. The. During. The whole Apollo program, the. The. Scope of the number, of people involved at its peak there. Were around 400,000. Americans. Men, and women from diverse backgrounds, working on. The. Apollo project. And. Here at Ames there is also it, was a time of building, to a, number, of new facilities came. Online and, got funding, at that time, and. A lot of that research directly. Influenced, the, design of. Apollo, Wow. That. It's. Amazing four hundred thousand people all. Coming together you know this to solve, this ambitious, and really get this this. This plan going and this project going to get to the moon to, me there was an incredibly, huge you know that's a lot of effort yeah, what are some of the facilities, that they were building, to support the new missions well, funny. You should ask I've brought some historical, artifacts, with me. From. Our facilities. Here at Ames, Kimberly. Was showing a little bit earlier the, model of the Apollo command, module I've got another. Kind of model of the Apollo, command module oh. So. You've got this one here.

It's. Just like it yeah it's. Got, the exact same shape of, Apollo and you notice one side is, pointing and the other side not why. Is that Chad, well, it's, interesting this is one of the unique contributions. That Ames Research Center made, to not. Just the Apollo program but all of the the, manned, spaceflight programs, of the time as, Harvey. Allen was one of the. Aerodynamicists. Here. At the center's later one of the center's directors. And he. Was studying, how. To protect. These, vehicles, from. Heat as they came back into the Earth's atmosphere and. Previously. All the high speed. Vehicles. They were very pointy, right sort of like the front end you know I had a sharp point because that was the least, amount of drag coming, back into the atmosphere but, they got too hot and Harvey, Allen realized, that if you went, with this very blunt, shape, it. Created, a lot more drag, and, it would slow them down but, it allowed, the heat to go out and around. And the, heat would not be transferred into the surface of the vehicle so, basically that you know that the crew. Members in the vehicle would. Be protected from all that heat as the as it came back into the atmosphere and of course we're. Doing basically the same the, same concept, today so it's really a lasting, contribution that, you made you can see that with all the vehicles, are returning from the international space station you, know even the Commercial Crew you know the the Boeing and the and. The SpaceX, capsules. Followed. The same engineering. Judgment, to shave me something right the design and engineering of something but how would you come up with that chain if you had to. He. Was an, eccentric character. And, it really is sort of. Ideas. Come from the eccentric. It's. An odd idea that, turned out to work really, well and that concept, the blunt body concept. Was. Developed it's, older than NASA itself. NASA was founded. In 1958, but Allen came up with that idea here, at Ames in. The 50s when it was still part of the, NACA. So. Ames before, it was NASA Ames yeah. Exactly he was before was NASA Ames and. Solving, a problem that was gonna be not, you know who's. Gonna be used decades, later oh yeah you know that's, incredible, - well, forward thinking that a lot of working, in the future James what do you do with that model. What is, it solid metal it, is and. You. Launched them all right and one of the facilities, that, was built construction. Began in 1964. On, what's, known, as the hypervelocity free, flight facility, and. It. Formally, opened in 1965. And. This. Model and I've got another one here. This. Facility, imagine, a tube okay, 75. Feet long three, and a half feet in diameter. And, from. One end you've got a really high speed. Stream, of air at, one end and in, the other you've. Got a cannon. Would. We do with this cannon while you shoot it. And. These, these, projectiles. They're. They're made here in, Ames's, machine. Shops and, this. Is another Apollo. Model. Quite. A bit smaller than the first one that we saw but, actually, this one it, would be loaded into. The. Mccannon. At one end and. Launched. Upstream, into that air so that it's traveling, really. Really fast, Wow, no way through the years we look this oven the facility. Has a top speed for that model of about. 27,000. Miles per hour well so. It's not moving, yeah. And. It's, really to reproduce, the conditions of. Capsule. Coming back into the, Earth's, atmosphere or, or the atmosphere of another, world and traveling, from say a distance as the moon I mean this was a unique problem for when you're sending something really far away and it's coming back. Right. Right, right we. Have an image don't we of what they would see here, taking. High-speed, photos of that I think tell, us what that's all about so you're looking at an. Image of the shock wave that's. Coming off of that little tiny model as it goes down down. The tube and in, this image the the, capsules traveling, from right to left right, so. As. It comes into the atmosphere this shock wave is created and we, talked earlier about how this blunt, shape on the end of the capsule protects, it from the heat here, you can see it actually is making this layer the shockwave is making a layer around the. Capsule that. That's protecting, it from the.

Heat Generated, by friction as, it comes into the atmosphere it's. A it's an amazing, photo to see you. Can you know this is this was you know back in the you, know pre digital age, and, so they had a cameras. Set up down the tunnel to, snap pictures as. As the thing was flying down it amazing, that is amazing we, actually have a comment here from quark saying amazing, how far we have come in such a short amount of time. It's. Not that long and just yeah. Old. Morgan says awesome stream NASA thank you yeah. Thanks, for watching um. I had. Another comment to share, I'm. Over. The moon. So. Are we, mm-hmm. Excellent, all right James did you bring anything else for us yeah. We've got another, exciting artifact. Here. It's. Encased, in glass what is that James tell us what that is that is a genuine, moon rock Wow. This. One was. Returned. By Apollo 15, and. Weighs. Under, a pound. 0.3. Pounds. And. It's still but I, don't know I get shivers every time I see it it's it's it's so, weird just to to, wrap your mind around. 3.4. Billion, years old. That's. Kind. Of the age of the, first life, rolling. Of the ocean here on earth. Understanding. Yeah. The the moon is this treasure trove of science the moon preserves. The ancient history of the of the solar system, and even. Today. Researchers, applied, to NASA all over the world to, look at samples of the apollo moonrocks oh yeah, and, it still we're, still learning. New new, things Wow. I love, it that in a way it kinda just looks like a rock because, that just reminds, me that these. Objects, and places in space are part, of our solar system you know just like earthen. Well this. Is I'm noticing that I don't know comes across on. The video is. It kind of sparkle it does. Flexure. And. And, I'm. Looking at the monitor in the studio and I'm not sure that that really comes across it is it is not just this gray lump that it appears like there's some really neat stuff going on that that just kind of brings it brings it well let's get to brings it to life but that's hot. At. The time back, in the 1960s. We. Didn't know whether, life, was, on other worlds and, it's still a quest n't NASA, and, the humanity, is looking for are we alone, and. When the apollo samples, were returned, ames was one of two nasa centers, that. Actually analyzed, the. Samples and looked for whether. Or not they, actually had like, there were, signs of life that's so cool. I. Think. We actually have some footage of this, we, do yeah here, in our guns. Yes. From. Our archives here at, Ames there's some recently. Rediscovered footage. We're seeing it here now, what's. Goin on here Kimberly what are we oh so, this, is Apollo 11, soil, samples, that brought to the Ames lunar. Biological. Laboratory and, they're, being held in a sterile, condition. Of these glove. Boxes, in a clean room and you see petri, dishes and what, they're trying to do is, see. If life arose, on the. Lunar samples, and, they're. Mimicking, conditions, for, which life, has been known to grow on earth bacteria. Microbes. And like and. And. Looking, at it through a microscope and. You. Know it's, it's a, very dedicated, systematic. Study and it laid, the groundwork for the beginning of what, we call astrobiology. At the time it's called exobiology. The, study, of the search for life, elsewhere. In the universe and the study of the origin of life here Wow and the. Techniques, here you know they learn that the the. The lunar cycle samples, did not have life but, they didn't know at the time until in filming experience right, you had to check it even so still laying the foundation, for more science research, yeah yeah, the techniques. That techies. And other techniques looking for amino acids and carbon. Compounds, and the stuff of life and stuff of life led, to the development of, the instruments.

That Flew on Viking, that went to Mars in, 1976, to. Look for life on Mars and, then you know. Several. Packages that were also exploring, life you know on, other places in our solar system because, our knowledge of the solar system today is way, different it's a much beautiful more diverse solar system then the, scientists. Back in the 60s could have ever imagined, because we've been sending all these robotic, explorers, over the last couple of decades out to Pluto out. Through the giant planets, the moons of the giant planets it is an, amazing. Place to, explore we're still looking today and we, have. Yet, to find you know our life on this pale, blue dot our blue Oasis world here is still one, of a kind yeah the, land oh yeah. More to come you know. I. Have. A few moon rock questions, maybe we could take these as like rapid-fire, okay. First. Of all what is the difference between moon, rocks and earth rocks and to go with that our moon rocks more porous, compared to the rocks on earth or are they just about the same how. Do you know it's, a range so short, answer the. Rocks on the moon are very similar to that on earth so we have igneous, that were made in a volcano, we have, metamorphic. That were made with high temperatures and high pressures we. Have not, quite sedimentary. Which were made on the earth with wind and water on the moon they're called Breck is there there shocked, so we've slightly different types the, moon on average, is lighter in terms, of its its rocks than the earth it's less dense oh and this can lead to another discussion of how the earth I mean form so they were similar but. They're slightly also, different but they're made of the same things we're all made out of start, us essentially, yeah. Nice. Perfect. History. Questions for James before you have to go do. The original Mission Control Computers still work do you know. The. Computers, themselves. Images. Of them have been used to. Recreate. The. Mission Control. In. Houston and. I. Would actually have to have to check, but. I know that the the recreation, was done some of the some, of the material, in there is original, and other, stuff was actually just sourced, on eBay so the coffee, pots the cigarette, ash. Trays all, of that stuff to really, give the. Feel of what Mission Control was, like during that time and, the. Flight director Gene Kranz when, he went, in just a few weeks ago and saw this installation I, think. He made the comment was something like he could hear the voices of, all, the controllers at their, computer stations, at their monitors.

That. Recreation, was so spot-on, that. Just brought back. It's, a really intense moment of a memory that you know, how. Could you not forget so they really got it right. One. Last, comment before the moon rock has to go away, emergy. A member, Jim not sure. Sar. Coming, even. Though we're still have a lot you've still studying there, spend samples, that have. Been kept in have. Not been touched in 47. 50 years that, are being looked at researchers say because our laboratory, equipment today, is much more sophisticated in, advance so, I'm. Thanking, the scientists, of the previous generation, who, left this gift to us today so. That we can continue our search of knowledge and when. We get even different. Moon rocks from different places of the moon yes we will be able to answer some pretty tough questions that we haven't been able to answer the moon rocks gave is a huge leap in understanding. And we're still being studied that's awesome amazing time, capsule, or time capsule, yeah there are teams of ames that are gonna study those samples so we'll be able to provide an update as sometime, in the future, sometimes. Yeah. Well thank you James for joining. With. The history yeah, we'll. See you another time, and. You. All don't forget to, join us and celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11, moon, landing and her about. Our future, plans to, go forward to the moon and on, to Mars by, tuning in into it to a special, two-hour live. NASA television. Broadcast. Tomorrow, at 10 a.m. Pacific, time, learn, more about the show and how to watch by, going to, WWN. Ase gov, fort / apollo. 40th, and don't forget to click on event Apollo. 50th, in fact. About. Our next. Giant leap. Artemis. Yes Artemis. So. What what is Artemis. Well. Why do we call it Mars Artemis the art of Artemis was. Apollo's. Twin sister, right. So if you know your. Mythology. It's Diana, but it's Greek maja. Kimberly with the fun factor. Evocative. I mean she's the goddess of the moon I mean, it's, very. Appropriate. And and. Also with the Artemis charge we're, going to place the first woman on the moon yes, so, with the next crew to go to the moon yes and an. Amazing. Leap for womankind, yeah. Humankind. Absolutely. It's about time. Women. Out there students. Young girls who are like watch. Out moon yeah, coming, for you that since we're having our Artemis is a sustainable, lunar exploration. Program it's just different than Apollo Apollo, was like a road trip I mean it did amazing, things it. Was a, huge. Engineering challenge just to even conceive. Going, from suborbital, flight to going to the moon and back in less, than 10 years and to build that whole infrastructure, with, a very elegant but complicated. And logistical, solution, was immense. I mean, Artemis, is different we're doing not doing it alone it's, no longer the realm of governments. And superpowers it's, a different era yeah, we have commercial, and international partners, sustainable. Present. And you. Know in the pursuit of knowledge in the pursuit of innovation. With, opportunities. For economic, and you. Know more spin-offs, you, know the Pala programming, of us a lot of spin-offs what we call things that we use today as a result of the, research the research, and the engineering, technology, development, that that it's not just to go right the objective of Apollo was to, go to the moon and safely, return right but that was that was the objective right. With Artemis it's to, have a longer-term sustained. Presence, and. Of course it's the path to Mars, which, is the next giant leap so. That it's fun as Kimberly said. It's fundamentally. A different approach. To then Apollo wise you. Know okay it's the same basic destination. But we're. Not going to land directly on, the moon we're going to the Gateway first. That'll be orbiting an orbiting, space station around, the moon and then, going down to the surface from Gateway we're, going to the South Pole, which. Is a very, different place in many respects, more challenging, than, where Apollo was landing. So, there's many fascinating. Different, things that are going into Artemis, that, were. Really never, something. That was even approachable, back, in the Apollo era yes, it's a big big stretch from where we were at with Apollo and, of course we have this longer objective, than of taking.

What We learned from the, Moon portion. And taking. That with us to Mars nice. Summary. There. Are a bunch of questions that we'll get to about the goals and what's different and I think you just gave, a great overview of. Course. A huge, part and. Really kind of the first and biggest step. For Artemis right is how do how do you launch how do you get there yeah we're talking about carrying, a lot of material we talked earlier about the Saturn, 5 yes, well the, big, rocket for, Artemis, is the Space Launch System SLS and. SLS. Is if you thought Saturn 5 was impressive, SLS, is even more impressive. You can see some video of it here. An. Animation that's. The. Rockets, the engines are anything under a lot of tests right now right and a lot of this is, materials. That we learned from doing. The Space Shuttle missions. So. It's a little bit shorter, than the Saturn 5 its 322. Feet tall stature and v was 363. Feet so it's before t1 feet shorter. But. It's that's also. A lot bigger than the space shuttle which is one we're used to flying right this shuttle, was huge, and it's only 184, feet tall so, this. Is as we said earlier Saturn, 5 is taller than the Statue of Liberty and right. So is SLS, right that's it's almost. When. We, have it flying it's going to be the biggest rocket ever built Wow, so, this capability, even take payloads to Saturn and Jupiter I mean this is a very capable machine we, talked, about our rush how, much thrust at how much payload the Saturn 5 had and, SLS, is over a million pounds, of thrust more powerful, oh wow right, so the, SLS, can deliver more. Cargo to, the moon than. The, shuttle could take to low Earth orbit Wow Wow this is just an enormous, capability. And. It's Kimberly no do it take, this lots, of other destinations in. This. Is a huge capability it's a unique capability, it's not something, you need to, put satellites into orbit for example it's that's. Really for this unique history, unique mission awesome very cool yeah. We. Have a comment here from King, throne when, their astronauts, on the moon I will stand and wave at the moon at the, full moon I hope they wave back I'm.

Sure They'll be waving back I'm. Doing, you, Artemus. If I get my wish I want to land astronauts on the far side of the Moon because we haven't been there yet. In. Fact Allah only may have only gone to about 4% of the surface of the Moon there's a lot of terrace. Right Luna ain't caused me to. Channel my Latin that. We unknown. Territories, on the moon that you have seen we also have not yet been to the South Pole right. Destination. Dismiss and to, remind everyone what. Exactly, we're counting down I'm here this. Is the time until, 2024. When the Artemis mission will land people, on at. The South Pole of the moon right there. Is a question. Someone, was asking what's. Special about the lunar South Pole could, you tell us quickly what we might oh yeah, just. In the last 10 years our, understanding. Of the moon, flip. It set itself on the head and we learned that there's water on the moon I mean, of the Apollo generation, we thought the moon was bone-dry turns, out there is actually water moon is actually all over the moon has different sources but the, poles seem to have large quantities of water now, we should we should know this is not liquid. Water. And water, in different yeah. Frozen water crystals in, the soil in the soil and so it's. Scientifically, interesting cuz, I shouldn't. Have been there and why is it there we'd like to know why, it's there and trigger it is but. As for my human, exploration, its water, is h2o can. Be used for hydrogen and oxygen for fuel, oxygen. To breathe. So. The poles going to the poles is a step in a, human exploration using resources, off the land and the. Same techniques, reduced to harvest, the moon water is similar, to what we do in Mars because we know Mars has subsurface frozen, order as well okay, so training, ground that's, the big reason think, that's a big reason to go to the South Pole South, Pole is hard because. You. Know, it's. It's in a lot more shadow right, sunlight is a much lower angle, so. You have, to really think about how, you build your mission much more carefully, how. Do you generate electricity, how do you stay warm there's. A whole, new set of challenges that. Were, we, really didn't have to worry too much about in. The Apollo missions. Because. They're easy because they're hard yes and the Artemis program will have humans. On the moon for weeks at a time initially. And company, two months at a time I mean it's all so different than Apollo Apollo is you know Apollo, 11 was two and a half hours on the surface 21, hours just there on the surface 22, and a half hours walking around we. Most went up to three days on the surface so this. Is a very different, approach. To being offworld, for long periods of time and how you do that from an engineering, solution your power your. Fuel your water your air your energy, the temperature. Extremes. You'll experience. They. All can be overcome and they'll all be and the solutions are gonna be amazing, yes you. Answered a question from pi day what, are some new difficulties, with Artemis that were not present during the Apollo missions yeah, long duration. That's. Maybe one of the biggest ones is we are sending humans.

Out There for much longer periods of time and, they're beyond the. The, shielding, from radiation that's. Afforded, by Earth's, magnetosphere, so, when astronauts, are on the International Space Station for long periods of time right, up to a year as the, record. That. That's a challenging, environment but it doesn't have. The same degree of exposure to radiation that. Going, out away from Earth has, and, so that's. So, NASA is gonna need a lot of doctors. And biologists. And people who study human physiology to, work on mitigation, and also to help, with how humans, the fragile aslong. Duration space to you, know. Exploration. How the Box numa body behaves, and reacts and recovers. Yeah. It's. Gonna happen at Mars too yeah. This, question from Sleepy, underscore, Gary some, of your answers already answered his question what. Are the main scientific, goals of the Artemis moon mission and answering those questions are, scientific, and kind of awesome or things, that we want to you, know find out right those are our goals, yes. Scientifically. I mean some of the biggest unanswered questions, even after processing the wonderful. Lunar samples, from Apollo, we. Still. Don't, really know what happened during the early phases of the early times of our solar system because the, rock samples that we have might. Have have, a bias in it they might not have been sampling, some of the oldest places on the moon so looking for older, rocks how. The moon's interior, looks like we would like to have samples of the moon from the mantle something below the crust oh yeah that, that will take service but going to different parts of the Moon where we can actually get to the mantle and press, we can understand how that moon formed, and how it cooled. And. The. Moon, also, potentially. Could tell us what happened with our early Sun we're, interested, in how the Sun behaved during the earlier solar system and this could help us understand, extrasolar. Planet, systems where we're looking at planets, around other stars today, you know more, planets and stars out there so, our view of the universe is changing we have our solar system in our backyard here that moon has. Has. The answers to some of these questions, awesome. The early phase there's, also the basic science around you know human physiology right, which as we said yeah how. Does the human body respond, to radiation exposure to, you, know long-term deprivation. Of gravity all, these things and, those, are really basic. Questions that are, they're important, for our eventual, journey to Mars but they're also you. Know the the just the basic knowledge that's, often, really helpful, in, unexpected. Ways for. Improving life on Earth and. As, a astrophysicist. I would be, amiss if I didn't say I mean I would love to put a telescope on the far side of the Moon and. Open up a different range of the electromagnetic spectrum that we have not explored before because it shields from. The radio emissions, from the earth so it becomes a new window into the universe just right in our backyard because, the far side is is facing. Away from us I know it could make it really big. Maybe. You'll get your telescope. Speaking, of human, bodies what. Kind of spacesuits, should be used big, and bulky, but, safe or a small, tight, but flexible, have. Been some really exciting work done. Exactly in this area and. There's, a number, of different designs, that are still being considered but they, kind of, both ends of that spectrum right, some, of them look like that, more traditional a little bulkier, suit because, it offers a lot of protection from, the, environment some, of them are a little more streamlined, and sleeker, because. They're just easier to walk around in and do things and. Get stuff done and. They just they just don't weigh as much, but. I think the jury's, still out as to which is the preferred, one right now there it's an area of ongoing, research. And development yeah there's a cool idea of a particular design of one of the Landers on the moon to deal with the lunar dust which is a kind of a hazardous glass like because there's no wind or water on the moon flowing, water to just, smooth it out and one of them has you sort of layer in your your spacesuit.

And You go in and you leave your face spacesuit, on the outside, you. Know in kind of a cloak. Or something and then yeah therefore, the dust doesn't get into your habit it never comes in oh yeah I, like. The. Docks. Yeah. So. Your suit always stays on the outside where, all its all the dirt all the contaminants, stay, yeah out there so there's and, there's a lot of work ahead I mean you're gonna when, you're on the surface doing things are gonna learn Oh like, like the Apollo astronauts learned they're gonna skip and hop to get maneuvering, with that bulky things the. Artemis, astronauts, are gonna find new things with their spacesuits and what things to change I can't drill as much I can't climb I can't you know rappel, down the crater in, yeah. Easiest. Ways I'd like you know so, there's there's gonna be a lot of different suit designs for the applications, it needs and so we need those we, need those solutions and we need to while we learn, those as we explore more yeah always. Learning and we're learning are, we learning. Give. A question in mind they think I do. Well. We have one here for Chad it's. And it's about the SLS so why, why. Are we, designing. A new system to get to the moon and not just use the same Apollo equipment, that be used, last time yet well it's a good question maybe, you want to tell everybody the, what the full system, consists. Of we talked about SLS mm-hmm, well I. Think that's the main one we're talking about but there's, also you know the equivalent, to all the Apollo, vehicle, that Kimberly was showing with the little props right there's a there's, a command module which now is the Orion there's. Equivalent. To the service module which actually the Europeans are providing, there's, a you, know lunar. Vehicle. That. Will, be you. Know putting the humans down on the moon what's. Different, this time from Apollo is we also have the Gateway which. Is an orbiting space station around, the moon. And. Of course the big, rocket so the question is why, don't we just use what we had in the Apollo era well in, principle you you could use those designs, right. But for. One thing we'd like to carry additional. People, and the, Apollo capsule is only big enough to carry three we'd really like to carry four. We. Have some video footage of the, Orion they. Can run that maybe. I'll talk while we go right and you could you can see it's pretty good-sized one, of the other reasons is, that all. Those designs haven't, been produced, for fifty years and so, to go back and, recover the design recover the tooling. It's. Basically, as big a job as making, a new one. There's. A story about how Ames, participated. In a 21st, century, detective. Story on the. Re-entry. The thermal, the, tiles. On the bottom of the production. Thermal protection system, of the Apollo capsules, they were made of a chemical. Thing called avcoat, and, I had a re-engineered, the, chemical formula, and a. 21st. Century version of that is on the Orion capsule so, we, think, we. Thank the Apollo engineers. Were. Providing. That groundwork, and we're. Using that the research using. The learning the ideas if. Not the actual specific, designs are carried, along in the new program and I'll. You know a lot of the elements of this program have actually been in development now for more than 10 years so, we're not starting, from scratch today. This. Has been in development for, some time but. A lot of the times if you want to take literally the old design and, reuse it it. Can be just, as much work as doing. A clean sheet of paper and, doing the new design also allows you to bring you. All our latest, and greatest technology. And ideas which. Can make things lighter. More. Cost-effective. And in many cases a lot safer so. We're always looking, at those, things as we come up with new new, pieces I mean, even the Orion. Capsule that we were just looking at it's essentially. Apollo on steroids because it has an incredible, amount of computing, power then, the, Apollo, capsule did not have that means it can carry a lot more payload, and it is, supports. More astronauts, for very long durations, in space it's a very different.

Design. As, similar, as similar, as the Artemis program is to Apollo, in that we're going, to the moon a lot, of it ends right there because, the, the basic requirements, for what it has to do for how long it has to go for how many people it's going to carry are, all different from a plane which. Leads you to you, know somewhat, different solutions, in the design make sense make sense so we have the SLS. Rocket we have the Orion spacecraft and then, we have gateway you, talk a little more about Gateway it's, gonna be my next favorite species. It's. Designed, in mind to be essentially, our first interplanetary. Space. Tug and, IO it's a face ship that could have would have the capability of allowing us to maneuver, things in space and propelling. Other, vehicles. To Mars, but. It is a orbiting. Ship. Around the moon it gets us close to a thousand, miles of the moon surface and it goes as far away as forty. Thousand miles it's, in this rectilinear. Or orbit, it allows, you. To land on anyplace on them on the moon Wow which we didn't have with Apollo although the the orbit, trajectory was you know on. A specific place could only had Lander on the equator. This, allows us to go to the poles which we were talking about earlier it allows the far side but. It has a very unique propulsion. On it a solar electric propulsion and, it's more powerful than anything of that type that we've seen before and that's the type of propulsion, we're going to need when. We're far from home like, on our journey to Mars and. So, that's going to be used and I also love the fact that it's open architecture. All the ports are gonna be made available online because we want it's. Gonna have commercial, and international partners docking, coming. And going and having humans on it and not having humans on it it's gonna be a. Vacation-home type thing you know the Astros will be there for a few weeks or months at a time and then then, they'll be empty for some time and it, really is a way a different approach to thinking about long term human exploration in space it's kind of like a space condo. The. Staging place we. Hang out there for a while and. Then. We'll, come back later and we'll pick back up, this. Proposal to be a tugboat it, also allows us to put biological. Or other science experiments, on it I'll, put a telescope on it went on yeah. On. The surface. I. Think we actually have an animation of, Gateway, to show. There. We go this is showing all the different component. Modules. From. Both commercial, and international partners, as well as NASA being assembled, to form you, know eventually this this really functional, outpost. And orbit. Around the moon. And. It also lets have constant communication with earth which. Again is you know something, you won't have when you go to Mars but at least this time while, we're working out all the interesting, challenges of being away from planet.

Earth And being in this environment. For long periods of time it. Truly is a proving ground and, it's. It's flexible, in terms of what it can be used for awesome. You, guys answered, a question from, oh. Gosh. I've lost it Yoga fire is Artemis. A joint venture the way that the International, Space Station is International, you talked about very very much so yeah. And and, more partners as well International. Space Station this has about 15 partners I mean now we have 89 nations. On this planet that have satellites in orbit we are a very different, species than, were years ago yeah so as you. Know, the. Future of space is for the whole world and we have a lot of nations you know working. In space in terms of their economics. Or, the communication. And. They'll be partnering with you. This. Is what this the, honors program is about mm-hmm, yeah you. Have a question here from an easter egg is, gateway bigger than the ISS, no, no it's a ISS. Is really huge and. Gateway. Because it's so much further away is going to be a much, more compact, vehicle. You, know it'll it'll have a lot of the functionality, that ISS, does just be a little, smaller well. A lot smaller. Is. They still need to be occupied not so the ISS, an amazing, achievement has, been continuously, occupied for almost 20, years, November, of 2000, was the first. Occupants that's, people. On space and, definitely. Designed, for that reason it's who are tough so Gateway is gonna be designed differently because, it has to be able to support humans for periods of time in that period where it doesn't have humans, and. So. That. Can be done because of our advancements, in robotics, and autonomy. And smart software, I mean, you, know it's a different vehicle but, you know we're starting to see self-driving. Cars self-driving trucks, are satellites, are a lot more autonomous, we are smarter, species, now and, now. The space could take advantage of the knowledge that we've gained in that field. Yeah. I think we have time for a like one more question, yeah. The. Best. Maybe. This, one from a random, clown what. Are some of the design challenges that have yet to be solved, for this trip can. You identify there's, so many. I. Mean if you just think about we were just talking about Apollo, earlier in this show when. The charge came to go to the moon in, 61, it was only 20, days after what they had done a first suborbital, flight they hadn't even done an orbital flight they hadn't figured out how to do rendezvous. To spacecraft, that had been a lot of or they didn't done a spacewalk they, didn't even have a spacesuit.

No. Doubt about it they'll be new and that's the, beauty, of it because, when, you have a problem that has not been solved, that's when you get your creative, new. Solutions, now you know you're, gonna attack a problem, and come back with something that no one's ever thought of before and then who knows where that's going to me lead. Us nicely. Said yeah. Well. I guess we can that's the perfect way to end this huh it is. That's. About all the time we have today you guys a huge, thanks, to our guests and everyone. Who joined us in the chat today on Twitch we will be back on Thursday, July 25th, talking, about how to get an internship at NASA that's how it starts. There. Are a lot of people here today who serve as interns right yeah so that's our next, show for this gang here, but, remember to join us tomorrow in, celebrating, the Apollo 50th, and hearing. About more about our future plans to go to the moon and on to Mars so, tune in to our special two-hour, live NASA, television broadcast, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific and, you, can learn more about the show and how to watch it by going to www.nasa.gov. Slash. Apollo, 50th, and click, on events, so, check it out and we'll see you soon thanks for joining us bye.

2019-07-23 07:40

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