0:49

Astronomycast, episode 753. Why is

0:51

the moon's South Pole

0:53

so important? Welcome to Astronomycast,

0:55

our weekly facts -based journey through the cosmos,

0:57

where we help you understand not only what

1:00

we know, but how we know what we

1:02

know. I'm Fraser Cain. I'm the publisher of

1:04

the universe today with me, as always, is

1:06

Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the

1:08

Planetary Science Institute, and the director of CosmoQuest.

1:10

Hey, Pamela, you doing? I am doing

1:12

well. We escaped tornadoes

1:14

yet again. It is that time of

1:16

year. And

1:19

yesterday was the second anniversary

1:21

of the first Starship launch

1:24

and it was super bittersweet

1:26

because it was just like

1:28

this this promised giant telescopes

1:30

in space and Artemis and

1:32

it's just so far behind

1:34

on its deadline and One

1:36

of the things I realized

1:39

you and I have said

1:41

many times is no longer

1:43

true Because when they

1:45

first started on Starlink, we talked

1:47

about how well with these giant

1:49

rockets, they will be able to just

1:51

launch 8 -meter telescopes, no big deal, all

1:53

the way into space. And

1:56

it turns out that

1:58

the LSST is 330

2:00

tons, and Starship will

2:02

only be able to launch to

2:04

Leo, 100 tons. And

2:06

so it's just sort of like, I have

2:08

sad. I had much sad. Oh,

2:10

they could slim down Virubin and,

2:13

you know. Put it because

2:15

it won't have to be in

2:17

space. I know so they

2:19

can probably make it work But

2:21

yeah, I mean like turns

2:23

out rocket science is hard turns

2:25

out this stuff takes longer

2:27

turns out having a CEO who

2:29

is busy doing other things

2:31

is Distracting for the the objectives

2:33

of the company. So yeah,

2:36

hopefully maybe this time next year

2:38

we will see orbital to reusable

2:40

two -stage rockets I'm

2:43

sure you've heard that all eyes are

2:45

on the moon's southern pole. This is

2:47

where various NASA and Chinese missions are

2:49

targeting. What makes this region so special?

2:51

And what are the special challenges that

2:53

explorers will face? And we'll talk

2:55

about it in a second, but it's time for a break. And

3:01

we're back. All right, the

3:04

moon, south pole, why? Water,

3:08

cold crabs, and...

3:11

of the things that came up last week, so

3:13

there's two different lighting conditions that are kind

3:15

of awesome, and we touched on this a bit

3:17

last week. So

3:19

there are places in the craters

3:21

that because of the angle that

3:23

sunlight always comes in, the sun

3:26

is just never at a high

3:28

enough angle to get far enough

3:30

into these craters to illuminate them.

3:32

These permanently shadowed regions act as

3:34

coal traps, which means that whenever

3:36

water molecules end up in the

3:38

super tenuous atmosphere

3:40

of the moon, they

3:43

settle back down and

3:45

then can form ice and

3:47

just accumulate inside these

3:49

coal traps. Now the other

3:51

side of this is, just as

3:53

the sun's angle never allows some of

3:55

these areas to get sunlight, I

3:58

made the mistake last week of

4:00

saying there were permanently eliminated areas. And

4:02

that's the wrong way to put it,

4:04

because if you have an object that's

4:06

like sticking up from the very tip

4:08

of the South Pole, It's going

4:10

to create its own shadow. So as

4:12

the sun goes around, there is no

4:14

point on this thing that is sticking

4:16

up that is always going to be

4:18

in sunlight. but you can

4:20

stick up solar panels that just

4:23

rotate over time from the very

4:25

top of the mountain. You can stick

4:27

up in teni that radiate

4:29

in all directions. So you

4:31

have these points that as the

4:33

moon turns can always get you

4:35

power and always get you communications.

4:38

Yeah, so we did some reporting

4:40

on this. about six months ago where

4:42

researchers looked at various spots on

4:44

the north and south pole of the

4:46

moon and tried to calculate what

4:48

are places that receive the maximum amount

4:50

of radiance and so typically if

4:52

you're at the equator of the moon

4:54

you're going to experience 14 days

4:56

of sunlight and 14 days of shadow

4:58

but if you get to the

5:00

poles of the moon depending on where

5:03

the moon is like remember the

5:05

moon is not perfectly aligned with the

5:07

earth's orbital plane

5:09

and the Earth's orbital plane is not

5:11

perfectly aligned with the Sun's orbital

5:13

plane. That's why we get eclipses that

5:15

sometimes the Moon is a little

5:17

higher than the Sun and other times

5:19

the Moon is a little lower

5:21

than the Sun from our perspective. And

5:23

so what that means is that

5:25

you don't get evenly, equally distributed sunlight

5:28

on the Moon, but you do

5:30

get places where it's down to six

5:32

hours of darkness. Throughout the

5:34

entire lunar month so it gets

5:36

very close close enough that you

5:38

could run off of battery for

5:40

the time that the that it's down

5:42

or Slightly move the position of

5:44

your solar collecting panels as you say

5:47

to try and keep in that

5:49

in that sunlight so It's you know,

5:51

there's no guaranteed place anybody's been

5:53

able to find but on the

5:55

flip side there are regions that

5:57

are in permanent shadow and there's

5:59

a lot of them and and what

6:01

is so awesome about this is

6:03

like I was talking about last

6:05

week, there's the thermal conditions and

6:08

one of the scary things about

6:10

being on another world is the

6:12

idea of not being able to

6:14

be in communications with Earth if

6:16

something goes wrong. And

6:18

so being able to

6:20

have that constant communications without

6:22

having to rely on

6:24

communication satellites without having to

6:26

build an entire communication

6:29

satellite network, that is all

6:31

just really, really

6:33

important. Yeah. So

6:35

let's talk about this, this water because

6:37

I mean, you say that there is

6:39

water ice there. So one, do we

6:41

know where it came from? Well,

6:44

I mean, we don't even know for

6:46

sure where the earth's water came from. So

6:48

just to be clear, this is one

6:50

of those things where I can tell you

6:52

things that we think about. Truth

6:56

may ultimately prove out

6:58

to be more or less

7:00

interesting. So in

7:02

general, you do have

7:04

bodies that contain water

7:06

smashed into the moon

7:08

periodically, comets, asteroids, chunks

7:11

off of either of these

7:13

objects. And when these

7:15

water -carrying things smash into

7:17

the surface of the moon,

7:20

no matter where on the

7:22

moon it is, you

7:24

end up with their moisture, their

7:27

water, their ices, their volatiles

7:29

getting mixed in. And

7:31

sometimes they get sent into the atmosphere

7:33

of the moon. Sometimes they get buried

7:35

and they're able to exist beneath the

7:37

surface of the moon. Hold on one

7:40

second. Before people send you emails about

7:42

there's no atmosphere on the moon. There

7:44

is an atmosphere on moon. It's super

7:46

tenuous. Yeah. This is what the Grail

7:48

mission existed. It was out there measuring

7:50

the super tenuous. It

7:52

is 10 to the

7:54

minus 6 bars. Yeah.

7:56

So it is dramatically

7:59

lower than than even Mars.

8:01

Mars is an ocean

8:03

of atmosphere compared to the

8:05

moon, but it exists. And

8:08

it is

8:10

sufficient. And when I'm

8:12

talking atmosphere, I'm talking about like

8:14

a few molecules to put this

8:16

more in perspective, a few molecules

8:18

of the volatiles that were in

8:21

whatever smashed into the moon. Right.

8:23

float up and then land somewhere

8:25

else. Right and so largely they

8:27

land somewhere and then the sunlight

8:29

evaporates them and they head off

8:31

into space but every now and

8:33

then they go down elsewhere. This

8:35

stuff lands in these permanently shadowed

8:37

craters on the moon and they

8:39

have a chance to join their

8:41

friends and they stay there. And

8:43

it's brownie in motion. Yeah

8:45

it's amazing though you think about

8:47

it like like if you give

8:50

any process billions of years to

8:52

be carried out, it's

8:54

amazing what can build up over time.

8:56

And so it could very well be,

8:58

as you said, that you've got these

9:01

objects crashing into the moon, just

9:03

individual particles of water are

9:05

finding their way to the

9:07

South Pole, and then they

9:09

are freezing in these craters.

9:11

And there is some thinking

9:13

that there are also probabilities

9:15

of like comet smashes into

9:17

moon, comet fragments end up

9:19

in permanently shadowed region when

9:21

they crash in and they

9:23

just live there forever. But

9:25

the probabilities of that is

9:27

much to be debated. And

9:30

there's another theory as well about the solar wind,

9:32

right? Yeah. So

9:34

you have The

9:36

solar wind carrying all sorts

9:38

of different particles and energy. And

9:41

when it hits the surface, it

9:43

can liberate particles and you get

9:45

hydrogen and oxygen liberated. There's a

9:47

chance that they can mix to

9:49

form water. And any

9:51

ice that's there can get liberated.

9:53

Right. Some research that

9:56

just came out like this week is

9:58

super fresh. haven't seen it. Sorry. Yeah.

10:00

So the gist is that people have

10:02

taken the solar wind. They've recreated or

10:04

simulated the solar wind in the lab.

10:06

They blasted lunar regolith with high velocity

10:08

simulated solar wind. And really, the solar

10:10

wind is just protons. Yeah. And

10:13

then other particles, mostly protons. and

10:15

so you smash the protons

10:17

as you said with enough energy

10:19

into the regolith, you get

10:21

the liberation of electrons which join

10:23

with the protons to create

10:25

hydrogen atoms and then they bond

10:27

with oxygen atoms that have

10:29

been liberated and this creates water

10:31

right in in situ right

10:33

on the spot and this is

10:35

a a reasonable explanation for

10:37

why people are even finding water

10:39

throughout the regolith on the

10:41

moon. It's just the sun is

10:43

constantly blasting with protons and

10:45

those protons are finding friends and

10:47

turning into water, which is

10:49

really cool. And before anyone asks

10:51

us, yes, when the moon

10:54

formed from the great splush of

10:56

proto -earth and thea colliding, that

10:58

splush of low density material

11:00

inevitably did include water, that

11:02

is part of the budget,

11:04

but it's not at the

11:06

surface necessarily. So yes, don't

11:08

at me. Okay. All

11:10

right. We're going to talk some

11:12

more about why this is so

11:14

important, but first it's time to

11:16

thank our sponsors. And

11:22

we're back. All right. So,

11:24

you know, we talked about water,

11:26

water, water, water and where it

11:28

came from and why it's there,

11:30

but why is water important for

11:32

lunar exploration? So it turns out

11:34

human beings need oxygen and we

11:36

need water. We are biological creatures. And

11:39

it also turns out there's

11:41

ways to process water and turn

11:43

it into fuel. So

11:45

you have the ability to create

11:47

fuel. You have the ability to

11:49

keep human beings alive. send

11:52

the robots, the robot overlords

11:54

will need fuel, send the

11:56

humans, the humans will need water

11:58

and oxygen, send boot, both, both are

12:00

happy. Right, like break up water,

12:02

turn it into hydrogen and oxygen, that's

12:05

rocket fuel. You've also got oxygen,

12:07

that's for breathing, you've got water, that's

12:09

for drinking, for growing

12:11

plants, and then also a

12:13

lot of the really interesting

12:15

institute resource utilization ideas for

12:17

harvesting material on the surface

12:19

of the moon. requires

12:22

large amounts of water. Yeah. And so

12:24

if you're going to try and process elements,

12:26

make titanium and stuff, you're going to

12:28

need a lot of water. And

12:31

this is where like Moon

12:33

is a Harsh Mistress is

12:35

a really cool book to

12:38

read because it talks about

12:40

the idea of mining these

12:42

resources and all of the

12:44

issues of If you start

12:46

exporting anything from the moon,

12:49

you're now permanently removing a

12:51

vital resource. So every time

12:53

we launch a rocket using

12:55

ice that is mined there,

12:57

every time they don't fully

13:00

recycle water and oxygen and

13:02

the of breathing, so

13:04

carbon dioxide, they

13:06

are Losing a

13:08

resource just like every time you

13:11

use a helium balloon on earth.

13:13

You're using up a resource. Yeah,

13:15

so it's just cool to think

13:17

that on the moon Water and

13:19

oxygen play a similar role to

13:21

helium on the surface of our

13:24

planet. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so we've

13:26

got this sense that you know,

13:28

this is why you want the

13:30

water and Still from the sun

13:32

and you've got potentially access to

13:34

to 24 seven power.

13:36

Yeah. And those two

13:39

come together to give

13:41

us a good place. So

13:43

who is currently planning to visit

13:46

the South Pole of the Moon?

13:49

Well, there

13:51

have been some attempts

13:53

that did not succeed entirely

13:55

well. Most

13:57

recently, we had one of the

14:00

clips missions, Odyssey. It

14:02

hit the South Pole and

14:04

skidded for a while and

14:06

then died a terrible death.

14:09

So there's it lying

14:12

there dead. We

14:14

also have Chandrayaan 3 that has

14:16

been more of a success landing

14:18

near the South Pole. That's part

14:20

of the Indian super successful. The

14:22

Chandrayaan missions are just sweet. I

14:25

mean, Chandrayaan 2 failed,

14:27

but 3 succeeded. Yeah.

14:31

And we're hoping to land

14:33

Artemis III there with

14:35

human beings. China

14:37

is, I have to admit, have they

14:39

gone or are they planning to go?

14:42

Well, China has landed a simple

14:44

return mission on the far

14:46

side of the Moon and they've

14:48

landed near the, not at

14:50

the South Pole, but closer

14:52

to the South Pole from

14:54

the equator. and on the

14:56

far side of the moon, and retrieved

14:58

samples back to Earth. But they are absolutely

15:00

planning on going to the south pole

15:03

of the moon. And the same reasons why

15:05

NASA is planning to do with the

15:07

Artemis missions. And one of

15:09

the super frustrating things

15:11

for a lot of

15:13

planetary scientists is the

15:15

Viper mission that was

15:17

previously the lunar resource,

15:19

I forgot the third

15:21

word, mission. So this

15:23

is something that's been under

15:25

development since around 2015 has changed

15:27

names along the way. It

15:29

is done. It is tested. It

15:31

is complete. It is ready to

15:33

go. It's flight to the moon

15:35

has been paid for. And they're

15:38

not sending it. Yeah. I mean,

15:40

now under the light of sort

15:42

of the current cuts that we're

15:44

looking at for science, I mean,

15:46

we may see Nancy Grace -Roman

15:48

get cut. We probably will see the

15:50

Mars sample return mission get cut, we're probably

15:52

gonna see. Literally everything

15:55

but HST. And all

15:57

of it, all of it. Yeah, Hubble

15:59

World's observatory, like, you know, it's gonna

16:01

be maintenance. And so these smaller missions, Viper,

16:05

Titan Dragonfly, well, because Titan Dragonfly is

16:07

not a smaller mission. But anyway,

16:09

these are all just collateral damage to

16:11

potential significant science cuts to NASA.

16:13

So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that

16:15

Viper might, you know,

16:17

I mean, it was already on

16:20

the chopping block even before we

16:22

saw the recent suggested proposed budget

16:24

cuts. I've

16:26

covered this over on Substack. Yes,

16:28

I need to move things off

16:30

Substack. And we've

16:32

covered this with Escape Velocity Space

16:34

News. We actually this week's episode

16:36

is going to be talking about

16:39

the human impacts of the president's

16:41

proposed cuts. I do have

16:43

to say though other nations are

16:45

really picking up and this is where

16:47

looking at what China and India

16:49

are doing is so cool. Japan's

16:52

ice space isn't aiming

16:54

towards the pole. It is

16:56

actually in June looking

16:58

to land mid -northern latitudes

17:00

like 60 -ish degrees north. But

17:04

if iSpace, which is doing

17:06

slow and systematic testing and

17:08

development, it's going to be on

17:10

its way as well. This is

17:12

the new Wild West. It's

17:14

now the Wild South, and

17:17

it's dominated by robots. And

17:19

I'm here for it. Now,

17:21

this is a completely separate

17:23

rabbit hole, but there was

17:25

a presentation at the 40th

17:27

Space Symposium where a company

17:29

that's working on isotope like

17:31

radioactive isotope thermoelectric generators, that

17:33

they're planning to install a

17:35

isotope on an upcoming ice

17:37

base mission to the moon,

17:40

which will keep it warm

17:42

through the dark, cold lunar

17:44

night. And so, yeah,

17:46

yeah. So you can see

17:48

ideas for how you could keep

17:50

these spacecraft warm and producing electricity

17:52

month after month after month, because

17:54

normally they die, right? Most of

17:57

these landers are dying. as

17:59

soon as night falls on the moon, but maybe there's

18:01

a way to continue further. All right, we're going

18:03

to continue this conversation about the south pole of the

18:05

moon, but it's time for another break. And

18:10

we're back. So OK,

18:12

so we've got an understanding

18:14

of why the moon is

18:16

important. We've got an understanding

18:19

of sort of what current

18:21

missions are there. So explain

18:23

what a future path might

18:25

be for a return to

18:27

the moon. and specifically

18:29

going to the South Pole. So

18:32

what we're looking at

18:34

is by robot or human

18:36

and most likely a

18:38

combination of both. I

18:40

first landing outside

18:42

of a crater someplace

18:44

sunny. If you want

18:46

to die, you land at the bottom

18:49

of a crater. So

18:51

land somewhere high up

18:53

like Firefly Aerospace did.

18:56

Get all those solar rays.

18:58

And then from your lander, the

19:00

next step that we're hoping

19:03

to be able to do, and

19:05

this is what makes that

19:07

failed odyssey and all of its

19:09

things on board so frustrating, is

19:11

they had on board a rover that was going to

19:13

go drive itself into

19:15

a permanently shadowed region and and

19:18

this is what we want to

19:20

do is first of all make

19:22

sure yes we can do this

19:24

yes we can navigate we can

19:26

not die because trying to get

19:28

auto driving cars going on the

19:30

planet earth is complicated enough and

19:32

they have headlights and roads and

19:34

all that sort of stuff so

19:36

now we're looking to drive a

19:38

rover on the moon into a

19:40

permanently shadowed crater So

19:43

we have to figure this one out, because

19:45

we send people. So that's

19:47

on the to -do list.

19:49

There's some really cool plans

19:51

where some programs have tethered

19:53

little guys, some companies

19:55

have big old rovers that look

19:57

more like something that you might

19:59

have built in high school and

20:01

raced around a track or from

20:03

junkyard wars. These

20:07

are our future, is figuring

20:09

out how do we navigate down

20:11

into craters that can have

20:13

angles of repose we can't even

20:16

imagine on the planet Earth.

20:18

This is the angle at which

20:20

soils, regular dirt, whatever the

20:22

stuff of the ground is made

20:24

of, are able to exist

20:26

at before they collapse in landslides.

20:28

Because the moon has significantly

20:30

lower gravity than our world, you

20:33

can end up with these

20:35

like kilometer deep. Sharp drop -offs.

20:37

Did you watch for all mankind

20:39

on Apple TV? So there's

20:41

I think it's in the second

20:43

season when they are building

20:45

bases on the moon. They've

20:48

got just an incredible description of this

20:50

and sort of showing how this would

20:52

work. They've got these, the Soviets and

20:54

the Americans have bases on the rim

20:56

of a crater in the South Policum

20:59

Basin. And the winch system. Yeah. And

21:01

they're having to winch down into these

21:03

incredibly steep craters that are in permanent

21:05

shadow and all the challenges go on

21:07

and all the political challenges between them.

21:09

It's just terrific. Yeah. And, you

21:11

know, if you really want to kind of wrap your

21:13

mind around that, I highly recommend for all mankind. Yeah.

21:17

Yeah, and and so we

21:19

need to figure out If

21:21

there's gonna be a whole

21:24

lot of infrastructure needed we

21:26

need to figure out just

21:28

how to consistently land So

21:30

all eyes are on these

21:32

clips teams on blue origin

21:34

with their blue moon We're

21:36

hoping Starship catches up at

21:38

some point and And this

21:40

is what's going to first

21:43

take our robot colleagues and

21:45

collaborators there and allow

21:47

them to build the infrastructure we

21:49

need, allow them to explore

21:51

safely, allow them to figure out

21:53

just what is possible. And

21:55

then both China and the United

21:57

States are hoping to put

22:00

a first transitory set of humans

22:02

on the moon and then

22:04

eventually build research stations there. Yeah.

22:07

So right now the the

22:10

Chinese have put six probes down onto

22:12

the surface of the moon. So Chang

22:14

'e is one through six. Yeah. Chang 'e

22:16

seven is the next one that's going

22:18

to be launching in 2026 and that

22:20

is going to the South Pole of

22:22

the moon and it is going to

22:24

have a suite of cool

22:27

stuff on board. So it's going to have a

22:29

rover. It's going to have a lander. It's

22:31

going to have a mini hopping probe

22:33

that is going to jump around on the

22:35

surface of the moon to demonstrate if

22:37

that's a really good way to do locomotion.

22:41

I don't think it's

22:43

going to do

22:45

a sample return. And

22:49

then the eighth The

22:53

eighth one, the eighth Changa, is going to

22:55

also go to the South Pole Moon and they're

22:57

going to be testing in -situ resource utilization. So

22:59

they're going to try to 3D

23:01

print material out of the regular.

23:03

It's going to scoop it up

23:06

and try to spit out Lego

23:08

bricks and things like that onto

23:10

the surface of the Moon. And

23:12

one of the really cool things,

23:14

the first time I saw this

23:16

research, it was out of a

23:18

University of Tennessee or Tennessee State,

23:20

I don't remember which research team,

23:22

where they figured out that if

23:24

you zot Lunar Regolith with the

23:26

correct wavelength of microwave light, it

23:28

solidifies. And

23:30

so you can start to

23:32

imagine that instead of

23:34

street cleaners that have brushes,

23:37

Making our roads you instead have

23:39

something with a microwave reflector

23:42

on the bottom that is just

23:44

going along and making the

23:46

roads as it drives and and

23:48

Controlling dust on the moon.

23:50

We cannot stress how important that's

23:52

going to be this stuff

23:55

is nasty and the more you

23:57

can solidify in dust -free regions

23:59

so that when things come

24:01

in for a landing, when someone

24:03

walks, all these just basic

24:06

you're trying to get from point

24:08

A to point B kinds

24:10

of existences don't do you in

24:12

because of the dust. And

24:15

the other thing that we

24:17

haven't talked about is there's all

24:19

of the radiation concerns and

24:21

this is again something that came

24:23

up in for all mankind

24:25

where when you're on the moon

24:27

you're beyond the earth's magnetic

24:29

realm of keeping us safe. And

24:32

when there's solar flares, if

24:34

you're in a crater and

24:36

you can duck into a

24:38

cave on the side of

24:40

the crater, that

24:42

is a way, if it's

24:44

permanently shadowed, it's not going

24:46

to blast you. Right. Yeah,

24:48

you know that it's safe. It's been there for billions

24:50

of years. Yeah. Yeah. People don't

24:53

realize like just the background radiation is

24:55

about 200 times what you would experience

24:57

on the surface of the earth. So

24:59

it's a lot of radiation. That's the

25:01

cosmic radiation and some radiation coming from

25:03

the sun. But in a

25:05

bad solar storm, you'll receive a lethal

25:07

dose of radiation in an hour. You're

25:09

straight up dead. Yeah. If you're caught

25:11

out in a bad solar storm. And

25:14

again, they cover that. And as you

25:16

said, they cover that in for all

25:18

that kind of spin. phenomenal. Yeah.

25:20

Yeah. So let's talk about

25:22

sort of the human return to

25:24

the moon. You know, we've

25:27

talked about this a bit. So

25:29

for Artemis, the plan

25:31

is Artemis 3,

25:33

2027. Yeah. And

25:35

the original plan was

25:38

launch on, so the

25:40

original original plan was

25:42

constellation. Current plan is

25:44

space launch system with the Orion

25:46

capsule. I

25:48

launch to orbit

25:50

dock with a

25:52

Starship HLS, so

25:54

human landing system, which

25:57

is... Do they dock in Earth orbit

25:59

or Lunar orbit? I think they dock in

26:01

Lunar orbit. It depends on which set

26:03

of plans you're looking at, honestly. And

26:07

originally, there was the Deep Space Gateway,

26:09

which comes and goes in the current plans,

26:11

depending on whose budgets. Everything

26:13

is in flux, I think, is the key right now.

26:17

because it's been recognized and our friend

26:19

Dustin over at Smarter Every Day

26:21

did an amazing video that is on

26:23

my must -watch list for everybody on

26:25

just how complicated refueling is going

26:27

to be and how much harder it's

26:29

going to be than what a

26:31

lot of people think. Yeah,

26:34

I mean they're estimating 15 to

26:36

20 refueling launches. Yeah, and

26:38

like so far like I mean

26:40

right now Starship doesn't Hasn't been

26:42

able to both launch the super

26:44

heavy booster and starship successfully and

26:46

retrieve them back at the launch

26:48

pad They haven't demonstrated transferring cryogenic

26:50

propellants. We are in 2025 You

26:52

know when you think about the

26:54

stack that needs to happen. I

26:56

mean they need to launch the

26:58

They have to demonstrate this orbital

27:01

capability needs demonstrate cryogenic transfer, they

27:03

need to build and launch the

27:05

human landing system, they need to

27:07

send it to the moon, they

27:09

need to demonstrate that the human

27:11

landing system can go down to

27:13

the surface of the moon and

27:15

come back up into orbit to

27:17

prove that it's ready for Artemis

27:19

3. We need order of 60

27:21

launches before, and

27:23

so the issue. Because

27:25

you have the test flight, which

27:28

is going to be 20. You

27:30

have the human flight, which is going

27:32

to be another 20 or my understanding

27:34

was that it's just it's the one

27:36

is going to go there and Then

27:38

it will first do a test, but

27:41

then it will solve on a fuel

27:43

the tank to then do a human

27:45

lander Okay, so that was the information

27:47

that I don't need you don't need

27:49

multiple HLS just the one okay. Yeah,

27:51

but still so I mean I guess

27:53

the What we're saying is prepare yourself

27:55

emotionally for delays. But

27:58

NASA is already starting

28:00

to consider not using HLS

28:02

for Artemis 3. And

28:04

this is where Blue Origin's Blue

28:06

Moon program starts to get so

28:09

exciting. Which also doesn't exist yet.

28:11

Correct. So we're

28:13

going to have two different

28:15

don't exist competing. Yeah.

28:19

Yeah. Yeah. So again, 2027 is

28:21

the planned date. No one has told you that the date

28:23

is going to be otherwise. but do

28:25

not be surprised when the date becomes,

28:27

you know, otherwise. Now,

28:29

on the Chinese side, things are moving

28:31

full steam ahead. So they're planning

28:33

on launching two long March 10 rockets.

28:36

One is going to contain the crew

28:38

capsule and the service module. The

28:40

other is going to contain the lunar

28:42

lander and the ascent module. They're

28:44

both going to fly directly from earth

28:46

to the moon. then

28:49

the crew is going to dock

28:51

just like in the Apollo

28:53

missions. The crew is going to

28:55

get into the... into

28:57

the lunar lander portion and then you're

28:59

going to go down to the surface

29:01

of the moon, they're going to do

29:03

their mission around at the south pole,

29:05

get into the Ascend module, it's going

29:07

to launch off the surface of the

29:09

moon, dock with the command module and

29:11

service module and then they're going to

29:13

return home, they're going to ditch the

29:15

Ascend module and then eventually ditch the

29:17

service module and then return back through

29:20

the capsule. And this has all been

29:22

played out in the existing sample return

29:24

missions that You know, the whole point

29:26

of the sample return of multiple sample

29:28

return missions is they are testing out

29:30

each one of these pieces. Now, they're

29:32

going to have entirely new hardware, entirely

29:34

new rockets. But, you

29:36

know, two rockets launching together

29:38

seems relatively feasible and a lot

29:40

less complicated than what's going

29:42

to happen. But it's a lot

29:44

less sustainable. You're throwing away

29:47

every single part of all of

29:49

those rockets, just like you

29:51

did with the Apollo air while.

29:54

With Starship, all

29:56

of the boosters are reusable. The

29:58

Orion capsule is reusable. And

30:00

then Starship, I guess, is reusable

30:02

even though it's going to be

30:04

out at the moon. It's that

30:06

you lose all of the parts

30:08

of the SLS. And the thing

30:10

to think about is China has

30:12

the human budget, the

30:14

natural resources budget, and

30:17

the dollars budget. that

30:19

they can afford to throw things away during

30:21

innovation. Even dropping

30:23

rockets on villages

30:25

downrange, right? Whenever

30:28

we talk about this kind

30:30

of stuff and people are like,

30:33

yeah, but they drop rockets

30:35

on villages and you're like, yes,

30:37

they do. Yes, yes. We

30:39

are aware. We are aware. That's

30:41

the price that they're willing

30:43

to pay for their citizens to

30:45

be able to accomplish such

30:47

a You know fast -moving thing

30:50

and to like we do not

30:52

I don't approve of that.

30:54

I would you know, I wouldn't

30:56

that's not a cost I'd

30:58

be willing to pay so um

31:00

So in theory We'll see

31:02

many more missions to the moon

31:05

and we will see humans

31:07

to the moon. Hopefully by 2030

31:09

That's the goal. I really

31:11

think that one nation will have

31:13

humans to the moon by

31:15

2030. I just don't know which nation. All

31:18

of the above, all of the above. Yeah, all

31:20

of the above. And there will be this time. Like

31:23

right now, when you see the International

31:25

Space Station fly overhead and you're like, wow,

31:27

there have been people in space on

31:29

that thing continuously for 25 years. And there

31:31

will be a time when you'll be

31:34

able to look at the moon and you'll

31:36

say there's people there. Always,

31:39

still there doing research,

31:41

sending home pictures. It's

31:43

going to be so cool. It

31:45

is this is this is the future

31:47

we want and I I just

31:49

want to acknowledge real fast that There

31:51

have been a whole lot of

31:53

planetary scientists here in the US who

31:55

have been just like I'm not

31:57

going to retire until we land humans

31:59

on the moon again because like

32:02

they joined during the Apollo missions They

32:04

were in college for the Apollo

32:06

missions. Yeah No return to the moon

32:08

has occurred and a lot of

32:10

them are now looking to retire because

32:12

they reckon retire But

32:14

the thing is they're doing it to

32:16

leave space so that there's budget

32:18

for younger people. And I just want

32:20

to thank all of the elder

32:23

planetary scientists who are retiring so that

32:25

younger humans can have jobs. It's

32:27

it's just heartwarming and devastating. It's sort

32:29

of like when you hear the

32:31

kid raise the money to pay off

32:33

the school lunch debt. It's awesome.

32:35

But why did that have to happen?

32:39

So, yeah. Wonderful. Thanks,

32:41

Pamela. Thank you, Fraser, and

32:43

thank you patrons. The

32:45

two of us get to do

32:47

independent science journalism where I

32:49

can talk about what's going on

32:51

in the United States. Fraser

32:54

can talk about any science he

32:56

darn well feels like anywhere

32:58

on the planet. And

33:00

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33:02

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33:06

program officer because all

33:08

of you are out there

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33:12

So so we can't thank

33:14

all of you by

33:16

name every episode Which is

33:18

a great problem to

33:20

have but this week I'm

33:22

going to thank David

33:24

Rosetta, Travis Porco, Mike Heisey,

33:26

Jonathan Poe, RJ Bask,

33:28

Jimmy Drake, Bob Krell,

33:31

Tricor, Noah Albertson,

33:33

Ryan Amari, Mike Dogg,

33:35

Simeon Torfison, Mark

33:37

Schneidler, Michael Purcell, Jeanette

33:39

Wink, Brian Kegel, Jason

33:41

Kwong, Tiffany Rogers, Robert Plesmo,

33:43

Laura Kettleson, Frodo Tenemba,

33:46

Red Bar, is watching. A

33:48

pronounceable name. Jeremy

33:51

Kerwin, Kinshaya Panflanko,

33:53

share some. The Lonely

33:55

Sand Person, Scott

33:57

Briggs, Benjamin Crier, Jim

33:59

Schuller, Marco Iirasi, Nyla,

34:02

David Green, Smansky,

34:04

Rando, Benjamin Mueller, Benjamin

34:07

Davies, Planetar, John

34:09

Drake, Bruce Amazine, Paul

34:11

L. Hayden, Jeff

34:13

Hornwater, Pauline Middlingk,

34:16

Jordan Turner, Robert

34:18

Handel, Taz, Tali,

34:21

and Lea

34:23

Harbourn. Thanks,

34:25

everyone. We'll see you next week. Thank

34:28

you. Astronomycast

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is a joint product of

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