Belinda Smith

Now a question from Killian, who's aged eight, and he asks, why did they bother building Artemis when they already had the Saturn V rocket?

And also the Space Launch System is lighter and it produces more thrust, so it's more powerful by weight than what the Saturn V rocket was.

Slightly smaller as well.

More bang for your buck.

Okay, and a question now from Robert, and this is a fun one.

In one of the earlier episodes, you mentioned that moon launches are aimed to where the moon will be by the time it gets there.

Can we also send a vehicle across the solar system to meet the Earth in six months' time on the other side of the sun?

And finally, we've got this great question from Amber, and she wrote in with, Recently, I was sharing my excitement with a friend who surprised me by being slightly doubtful about the whole mission.

He didn't go as far as saying he doesn't believe we have landed on the moon.

However, he couldn't understand why we have taken so long to go back again, especially considering the huge progress that's occurred with technology over the past 50 years.

It was, you know, pretty soon after the Apollo missions that people kind of lost interest in going to the moon.

People didn't turn out for space launches anymore.

Yeah.

It was just another, oh, another mission.

Yeah, a whole new generation of astronauts.

And we love all of them.

And they've written in with so many amazing questions and we've loved hearing them all.

Thank you so, so much for being so generous with your curious minds.

And if you're going through space withdrawals, I mean, you might have to wait till mid-next year before you get any more Artemis updates, we really recommend scrolling back in the Science Friction feed and giving the Challenger Legacy a listen.

Just a warning, though, it might not be suitable for kiddos.