Nell Greenfield Boyce

Fingers crossed.

So this is the first flight of the Orion capsule with a crew on board.

So this is a chance for them to test out this vehicle with people on board.

And that means testing everything from life support to, you know, even the toilet.

This is going to be the first toilet to go around the moon, which is pretty exciting.

I think so.

Once they get into space, the Orion capsule separates from the upper stage of the rocket and they spend a while kind of doing maneuvers around that upper stage of the rocket to kind of practice what it would be like to have the Orion capsule doing rendezvous, doing maneuvers.

Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of thing they're going to need to do in the future as they plan more ambitious moon missions.

And so if everything goes well, and it's maneuvering well, and the life support systems are good, and the navigation and everything, then, you know, they could decide...

whether they're going to go to the moon.

Okay.

So that comes about one day into the mission.

Okay.

And if everything looks good, they'll do what's called the translunar injection burn, which is just a fancy way of saying their propulsion system is going to send them out on this path

that takes them on a figure eight around the moon.

And if they go, it'll take them about four days to get out there.

It's a distance of over 230,000 miles.

Well, not that close.

Okay.

So depending on when they launch and everything, I mean, it's going to be about 4,000 to 6,000 miles away from the moon.