'Hey, Let's Go to the Moon' — Artemis II Launch Day

0:00 Speaker 1: Wherever you are in the world right now, whether you're

0:03 Speaker 1: waking up to launch day in North America, into the

0:06 Speaker 1: thick of it in Europe, or winding down your evening

0:09 Speaker 1: in Australia. Today is the day. After years of delays, setbacks,

0:15 Speaker 1: hydrogen leaks and hard won fixes, four astronauts are counting

0:19 Speaker 1: down to humanity's most ambitious journey in over half a century. Tonight, Florida,

0:25 Speaker 1: time they go to the Moon.

0:28 Speaker 2: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily guide to everything happening

0:32 Speaker 2: in space, from our cosmic backyard to the edge of

0:34 Speaker 2: the universe. I'm Avery and I'm Anna.

0:38 Speaker 1: On today's episode, we count down to the Artemis two

0:41 Speaker 1: launch with everything you need to know before tonight's historic liftoff,

0:46 Speaker 1: a sunngrazing commet faces its moment of truth just days

0:49 Speaker 1: from now. Astronomers raise the alarm as plans for one

0:53 Speaker 1: million new satellites threaten the night sky, the Interstellar Visitor

0:58 Speaker 1: three iatl US leaves its legacy, and more. Let's dive in.

1:04 Speaker 2: As we record this episode, the clock at Kennedy Space

1:06 Speaker 2: Center in Florida is taking toward one of the most

1:09 Speaker 2: significant human space flight events in decades. Tonight at six

1:13 Speaker 2: twenty four pm Eastern daylight time, which is early Thursday

1:17 Speaker 2: morning for listeners in Australia. NASA's Artemis to mission is

1:21 Speaker 2: targeting liftoff, and if that goes ahead as planned, four

1:25 Speaker 2: astronauts will be on their way to the Moon for

1:27 Speaker 2: the first time since Apollo seventeen in December nineteen seventy two.

1:32 Speaker 1: That's fifty four years avery fifty four years since a

1:36 Speaker 1: human being has ventured beyond low Earth orbit, and tonight,

1:40 Speaker 1: barring any last minute technical issues or a change in

1:44 Speaker 1: the weather that changes the mission has an eighty percent

1:48 Speaker 1: chance of favorable weather conditions. The US Space Force's forty

1:52 Speaker 1: fifth Weather Squadron has been tracking the Florida skies closely,

1:56 Speaker 1: with cumulus clouds and ground winds as the primary concerns,

2:00 Speaker 1: but conditions are looking good.

2:02 Speaker 2: The crew is extraordinary. Commander Read Weisman leads the mission.

2:07 Speaker 2: Victor Glover is the pilot and he'll make history as

2:10 Speaker 2: the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

2:13 Speaker 2: Mission specialist Christina Coach will become the first woman, and

2:18 Speaker 2: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first non American,

2:22 Speaker 2: rounds out the crew. These are four of humanity's best,

2:26 Speaker 2: and they carry the hopes of the entire planet on

2:29 Speaker 2: their shoulders.

2:30 Speaker 1: So what actually happens tonight? The Space Launch System or

2:34 Speaker 1: SLS is the most powerful operational rocket NASA has ever built.

2:39 Speaker 1: At liftoff, it generates nearly nine million pounds of thrust,

2:44 Speaker 1: accelerating the Orion spacecraft and its crew to around five

2:47 Speaker 1: miles per second in just eight minutes. After reaching space,

2:52 Speaker 1: the crew won't head straight for the Moon. Instead, they'll

2:55 Speaker 1: spend their first twenty four hours in a high Earth orbit,

2:59 Speaker 1: a safety five first approach that gives them time to

3:01 Speaker 1: verify that Orion's life support systems are working perfectly. Can

3:05 Speaker 1: this spacecraft scrub carbon dioxide? Can they drink water? All

3:10 Speaker 1: of that gets checked before they commit to the lunar coast.

3:13 Speaker 2: During that first day, pilot Victor Glover will also manually

3:17 Speaker 2: fly Oryan close to the upper stage of the rocket,

3:21 Speaker 2: a proximity operations demonstration that rehearses the delicate maneuvering future

3:26 Speaker 2: missions will need for docking with space stations or the

3:29 Speaker 2: space Axe Linar Lander. Assuming all systems check out, the

3:33 Speaker 2: crew will then fire Orion's main engine about twenty five

3:36 Speaker 2: hours after launch, a six minute burn that boosts their

3:39 Speaker 2: speed by around nine hundred miles per hour and pushes

3:42 Speaker 2: them out of Earth orbit, beginning a four day coast

3:45 Speaker 2: to the Moon.

3:46 Speaker 1: On flight day six, Orion will reach its farthest point

3:50 Speaker 1: from Earth, sailing some five thousand miles beyond the Moon itself.

3:55 Speaker 1: That will shatter Apollo thirteen's distance record from nineteen seventy,

4:00 Speaker 1: making this crew the most remote human travelers in history.

4:04 Speaker 1: And here's something remarkable. Because of the timing of this

4:08 Speaker 1: April first launch, roughly twenty one percent of the lunar

4:12 Speaker 1: farside will be in sunlight as they swing around the Moon.

4:17 Speaker 1: Some of those regions have literally never been seen by

4:20 Speaker 1: human eyes, and a coach and her crewmates will be

4:24 Speaker 1: at the windows with cameras capturing views of the Moon

4:27 Speaker 1: that no person has ever witnessed.

4:30 Speaker 2: The mission lasts ten days in total, with splashdown planned

4:34 Speaker 2: off the coast of San Diego on April tenth. For

4:37 Speaker 2: our listeners tuning in from the US, the launch window

4:40 Speaker 2: opens tonight at six twenty four pm Eastern and stays

4:44 Speaker 2: open for two hours, so there's time to find your spot.

4:47 Speaker 2: For our UK and European listeners, that's eleven twenty four

4:51 Speaker 2: pm BST, and for our Australian and New Zealand audience,

4:55 Speaker 2: set your alarm for nine to twenty four Australian Eastern

4:59 Speaker 2: daylight time Thursday morning. NASA's full coverage is streaming on

5:03 Speaker 2: NASA Plus, YouTube and Amazon Prime from seven forty five

5:07 Speaker 2: am Eastern tonight. This is not one to sleep through.

5:11 Speaker 1: There's something Commander Reid Wiseman said when the crew arrived

5:14 Speaker 1: at Kennedy Space Center last week that really captures the

5:18 Speaker 1: moment he stepped off the plane, looked at the reporters

5:21 Speaker 1: gathered there, and simply said, Hey, let's go to the Moon.

5:25 Speaker 1: That's the spirit of this mission. After years of delays,

5:28 Speaker 1: technical setbacks, and the quiet determination of thousands of engineers

5:33 Speaker 1: and scientists, tonight we go back.

5:35 Speaker 2: Well, all eyes are on Artemis two tonight. There's another

5:38 Speaker 2: dramatic cosmic event unfolding just days away, one that's been

5:42 Speaker 2: building since January. Comet C twenty twenty six a one

5:46 Speaker 2: known as Maps, is a sungrazing comet that will reach Perihelion,

5:51 Speaker 2: its closest point to the Sun, on April fourth. And

5:54 Speaker 2: when we say close, we mean terrifyingly close, just one

5:58 Speaker 2: hundred and sixty thousand kilometers above the Sun's surface. That's

6:02 Speaker 2: less than half the distance from Earth to the Moon.

6:05 Speaker 1: Maps belongs to the Krutz family of comments, a group

6:08 Speaker 1: of sungrazers, all believed to be fragments of one enormous

6:11 Speaker 1: parent comet that shattered centuries ago. The most famous member

6:15 Speaker 1: of this family was comet ike Ya Seki in nineteen

6:18 Speaker 1: sixty five, which briefly outshone the full Moon in daylight.

6:22 Speaker 1: Maps was discovered back in January at the AMACS One

6:26 Speaker 1: Observatory in the Autocoma Desert in Chile, and what immediately

6:30 Speaker 1: excited astronomers was just how far from the Sun it

6:34 Speaker 1: was when they found it. Most cruit sungrazers are only

6:37 Speaker 1: spotted days before perihelion. Maps was discovered eighty one days out,

6:43 Speaker 1: a record for this comet family.

6:45 Speaker 2: The James web telscope has already observed it, estimating a

6:48 Speaker 2: nucleus roughly four hundred meters across, comparable to Comet Lovejoy,

6:53 Speaker 2: which famously survived its own solar encounter in twenty eleven

6:57 Speaker 2: against all expectations. And that's the critical question hanging over

7:01 Speaker 2: Maps right now. Will it survive. The Sun's corona is

7:05 Speaker 2: a brutal environment extreme heat, tidal forces, and radiation pressure

7:09 Speaker 2: that can shred a comet nucleus apart. Most cruds comments

7:13 Speaker 2: simply disintegrate, but some don't.

7:15 Speaker 1: If Maps holds together, models suggest it could briefly brighten

7:19 Speaker 1: to magnitude minus five to minus ten, potentially visible in

7:24 Speaker 1: broad daylight near the Sun. Even if it breaks apart,

7:27 Speaker 1: observers may still see a dramatic headless wonder a glowing

7:32 Speaker 1: tail persisting in the sky after the nucleus is gone.

7:35 Speaker 1: For our Southern Hemisphere listeners in Australia and New Zealand,

7:39 Speaker 1: you've had the best seats in the house over the

7:41 Speaker 1: past few weeks as Maps has been well placed in

7:44 Speaker 1: your evening sky. The comment is currently entering Soho's field

7:47 Speaker 1: of view, and from April seventh, if it survives, it

7:51 Speaker 1: may reappear in the post sunset sky with a dramatic tail.

7:55 Speaker 1: Fingers crossed.

7:56 Speaker 2: We'll have a full update on Comet Maps in tomorrow's

7:59 Speaker 2: episode one, once we know what happened at Perihelion. For now,

8:02 Speaker 2: the cosmic drama is about to.

8:04 Speaker 1: Peak, from the inspiring to the deeply concerning and This

8:08 Speaker 1: is a story that should matter to every person who

8:11 Speaker 1: has ever looked up at the night sky. Two extraordinary

8:15 Speaker 1: proposals are currently sitting before the US Federal Communications Commission

8:20 Speaker 1: the FCC that could fundamentally and permanently alter the appearance

8:25 Speaker 1: of our skies, and astronomers around the world are sounding

8:28 Speaker 1: the alarm.

8:29 Speaker 2: The first proposal is from SpaceX, which has applied to

8:33 Speaker 2: launch one million satellites You heard that right, one million

8:37 Speaker 2: into low Earth orbits as AI data centers in space.

8:41 Speaker 2: The second comes from a startup called reflect Orbital, which

8:45 Speaker 2: wants to place fifty thousand mirror satellites in orbit, specifically

8:50 Speaker 2: designed to beam reflected sunlight back down to Earth. According

8:54 Speaker 2: to calculations from the Royal Astronomical Society, each of those

8:58 Speaker 2: mirror satellites would be four times brighter than the full

9:01 Speaker 2: Moon as seen from the ground, and the atmospheric scattering

9:05 Speaker 2: of that reflected light could make the entire night sky

9:08 Speaker 2: three to four times brighter than its natural state.

9:12 Speaker 1: The response from the scientific community has been swift and emphatic.

9:16 Speaker 1: The Royal Astronomical Society, the European Southern Observatory, and the

9:20 Speaker 1: International Astronomical Union have all filed formal objections with the FCC.

9:25 Speaker 1: A major study published in Nature found that if current

9:28 Speaker 1: Mega constellation proposals are completed, one third of all Hubble

9:32 Speaker 1: space telescope images would be contaminated by satellite trails. More alarming, still,

9:38 Speaker 1: over ninety six percent of exposures from future space observatories

9:42 Speaker 1: like NASA's Sphrix mission would be affected.

9:46 Speaker 2: This isn't just a problem for professional astronomers. Light pollution

9:49 Speaker 2: from satellites affect wildlife, disrupts bird migration patterns, collapses nocturnal ecosystems,

9:56 Speaker 2: and disconnects billions of people from one of humanity's oldest

9:59 Speaker 2: share experiences. Simply looking up at the stars. The night

10:04 Speaker 2: sky is a world heritage. As the Royal Astronomical Society

10:07 Speaker 2: put it, deploying more than one million bright satellites would,

10:11 Speaker 2: in their words, utterly destroy it.

10:15 Speaker 1: Both proposals are now closed to public comment, but the

10:17 Speaker 1: fight for protecting our skies is far from over. This

10:20 Speaker 1: is a story we'll be watching closely on Astronomy Daily.

10:24 Speaker 2: We followed the journey of interstellar Comet three i at

10:27 Speaker 2: lists closely throughout season five, from its discovery last July

10:31 Speaker 2: to its Parahelian passage in October, its close encounter with Mars,

10:35 Speaker 2: and its remarkable flyby of Jupiter just a few weeks ago. Now,

10:39 Speaker 2: as the comet exits our solar system for the last time,

10:43 Speaker 2: NASA has opened its complete archive of three Eye Atlas

10:46 Speaker 2: observations to the public. A treasure trove gathered by more

10:50 Speaker 2: than a dozen missions, the.

10:51 Speaker 1: Data is extraordinary. New findings from Alma the atacomma large

10:56 Speaker 1: millimeter array, reveal that three iye atlasts is quote bursting

11:01 Speaker 1: with methanol, far more than astronomers typically see in comments

11:05 Speaker 1: from our own solar system. That chemical fingerprint suggests the

11:09 Speaker 1: comment formed in a planetary system with very different physical

11:13 Speaker 1: conditions polder temperatures, a different chemical inventory around a star

11:19 Speaker 1: we may never identify. As lead researcher Nathan Roth of

11:23 Speaker 1: American University put it, observing three I Atlas is like

11:28 Speaker 1: taking a fingerprint from another solar system.

11:31 Speaker 2: Three I at Liss is only the third known interstellar

11:34 Speaker 2: object ever detected passing through our Solar system, following Umuamua

11:38 Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen and Borisov in twenty nineteen, but it's

11:42 Speaker 2: been observed by more spacecraft than any interstellar object in

11:46 Speaker 2: history Hubble, James Webb, Tess SPHEREx, Mavin, Parker Solar Probe, SOHO,

11:53 Speaker 2: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, even Perseverance paused its exploration of the

11:58 Speaker 2: Martian surface to photograph it. That fleet of eyes has

12:01 Speaker 2: produced a data set that scientists say will continue to

12:04 Speaker 2: yield discoveries for decades.

12:07 Speaker 1: The comet will reach the inner or cloud around the

12:09 Speaker 1: year twenty one eighty nine and the outer edge of

12:11 Speaker 1: the Oor cloud roughly eight thousand years from now, then

12:15 Speaker 1: drift on through the galaxy forever. We won't see it again,

12:18 Speaker 1: but what it's taught us will stay with us all.

12:20 Speaker 2: Right, moving on. It's called Earth's twin similar in size,

12:25 Speaker 2: similar in mass, and the closest planet to us in

12:28 Speaker 2: the Solar System. But Venus could hardly be more different

12:32 Speaker 2: from Earth. New science coverage this week digs into exactly

12:37 Speaker 2: what makes Venus so extreme, and the numbers are genuinely staggering.

12:42 Speaker 1: The surface of Venus bakes at an average of four

12:45 Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four degrees celsius, hot enough to melt lead.

12:50 Speaker 1: The atmospheric pressure on the surface is ninety two times

12:54 Speaker 1: that of Earth at sea level. Equivalent to being nearly

12:57 Speaker 1: a kilometer underwater. It's no wonder the longest any spacecraft

13:02 Speaker 1: has ever survived on the Venusian surface is just over

13:05 Speaker 1: two hours, achieved by the Soviet Venera probes in the

13:09 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties. The planet has crushed, melted, or

13:14 Speaker 1: fried everything we've ever sent there.

13:16 Speaker 2: Why does this matter right now? Because Venus is getting

13:20 Speaker 2: renewed scientific attention NASA's Da Vinci and Veritas missions, though

13:24 Speaker 2: Veritas face delays, represent a growing recognition that understanding Venus

13:30 Speaker 2: is critical to understanding why Earth turned out so differently.

13:34 Speaker 2: Two rocky worlds, similar starting conditions, yet one became a

13:38 Speaker 2: paradise for life and the other became a furnace. Unlocking

13:42 Speaker 2: that mystery could tell us an enormous amount about the

13:45 Speaker 2: habitability of planets across the galaxy and what to look

13:49 Speaker 2: for in our search for life beyond our Solar system.

13:52 Speaker 1: And, finally, a wonderfully elegant piece of lateral thinking from

13:56 Speaker 1: the world of planetary science. New research touggests that ordinary

14:01 Speaker 1: telecommunications grade optical fiber, the same technology that carries the

14:06 Speaker 1: Internet around the world, could be used to map the

14:09 Speaker 1: Moon's deep interior and identify its lava tubes.

14:12 Speaker 2: Two new journal papers propose deploying fiber optic cables across

14:16 Speaker 2: the lunar surface to detect seismic signals. Because optical fiber

14:21 Speaker 2: is exquisitely sensitive to stretching and bending, even at microscopic scales,

14:26 Speaker 2: it can act as a distributed sensor network, picking up

14:29 Speaker 2: moonquakes and the subtle reverberations that reveal what lies beneath.

14:34 Speaker 2: And what lies beneath matters enormously, not just for science,

14:37 Speaker 2: but for the future of human settlement. Lunar lava tubes,

14:41 Speaker 2: which could be enormous, potentially kilometers wide, might offer natural

14:46 Speaker 2: shelters for future astronauts shielded from radiation and temperature extremes.

14:51 Speaker 1: The beauty of this idea is its simplicity. Fiber optic

14:55 Speaker 1: cable is robust, lightweight, already mass produced and thoroughly understand.

15:00 Speaker 1: Using it for lunar seismology is a genuinely creative solution,

15:05 Speaker 1: applying Earth technology to one of the Moon's most fundamental

15:09 Speaker 1: scientific mysteries. Ahead of Artemis three and the planned lunar

15:13 Speaker 1: surface missions, this kind of thinking is exactly what the

15:16 Speaker 1: science needs, and.

15:18 Speaker 2: That's Astronomy Daily for Wednesday, April first. What a day

15:21 Speaker 2: to be alive and to be looking up. In a

15:24 Speaker 2: matter of hours, four human beings will either be on

15:27 Speaker 2: their way to the moon or the world will be

15:29 Speaker 2: holding its breath for the next attempt. Either way, the

15:32 Speaker 2: countdown is on and we'll have full Artemis to mission

15:35 Speaker 2: coverage intomorrow's episode.

15:37 Speaker 1: Watch the launch live on Nasaplus YouTube or Amazon Prime.

15:42 Speaker 1: Coverage starts at seven forty five am Eastern tonight. All

15:46 Speaker 1: story links and sources are in the show notes at

15:48 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily dot io. And if today's episode moved you,

15:53 Speaker 1: please share it because this is history and history deserves

15:57 Speaker 1: an audience.

15:58 Speaker 2: Keep looking up. We'll see you tomorrow. Start day. Star

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