Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Artemis II launch?
Folks, we are live at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral for the launch of the Artemis II rocket, which means that this is the first time that we have sent a man to the moon in 53 years, or depending on your perspective, ever.
As the NASA director speculates on extraterrestrial life and a former member of Congress swears to have been briefed about alien-human hybrid breeding programs here on Earth, the Artemis program stands to restore some much-needed certainty into our knowledge of the cosmos and our confidence in our nation. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show.
We are 16 minutes away from the opening of the official launch window when the Artemis II rocket could go up on its journey around the moon. It could happen whenever. It could happen exactly in 15 minutes and 51 seconds. It could happen two hours from now. We don't know, but I am here. I am actually as close as it is physically possible to be and not be a member of the crew of Artemis.
So we'll see it. We'll hear it. I'm told we will feel it as the earth shakes. We will also be joined by Bill Whittle, host of Apollo 11, what we saw on Daily Wire Plus. You should all go watch that excellent show.
Chapter 2: How does the Artemis program impact our understanding of space exploration?
Bill has a scarily encyclopedic knowledge of all things having to do with NASA and Apollo. We also have Matt Walsh. who believes in aliens and might be an alien. We will have him here. He's also very excited. And we have you. So we have a live chat only for the creme de la creme. You have to be a member of Daily Wire Plus. For all of you, hoi polloi on YouTube. You know I love you.
I love you very much. But you need to join Daily Wire Plus in order to chat with us. There's a lot to get to. about this mission, about past missions, about the fact that a lot of Americans, especially younger Americans, don't buy that we went to the moon ever. And the skepticism that we went to the moon is increasing.
And people that I love, people I'm very close to, I'm not going to say who, but even said to me this morning, he said, Hey, Matt, can you find out from NASA if we actually went to the moon? I'm not going to tell you who said that to me, but we'll get into that. First, I want to tell you about Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Go to AveMariaMutualFunds.com slash Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L.
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Chapter 3: What are the main features of the Artemis II mission?
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This is the first manned mission to leave low Earth orbit since 1972. That was Apollo 17. This was the 11th crewed mission of the Apollo program. Now, we have sent objects outside of low Earth orbit. Artemis 2 follows Artemis 1 just a few years ago. It was in 2022. That obviously did not have a crew. And so this is really big. These astronauts will not be landing on the moon.
But the whole point of this is to prepare another another, I believe, opinions may vary, land mission and onto the moon. Because what President Trump has said, what NASA has said is that we're going to go back to the moon and we're not going to leave this time. We're not just going to go and take science experiments, take photos. There were six manned missions to the moon.
By the end of it, they were playing golf. They were driving little dune buggies around the moon. I don't know, they ran out of things to do and then we stopped going. 12 astronauts have landed on the moon already.
This will be a little more politically significant because the United States, just as we were in a space race with the Soviet Union back in the 20th century, now we're in another space race with China. And so we want to claim the territory on the moon because even though the moon is pretty big, The territory that you would actually want to establish a base on is relatively small.
And so what NASA wants to do is not just have these launches occur every few years. They want Artemis launches every 10 months. And they want to send people to the moon. They want to have people staying on the moon just as people will stay 100 days, 200 days, 300 days in the International Space Station. So, too, they want to do this on the moon. So what is happening on this mission?
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Chapter 4: Why do some Americans doubt the moon landing?
And what more needs to be said on that? So these are our brave, intrepid astronauts who are heading up. I believe they've held the clock, if I'm not mistaken. They've held the clock at 10 minutes. That means we are preparing. That means I didn't come down to Cape Canaveral for nothing. So obviously everyone on the edge of their seat.
In the meantime, this gives us an opportunity to think about what this means. Why are we doing this? The first thing you think about is the technical majesty of the whole thing. Wow, isn't it cool that they can make the rocket ship go up?
I was standing next to one of the engines earlier, one of the engines that they've used on these kinds of missions, and the thing that struck me so much about it is that it just looks like an engine. I don't know, I expected it to look different, but it just looks like a car engine, but a lot bigger. It's still kind of greasy and weird and complicated and oily.
Anyway, so the technical marvels are really, really amazing. Then the next level is the, I don't know, the political dimension. Why are we spending so much money on this? This thing's going to cost $40 billion or more. Why are we spending money? What's the point of this? And then there's the deeper perspective, which is the religious dimension. What does this mean?
Why are we doing, is it good to do this? Is this going out and exploring God's creation? Is this something God would like? Is this an affront to God? Are we trying to build a tower to Babel here? I was joking a little bit off the top about the large and growing number of people who don't think that we went to the moon in the first place. And a lot of people have religious objections.
They say, among this relatively modest set of people, but growing, they'll say, well, no, this is a little too much. This is Promethean, this is demonic. This is man trying to expand beyond his natural limits.
And my point, regardless of whether or not you've even considered the religious perspective, is that the traditional view from the religious authorities in our civilization is that space exploration is very cool. It's very pro. This goes back not just 50 or 60 years, this goes back centuries. This goes back 500 years at least. You think of Pope Gregory XIII.
Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Coincidental that they had the same name as him. In 1582, in accordance with astronomical observations. The church has been observing the stars, has had astronomers, has had observatories for hundreds and hundreds of years, going back at least to the 18th century.
And the Vatican, the church, has worked with NASA, in fact. And I think the clearest justification at a very deep level for what this all means, why are we doing it, Are we doing it to go get minerals off the moon? Are we doing it to stick it to China just like we stuck it to the Soviet Union? Why are we doing it?
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Chapter 5: What are the differences between the Artemis and Apollo missions?
That would be, I think, the most, I mean, it would be the most consequential discovery in human history. Nah.
Look, far be it from me to question the NASA administrator, who is doing a great job. I mean, here we are. I have heard people saying that this NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, has done more to accelerate and make more efficient this agency in 12 months than previous administrators did in many, many years.
This is all very exciting, and I'm sure he's very good at running the agency, but he's totally wrong on the aliens. I just don't buy it, because the argument, the argument, of course, always is, but the universe is so big. Are we counting down? Here we go, baby. We're counting down. The window is open. We had bets among the Michael Knowles Show team. We said, when is this countdown gonna start?
And I was, and I have to say, the man who I borrowed these glasses from, Nick, We were very much on team. They are going to start this countdown immediately when the window opens. And Mr. Davies is going to owe us a bunch of drinks later tonight because he bet that it was going to take much longer. Anyway, this is very exciting. It's all about to take off.
And it gives us just enough time to point out that the NASA administrator is totally wrong on aliens. Not only is he the administrator of NASA, but he's also a commercial astronaut himself. So I know, look, I know he's got more hands-on experience. But the argument... that the cosmos is so big, therefore, statistically, there must be some aliens somewhere. That doesn't really hold water.
Because in order to ascertain the probability of something, what needs to be done is you need to know something about how that thing comes to be in the first place. And when it comes to the natural origins of life, we don't have anything. We just don't have it. So anyway, we'll find out. Who knows?
Maybe when the NASA astronauts are on that other side of the moon and they're going to see parts of the moon that other astronauts have never been able to see before, maybe they'll see a little green man or a little gray man. But until then, I'm not really buying it. Many, many people hold the view that the NASA administrator does, including people like C.S.
Lewis and a lot of people, including people even like Matt Walsh. Another political figure has taken the alien talk a little further. That would include former Congressman Matt Gaetz, who just claimed that the military is breeding aliens with humans to create a hybrid race of little greenish men.
I think the most important information will be the biologics that are not human that have been discovered. And even some of the briefings that aren't classified just need to be out in the public. I mean, I had someone come and brief me who was in a military uniform, worked for the United States Army, that was briefing me on the locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens live.
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Chapter 6: How does the Artemis program relate to U.S. global leadership?
So when you look at Americans ages 50 and under, Americans 50 and under are three times as likely as other Americans to think that the moon landing was fake. You look at Americans 34 and under, that number jumps to six times as likely. Why? Why is it? Well, one, because of the prejudices and temptations of presentism. You see this in all of politics. We just think that we're the best.
We think we're the best. And so we think that we're much more moral than anybody who came before us. That's why we topple statues. That's why we tear down people like Thomas Jefferson, because he owned slaves. We kill 70 million babies a year, but no, forget about that. We're good. We're the most moral people ever. But Thomas Jefferson owns life, so we're much better than he is.
We think we're smarter. We say, look, I have this little device right here. Look at this. I have this little portal to hell in my pocket, this magical little device. And so, therefore, I know more than anybody who came before me. I know more than Thomas Aquinas. I know more than Aristotle. I know more than Julius Caesar. I know more than everybody, more than Cicero, because I...
can access information. Now, I don't actually know more than any of those people, but we flatter ourselves that way. And so I think that's what's going on with the moon landing stuff. And what's going on here in T minus two minutes and 51 seconds is that we're going to get a little injection of certainty. That's the point here, I think.
I don't really blame people for thinking we didn't go to the moon. I'm going to confess something. Can I be honest here, even though I'm on federal property? I've wondered myself. In fact, there was one time not that long ago, I come home to sweet little Elisa, and I say, we didn't go to the moon. She said, why, Mac?
And I said, we didn't go to the moon because I saw someone sent me a link to some bootlegged documentary from 20 years ago or something in which it proves we didn't go to the moon. She said, what? And I already watched it. We watched it again. I finished watching it the first time with her. I said, see, we didn't go to the moon. She was a little more skeptical.
And then I said, let's watch it again. I went back to the beginning to show it to her again. By the time I got through the second time, I said, oh, wait a minute. We did go to the moon. In two minutes, we're going to get a lot more certainty. I don't blame people, especially because we haven't done it within living memory for a ton of Americans.
The argument that I always found most persuasive as to why we didn't fake the moon landing is that the Soviet Union would never have let us get away from it, get away with it. or get away from the hoax of it all. You know, we were in a very serious Cold War, and the whole reason that we had the space program was because of the space race against the Soviet Union.
Don't you think... I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy. I think it's a sign of an active mind. But don't you think that had we actually faked it, the Soviet Union might have called us out for it? The Soviet Union would regularly lie about us to make us look bad. You don't think they would tell the truth to make us look bad?
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Chapter 7: What role does private industry play in space exploration?
America is the best, and it's not even close. So true. Brady K, I finally made it to a live with Michael. What was for breakfast this morning? The important questions. What was for breakfast? I actually had a nice little Eggs Benedict at the hotel. That's my move when I go to a hotel. Because even cheap hotels have Eggs Benedict a lot of the time. Okay. Bring on Bill, he's so great.
Yes, I'm very excited. Mission Control Nashville will tell me when we have Bill on. My boys are thrilled that Knowles is visiting our town. Oh, are you here? You're here over by Cape Canaveral? Very cool. I watched a rocket launch from an oil rig once. It was blindingly bright. Truly amazing. Ice shield will get hit soon, says Spiegels. Well, that's the question, yeah.
When will the rocket just hit the firmament, the ice shield firmament? That we don't know. We're going to find that out momentarily, I'm sure. Houston has them. There we go. I love being American. Whoa, Isabelle Brown coming in hot. Where's Isabelle Brown? Do we have Isabelle Brown coming in, too? I don't know. I don't know where that's coming in. Leave those glasses on all week?
Yeah, I don't know about that. This is the kind of greatness that we voted to bring back. Yeah, I think this is true. I think this is what a lot of Americans have been missing for a while. I came up in politics during the Tea Party era when everyone just said, we need to spend less money and do less stuff and whatever. We just need the smallest government possible. It's very libertarian toned.
And then Trump comes around and he says, no, I want to be big and great. I don't want to spend less money. I want to make more money. I want to be richer. I want to be bigger. But I want to spend more money. And I want to go to the moon. I want to stay on the moon. And I want to build a Trump casino on the moon. And I want us to be big and American. Okay.
To celebrate this, we have our friend Bill Whittle, the host of What We Saw, Apollo 11. Bill, do we have you? You got me, Michael. How are you? I don't have you. Yes, okay, I do. There's a slight delay. You know, the way that our control room is set up in Nashville, I think probably the astronauts can speak to Houston faster than I can speak to you. Bill, I'm just going to throw this out there.
I just watched that rocket ship take off. So I am now... pretty confident that we actually do go to outer space. One in 10 Americans say we never went to the moon. One in five say they're not sure. One in four millennials say we never went to the moon. People under 50 are three times as likely to say we didn't go. People under 34, six times as likely. Did we go to the moon, Bill?
Yeah, we sure enough did, Michael. And the reason, as we mentioned in the incredible work that you guys did for me and with me on Apollo 11, what we saw is that the moon landing is presented to the public as something that just parachuted in out of space. Like we just decided we got up, we woke up, built a rocket, and we went and then we came back.
But the thing that they're missing is the context of all of the years prior to the Apollo 11 launch. We were going to the moon every three months before we landed on the moon. We went to the moon in December of 1968. We were flying Apollo missions every three or four months.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of potential extraterrestrial life?
the point where all of this social pressure and expectation and hope and pride had reached its pinnacle when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. And after that was over,
people started saying okay well what's next it's an unfortunate reality that the twenty or thirty years of the space shuttle program ran the space shuttle didn't fundamentally go anywhere different than john blended on on of friendship seven you know nineteen sixty one or sixty two we just want in circles around the earth again and again we didn't lose the technology we lost the will and the determination
And seeing this mission finally clear the pad is a long overdue step in that direction.
Okay, so then what is to say that we won't lose the political will now? You know, I think this Artemis program is, what, $40 billion or more? You still hear the same things from people focused on domestic issues, which is, you know, we need to rebuild here, you know? But often they'll make the point on foreign policy.
They say, we don't want to spend money in the Middle East when we could be spending that money here in America. Well, I bet they can multiply that argument by a hundred or a thousand where they say, we don't need to spend money on this rock circling the earth. We can spend that money here in America. I, for one, am very much in favor of a robust space program. I'm in favor of American greatness.
You know, I'm not one of these ideologues who just wants to shrink everything. But what makes you think that the Americans won't lose the political will again?
Well, just to answer the second part of your statement first, we spend half of our budget every year on social programs. It's not like we don't spend any money here on Earth. We spend $2 trillion a year on Earth, on our citizens. The space budget is a fraction, 1% I think, of the total federal budget. So the question now is, what's different about today's world versus the 1960s?
And I'll be perfectly frank with you, Michael. If it were up to NASA and Artemis, I would not have any faith that we are going back there because the first space race was a political objective. It was a chance to beat the Soviets in the Cold War using Cold War weapon systems.
This is the thing that most people don't really realize, but the Apollo program was using ballistic missile technology, computer technology, radar tracking, all of these things. And so once we proved that we were better than the godless commies, then the essential purpose of Apollo went away. The hope for the future is with companies like SpaceX because SpaceX is doing it for profit.
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