Chapter 1: What fundamental questions about America are explored in this episode?
Americans are divided at fundamental questions about our country. Who's an American? That was at issue at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices considered the constitutionality of birthright citizenship. Another question, what is America's role in the world? President Trump weighs in on that Wednesday night in an Oval Office address on what comes next in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
But there's a mission that historically has soared above those disagreements, one that has captured our collective imagination for generations.
Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said because it is there. Well, space is there. And we're going to climb it. And the moon and the planets are there. And new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.
And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
That's President John F. Kennedy talking about the U.S. effort to get to the moon in September 1962. That goal would be realized just shy of seven years later, on July 20th, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.
That's one small step for man, one...
With Artemis II, American astronauts take a giant leap forward in the effort to return to the moon. Consider this. The quest to reach the moon has always been a key part of the American myth. And so has the country's embrace of immigrants and its vision of itself as a defender of democracy around the world. On a day all three are in play, we will meet the crew headed out toward the moon.
From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.
Support for this podcast and the following message come from Rivian, makers of the all-electric three-row R1S SUV and the always capable R1T pickup. With impressive range, storage for any expedition, and technology that feels like second nature, Rivian vehicles are designed for those who seek to explore the planet and preserve it for generations to come.
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Chapter 2: How did President Kennedy's vision influence the moon mission?
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It's Consider This from NPR. Four people are about to make world and lunar history. The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission will be lifting off on a 10-day mission that will take them off planet Earth, beyond orbit. It will take them all the way to the moon. They'll fly around it and back, becoming the first people to do so in more than half a century. It's a big moment for NASA.
Two summers ago, I visited the crew at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I wanted to get a sense of what it is like to prepare for the mission.
Actually kneel down, kind of facing the ground.
Captain Reid Wiseman guided me as I awkwardly crouched down, trying not to bang my head and trying... to figure out how to wedge myself into the front of the training mock-up of an Orion space capsule. We have to teach you how to do this like an astronaut. Okay, and now you just kind of start rolling your weight. Don't scratch your watch. Yep, and now your feet come up and over. Yes, perfect.
It should be said he was much more smooth about making his way into the tiny space in the training capsule. Situated on our backs, we could see through four port windows when we craned our necks up. And looking straight forward, we were flush against a complicated panel of screens, knobs, and switches, some of which they hope they will never need to touch.
In general, the switches are not intended to be used if everything is going well. These switches are last-ditch efforts. Like for here, this is main parachute deploy. So if we are in a really bad day and our main parachute does not deploy, moving this switch will send an electrical signal from the battery directly to the employment The screens display dense lines of flight data.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Artemis II mission?
The other day we figured out where we might all hang our sleeping bags. One person will be bat-like and hang in kind of from, to describe it, in the top part of what you can imagine the capsule shape is, there's a little bit of a little pop-up, a tunnel. And so that will be where they hang either feet up or head up.
And then the other folks are kind of being more like what you might consider horizontal with what is the bigger base of the capsule or the floor kind of.
That seems like the coolest spot.
That's what I'm saying.
I like how Christina didn't identify that she has already declared that spot hers, but we know that is her spot. Along with Glover, Cook, and Wiseman, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen rounds out the crew. They've been preparing since April 2023, spending hundreds of hours in this mock-up capsule and other simulators.
Every time you push a button, you take that split second before you push that button to think, what is this button about to do to this vehicle? And where am I going to be after I push that button? And that is a huge challenge to think through all of that. Artemis II is effectively a test flight.
If anything goes wrong for the Artemis crew between the Earth and the Moon, resources, the forces of gravity, and just sheer distance from everybody else makes the contingency plan very different.
There isn't this kind of backup system because they're going to be very far away.
That's Morbid Jaw, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at UT Austin.
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