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Speaker 1: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, Season five, episode seventy nine. I'm

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Anna and.

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Speaker 2: I'm Avery and today today is the day.

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Speaker 1: It really is fifty four years. That's how long humanity

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has been earthbound, locked inside our cozy corner of the

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Solar System. No human has ventured beyond low Earth orbit

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since Apollo seventeen touched down on the Moon in December

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nineteen seventy two.

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Speaker 2: But last night that changed. Four astronauts are on their

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way to the Moon.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode is a special Artemis two edition. We're going

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deep on the launch, on the history being made right now,

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and on what's coming next for this crew. Plus because

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the universe has a flare for the dramatic, the pink

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Moon rose over Earth right as they lifted off.

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Speaker 2: Do honestly couldn't write it. Let's get into it.

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Speaker 1: At six thirty five pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, April

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the first, Yes, April Fool's Day, NASA's Artemis two mission

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lifted off from Launch Complex thirty nine B at the

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Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Speaker 2: And for the record, absolutely not a joke.

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Speaker 1: Definitely not. The three hundred and twenty two foot tall

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orange and white space launch system. The SLS vaulted off

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the pad with eight point eight million pounds of liftoff thrust.

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The solid rocket boosters alone provided more than seven million

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pounds of that, burning out just two minutes after launch,

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when the stack was already twenty nine miles high.

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Speaker 2: Twenty nine miles in two minutes.

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Speaker 1: That's extraordinary, it is, and barely ten minutes after those

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engines first ignited, Artemis two was in orbit. The launch

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was nearly flawless. Only minor battery and communications range issues

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briefly concerned ground crews, and though those were resolved without drama.

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Speaker 2: The crew are safe. They're in great spirits. NASA Administrator

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Jared Isaacman confirmed that in the post launch briefing. He

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called it a defining moment, not just for NASA but

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for everyone who believes in exploration.

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Speaker 1: And this is genuinely historic. The last time human beings

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headed moonward was December seventh, nineteen seventy two, before any

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of the four Artemis two crew members were born.

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Speaker 2: That really puts it into perspective.

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Speaker 1: After reaching orbit, Orion deployed its solar array wings, and

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the crew immediately began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to

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flight operations. They ran through checks on life support, communications, navigation,

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and then, as if that wasn't enough, pilot Victor Glover

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got to take the spacecraft for a manual test drive.

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Speaker 2: A test drive in a spacecraft around Earth.

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Speaker 1: Seventy minutes of hand flying the Orion capsule, which has

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been official named Integrity maneuvering around the now separated upper

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stage of the SLS. Lover's verdict and I'm paraphrasing here

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because we love him. This flies very nicely, very.

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Speaker 2: Precise, excellent review, five stars.

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Speaker 1: So as we record this on Thursday, April second, right

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now today, the crew of Artemis two is completing the

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final checks before the most critical maneuver of the mission

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so far, the.

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Speaker 2: Trans Lunar injection burn TLI. This is the moment they

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leave Earth's.

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Speaker 1: Orbit exactly if all systems pass, inspection and mission controllers

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at Houston's Johnson Space Center will be scrutinizing every data point,

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bellfire Orion's European built service module engine for approximately six

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minutes around eight pm Eastern tonight.

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Speaker 2: Six minutes to change everything.

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Speaker 1: That burn will accelerate Orion to about twenty four thousand,

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five hundred miles per hour escape velocity. At that speed,

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Earth's gravity is still exerting just enough pull that if

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something went wrong and the engine couldn't fire again, the

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spacecraft would remain on what's called a free return trajectory.

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Speaker 2: Meaning the Moon's gravity would sling them back towards Earth automatically.

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Speaker 1: Precisely. It's a beautiful piece of physics and a critical

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safety feature. The crew isn't just being brave. The mission

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is engineered so that even in a worst case scenario,

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the Moon becomes the mechanism that brings them.

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Speaker 2: Home and that the checks don't pass.

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Speaker 1: Mission controllers retain the option to command O Ryan home.

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Early premature end to this test flight, but a safe one.

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That's what Artemis two is. A test flight. Every system

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is being validated for the crews who will follow.

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Speaker 2: We'll be watching that TLI burn very closely tonight.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about the four people making this journey, because

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beyond the technology, beyond the rocket, this mission is about

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them and about what their presence means.

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Speaker 2: Commander Read Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Cock

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from NASA, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian

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Space Agency, and This.

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Speaker 1: Crew is making history in ways that go well beyond

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just going to the Moon. Victor Glover will become the

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first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit,

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Christina Cock will be the first woman to fly to

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the Moon's vicinity, and Jeremy Hansen will be the first

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non American citizen to venture that far from Earth.

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Speaker 2: Every one of those first is significant, and they're all

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happening on the same flight.

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Speaker 1: The World Air Sports Federation the FAI, is already preparing

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to ratify what could be multiple spaceflight world records. The

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mission's planned trajectory will take Oryan to a high point

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of around seventy thousand kilometers above Earth. The current altitude

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record for a crude spacecraft in Earth orbit stands at

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just thirteen hundred and sixty nine kilometers, set by Gemini

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eleven back in nineteen sixty six.

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Speaker 2: They're going to absolutely shatter that.

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Speaker 1: And the record for the farthest any human has ever

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been from Earth is currently held by the Apollo thirteen

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crew two hundred and forty eight thousand, six hundred and

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fifty five miles. Artemis two is expected to go farther.

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Speaker 2: I keep thinking about Victor Glover saying he just wants

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to find the quiet moments in all of this, to

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be present, to actually feel it.

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Speaker 1: He said the biggest challenge would be immersing himself in

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the moment because it'll be over so quickly. That kind

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of reflection from someone living with the rest of us

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can only dream about. That's something special.

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Speaker 2: Specil's hardly the word for it, but I guess we

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don't have anything better we could deal with a new

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word to use on occasions like this.

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Speaker 1: So what does the next ten days look like for

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read Victor, Christina and Jeremy.

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Speaker 2: Once that TLA burn fires tonight, they're on a roughly

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four day journey outbound gravity will slow them down steadily

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from nearly twenty five thousand miles per hour all the

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way down to about thirty four hundred miles per hour,

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and it.

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Speaker 1: Won't be until they are about forty one thousand miles

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from the Moon that lunar gravity takes over and starts

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pulling them forward again. That transition is called the lagrange point,

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and it's where the Moon effectively claims.

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Speaker 2: Them A six of the mission. That's Monday, April sixth,

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The crew will reach the Moon's neighborhood approaching from the

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western lunar hemisphere.

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Speaker 1: They'll come within approximately four thousand miles from the lunar surface,

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close enough to see detail, far enough to swing around

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on that free return arc, and they'll be among the

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first humans ever to lay eyes on parts of the

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Moon's far side, the.

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Speaker 2: Far side, the side that never faces Earth. No human

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has seen it directly since the Apollo era.

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Speaker 1: The conditions during the flyby should create long shadows across

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the surface, sunrise style lighting that reveals ridges, crater rims,

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and depth that full illumination normally hides. The photographs from

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this flyby are going to be extraordinary.

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Speaker 2: Here's a thought. I wonder if they'll see the alien

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moon bases. Maybe we can finally put that story to

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bed for once and for all.

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Speaker 1: You love your conspiracy theories, don't you. Avery.

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Speaker 2: Let's move on and then they come home.

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Speaker 1: Then they come home. A journey of more than ninety

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six hours back to Earth with a splash down in

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the Pacific Ocean planned for Friday, April tenth. That re

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entry will be at twenty five thousand miles per hour,

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and Orion will use a skip entry technique, dipping into

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the atmosphere bouncing back into space, then coming in again,

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bleeding off speed and heat in stages.

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Speaker 2: We'll be covering every step of it right here on

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Astronomy Daily.

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Speaker 1: Here's something that didn't get a lot of attention in

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all the launch excitement, and we think it deserves its moment.

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Speaker 2: The Hitchhikers.

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Speaker 1: About five hours after launch, a series of tiny satellites

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cube SATs roughly the size of a shoe box, deployed

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from the Artemis to spacecraft at one minute intervals. Four

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of them supplied by space agencies from Germany, South Korea,

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Saudi Arabia and Argentina.

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Speaker 2: That's genuinely international. This isn't just an American mission. It's

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a mission that's carrying science from four continents into deep space.

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Speaker 1: Germany's contribution is called to Kellis, and it's studying how

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space affects electrical components that could be used in future

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lunar vehicles. Think of it as stress testing the hardware

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that might one day drive a rover across the Moon.

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Speaker 2: And then there's the one I find absolutely fascinating, k

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rad Cube.

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Speaker 1: Ha rad Cube contains human like tissue organ on a

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chip technology designed to measure the effects of space radiation

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as the spacecraft passes through the Van Allen Belts. Those

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are the two zones of intense radiation that surround Earth,

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produced by trapped solar particles.

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Speaker 2: So we're essentially sending a tiny laboratory of human tissue

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through the most radioactive region near Earth to understand what

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that does to biology.

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Speaker 1: Which directly informs how we protect future crews, not just

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on Artemis three and beyond, but eventually on missions to Mars.

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It's one of those stories where the scale of what's

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being deployed is tiny, but the implications are enormous.

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Speaker 2: The universe in a shoe box.

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Speaker 1: We can't close today's episode without acknowledging the cosmic coincidence

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that made last night feel almost scripted.

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Speaker 2: The Pink Moon.

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Speaker 1: April's full moon, known as the Pink Moon, reached its

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peak at ten twelve pm Eastern on Wednesday night, du

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just hours after the Artemis two launch window opened. The

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moon itself rose full and luminous over the eastern horizon.

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Speaker 2: Humanity launch towards the Moon under a full moon, I mean,

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come on.

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Speaker 1: The pink Moon gets its name from the wildflower called

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moss pink or flocks subulata, which blooms across North America

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around this time each spring. Various indigenous communities have their

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own names for it, the flower Moon, the wind break Moon,

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the frog Moon.

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Speaker 2: And Tonight Thursday, April second, it's still visible. If you're

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out after dark, look east at dusk. It'll be hard

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to miss.

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Speaker 1: For our Southern Hemisphere listeners, and there are plenty of you.

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Look north toward the moon rising in your eastern sky,

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the same moon our four astronauts are right now hurtling

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toward at thousands of miles per hour.

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Speaker 2: That shared view us looking up them looking down is

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one of my favorite things about space exploration. We're all

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part of it.

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Speaker 1: That's our special artemis to launch day edition of Astronomy Daily.

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What a day to be alive, and what a day

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to be listening.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow with the latest from the mission,

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covering that TLI burn result, any updates from the crew

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aboard Integrity, and whatever else the universe decides to throw

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at us.

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Speaker 1: If today's episode moved you, if you felt something when

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that rocket left the pad, share it. Tell someone this

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is a moment worth talking about.

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Speaker 2: From Anna and Avery at Astronomy Daily.

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Speaker 1: Keep looking up and to read Victor, Christina and Jeremy

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Safe Travels.

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Speaker 2: We'll be watching day Stars start story for Sola