SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
After 10 days of traveling around the moon and back, Artemis II has returned to Earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKI MAHAFFEY: Integrity, Houston, comm check, post-blackout.
REID WISEMAN: Houston, Integrity, we have you loud and clear.
MAHAFFEY: Your trajectory is nominal, and your recovery teams have visual.
WISEMAN: Skies look good (ph).
DETROW: That is Artemis Commander Reid Wiseman speaking with NASA's capsule communicator Jacki Mahaffey (ph) after coming out of the reentry communications blackout. Artemis II was a big success for NASA - the records it set, the stunning images of the moon and Earth it captured - but it still raised a lot of big questions, like why did it take so long to get back to the moon, and what realistically comes next for NASA and its ambitious Artemis program? Joel Achenbach is a science reporter who has been tracking Artemis since the beginning. Joel, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JOEL ACHENBACH: Well, thank you for having me.
DETROW: Let's just step back a moment. What did this week represent to you? How significant was this for NASA?
ACHENBACH: Oh, this was a huge win. I mean, it has just been so exciting. The astronauts have been amazing. NASA needed a win. I mean, NASA has had a rough time in various ways, including how long it's taken to get back to the moon. You've got to keep in mind, the idea of going back to the moon surfaced after the Columbia space shuttle disaster and President Bush, George W. Bush, said we're going to go back to the moon. That was 2004. So that's, you know, 22 years ago, and it's been a start-and-stop process, many delays. You know, I'll be honest, I often wondered, is this really ever going to happen? Are we really going to send astronauts back to the vicinity of the moon?
DETROW: And you and I are talking hours before the planned splashdown, so that's obviously the big question hanging in the air right now. Let's talk about what NASA got out of this week. Obviously, it got a lot of PR. It got a lot of positive attention and energy from this mission. What do you think the most important engineering and scientific gains from Artemis II have been? And what would a successful splashdown prove?
ACHENBACH: Well, it just proves that NASA can still do these amazing things. It can send people to the moon and bring them back safely. You can make an argument that this mission didn't prove that much. NASA doesn't have a lander for its Artemis program to actually land people on the moon. And so that's probably going to take a while before they get their contractors - SpaceX or Blue Origin - to produce a lander.
But, you know, I was old enough to watch the Apollo program, and it was thrilling and exciting. We did not have, back in 1969 and 1970 and '71, anything like the ability to document a moon mission like we do today. So visually, this has been stunning. The astronauts also - they're doing a lot of experiments. There are a lot of biological experiments to see what happens to their bodies.
This is different from going up to the International Space Station, which is about 250 miles above the surface. You know, they're out there, you know, 250,000 miles away. I mean, yes, we've been to the moon before, and frankly, you know, Apollo 13 did a - kind of a similar kind of mission where they did the fly-by. But this - we have the ability scientifically to do experiments that no one did back in the late '60s or early '70s.
DETROW: Let's just reality check the next few steps because the plans for Artemis going forward have changed many times, changed again recently under the Trump administration, and you just mentioned the most important thing - they don't physically have the lander to go down and land on the moon as is planned right now. What are your biggest question marks, and what are you looking ahead to over the next few years to reality check this?
ACHENBACH: Well, I mean, the - there is this notion that we're in a race against China to get to the lunar south pole, where there are resources that are coveted by both countries. There's water ice. Permanently shadowed craters have water ice in them. There are some mountains there that are always in sunlight where you could potentially have solar panels and energy sources. And there's a notion that, in the coming decades, that - you know, that there is going to be a trillion-dollar space economy, and the moon is a good platform for operating.
But this has been a great week for NASA. So let's - you know, let's just applaud them at the moment for how well this has gone and how brilliant the astronauts have been. And it's just - it's been - it's just been fun to watch, and, you know, it's kind of - it's hard not to feel, hey, we're back in the game.
DETROW: Joel Achenbach, science reporter who's been tracking Artemis and NASA, thank you so much for talking to us.
ACHENBACH: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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