Why NASA is returning to the Moon with a plan to stay

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from 1968

to 1972 nasa’s

apollo program performed nine missions

with

six landings on the moon’s surface

where 12 brave astronauts walked

on our nearest celestial body the apollo

program ended in 1975

growing up in north alabama there were

signs

of the space industry all over the place

from the space and rocket center with

rockets laying around

to redstone arsenal and of course nasa’s

marshall space flight center

and many people in the area worked there

my father was one of those he was a

graphics illustrator

for nasa’s marshall space flight center

and in 1978

he took me to work for take your child

to work day

and there i was able to see drawings of

test hardware

of satellites and capsules like this

and this is one that my father actually

drew and i was amazed to think that

those things

actually went into space with people

nonetheless

and so i was sitting at his drafting

table creating a masterpiece of my own

when suddenly i heard something across

the work area and then my father said

hey

do you want to go over there and look at

it and use it

and i definitely did so we walked over

there

he was explaining it to me technically

there’s a lot of jargon i didn’t

understand

i was in fourth grade and then i got

there

and pressed the button and magically

what i was creating earlier was sitting

there

a perfect replica of it i could not

believe it

okay yes i’m just talking about a simple

copy machine right

but to an elementary school kid spending

the day

with her father at work something as

simple as this

can inspire the next generation and it

certainly did for me

so i became an engineer and

now i work at nasa’s marshall space

flight center

and i’ve worked on many different

programs very exciting work

from space lab missions to payload

operations

flying rockets

many things but i want to talk today

about the most exciting job i’ve ever

had

so i’m the program manager for nasa’s

next human mission to the moon

and that’s right so by the year 2024

we will be sending the first woman and

the next man

to the moon’s surface and we’re going

somewhere different this time

we’re going to the lunar south pole

so who would have thought in 1978

the inspiration that would have occurred

and take your child to work

day that later on i would be leading

the nation’s program to send people

back to the moon so pulling on

the popularity and familiarity of the

apollo program

nasa named the next lunar mission

artemis artemis is a twin sister

of apollo and the goddess of the moon

in greek mythology

and so why go back to the moon because

there are a lot of other destinations

that are very exciting

such as mars as we can see first

moon then mars

exploration is

viscerally within all of us all of

humanity

we’re all explorers and we want to know

what’s out there

we want to know what we miss the first

time around with apollo

there’s more to see

first moon then mars we know

that there are technological hurdles

that we can overcome with this moon

mission

that will help us to sustain that

program as well as

carry us on to mars inspiration

we also know that nasa can bring people

together

great achievements that take you beyond

your current abilities and then seeing

people land on the moon

that’s very inspirational we want to

inspire the next generation to go into

science

technology engineering and math fields

for the nation

and for the world we also know that

there will be technological spin-offs

we know this because we’ve done it

before

many things that we create for space

exploration

come back to improve life on earth

so the first time we went to the moon we

missed something very

important we missed the water ice

and we know that there’s water ice

thanks to precursor missions

such as the lunar reconnaissance orbiter

mission

it found that deep within the craters

as we’re zooming in here we can see deep

within these craters they’re

huge cavernous craters about 20 percent

of the basin floor

of those are comprised of water ice

and as you can see the permanently

shadowed regions when the sun goes over

there are areas that have never ever

seen

the light of day and that’s important

because not seeing that light of day

means

that caught within that are the origins

and the beginning of the moon

and uncovering that for mankind is

amazing and that’s part of what nasa

wants to do

now why is it important to learn

how to capture and use what we can on

another celestial body

well like right now we’re breathing air

we may be drinking water we’re wearing

clothes

could maybe we’re doing laundry there’s

different things that we do every day

we have to take all that with us on a

moon mission and all that

weighs a lot and that’s mass and taking

mass into orbit costs a lot of money

and so the more we can learn to use that

hydrogen

and that oxygen molecules then the more

sustainable our future programs will be

and then of course

they will become cheaper and that helps

us on that

mission to mars so

the u.s census bureau in 2020

says that there are around 330 million

people

in the u.s and so about 70 percent of

the population

is too young to really remember the

excitement

and the boldness of the apollo mission

now so looking at the

workforce of 1969 and looking at the

workforce of today

there’s a lot of differences so this is

a picture

of the artemis’s human landing system

program office

and i am so proud to be the program

manager of this diverse

and amazing team you can see men

women african-americans asian-americans

and hispanics all working together for

this common goal

we are far more representative of

society

than in 1969 again looking at the

astronaut class

earlier this year from january again

same thing men women and minorities

and that’s important because we want

everyone to be able to see themselves

in this mission whether it’s an engineer

whether through the crew or the program

managers

and so going somewhere quickly

is is what we’re trying to do

and a way to do that is to hold a race i

love races

i love to watch races track and field

you name it i love it

so taking an idea from apollo

where there was a race between two

countries

the united states and the soviet union

and we know

the united states landed first we put a

man on the moon and we won that race

so very similarly we are doing that this

time around

however we are doing it between three

u.s companies so what we did

nasa wrote high-level requirements that

we want to go to the moon

this is the duration of the stay and

this is where you’re going to need to go

and then we put a survey out

and we received responses back and

awarded three contracts to dianetics

to spacex and to blue origin who has

teamed with draper

lockheed martin and northrop grumman and

i will tell you

those three companies that you see

provided us with innovative ideas

that we never would have come up with on

our own

very exciting

so what’s going to be similar about

these missions

the similarities come into the crew

the us crew the astronauts will be

provided

by the orion capsule now they’re going

to ride

on the world’s most powerful rocket the

space launch system

so the space launch system and orion

will launch

and take orion to a halo orbit the halo

orbit is the top line

and the human landing systems

one of the three that you saw earlier

will be up there

waiting at that halo orbit orion once it

arrives

will dock with the human landing system

at which time two crew members will

get into the human landing system from

orion

those two crew members will then go down

descend

to the moon’s surface and they will

perform a six and a half day stay

where we have a lot of science planned

for them naturally we’re looking for

that water ice right

but we also want to deploy sensors we

want to collect samples

regolith rock we want to take pictures

we want imagery

video we want everybody to be able to

see all this

and we want to bring that back so after

their six and a half day stay

they will return to their human landing

system and it will ascend

or take off from the moon’s surface it

will rendezvous

again with the orion capsule and the

orion capsule will safely

return it to earth now for future

missions there will be a gateway

a lunar outpost and that provides us

access to broader areas of the moon

and that will help us to have a more

sustainable mission

which is a goal of artemis and the human

landing system

so we know that space exploration will

create

new technologies that will improve life

on earth

and so how do we know that well we know

it because

it’s happened before and we’ve done it

before for example

the apollo era space suits the fabric

from it

you can find it as an offshoot of the

denver airport

and the mercedes-benz stadium the petals

that you see that go back and forth

it’s a translucent type material very

lightweight

it lets light in but it retains the

thermal or the heat conditions within

and of course 40 years or more of

technological spinoffs that have helped

to improve life on earth

many of these have touched so many

people

camera on a chip technology that’s found

all over just ubiquitous

in smartphones digital cameras

aerodynamic improvements for the

trucking industry and for planes

precision gps memory foam

other materials that have improved life

on earth

freeze-dried foods and nutritional

supplements

magnetic resonance imaging mri

technologies

and cochlear implants all to improve

life on earth

i know i’ve been personally impacted by

many of these

many as a many of us have

and we do this again for all

of humankind it reminds me of nasa’s

vision statement

we reach for new heights and reveal the

unknown

for the benefit of humankind and for

everybody

and so it is time

it’s time for us to return to the moon

it’s time for this generation to see

the excitement that a moon landing can

provide

so what if we hadn’t gone the first time

let’s say what if we hadn’t have won

would the u.s still be the technological

superpower that we are today

would we still be the economic

superpower

and superstar a country

that can harness the energy required

to leave earth’s gravity

safely with humans is a force to be

reckoned with

for sure we know the artemis program

will pick up where apollo left off

we know that we will help to rewrite

textbooks

to fill in the gaps that beautiful water

ice

that we didn’t even know was there the

first time when we went with apollo

we’ve also seen that nasa

is important for inspiration for

inspiring the world

and bringing the world together we do it

for

exploration we do it for inspiration

and we also know that it’s important to

continue to innovate

so pretend that you’re standing on the

moon and you’re looking back at this

beautiful earth

it reminds me that we are one

we are whole and that we have more in

common

than we have differences when i look

back at the world of 1969

and the issues that we had and then i

look at the issues that we’re having

today

it reminds me that we do need to come

together

for unification and for goals greater

than ourselves

and the moon can do that the moon does

not discriminate

it’s here every day for all of us to see

it’s here for all of us to enjoy it’s

earth’s

satellite some people even believe it

was part of earth at one time

and we want to find out more

and so it’s time we are going to the

moon

we have the materials we are ready

it is time for the artemis generation

you

and i and everyone alive

are the artemis generation and we are

going to the moon are you in

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you