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