Latest / Sorta Sophisticated / Episode 090 - Artemis II: The Awkward Question NASA Has To Answer

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Episode 090 - Artemis II: The Awkward Question NASA Has To Answer · Sorta Sophisticated

• 0:04
  Speaker A: Welcome back to Sort of Sophisticated, where culture, curiosity and chaos collide. I'm your host, Pete. Back at it again with me, as always, is Amanda. Amanda, thank you for coming back yet again.
• 0:19
  Speaker B: Welcome.
• 0:19
  Speaker A: You're a glutton for punishment. I appreciate it.
• 0:21
  Speaker B: I'm so excited. I learn something new every week. Sign me up. I like your new kicks.
• 0:26
  Speaker A: Oh, these aren't really that new.
• 0:28
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 0:28
  Speaker A: No, I'm just in a matchy mood.
• 0:30
  Speaker B: Oh, blue on blue.
• 0:32
  Speaker A: A little blue on blue.
• 0:33
  Speaker B: Oh, you're kind of like sadness.
• 0:34
  Speaker A: I am a little bit. Today I'm feeling that emotion. So does taking adhd. Oh, you never took ADHD medicine, did you?
• 0:42
  Speaker B: I did in high school.
• 0:43
  Speaker A: Okay. Did it make you sad?
• 0:45
  Speaker B: I mean, I felt like this weird numbness.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: No, I don't feel numbness. I feel more sad. Oh, yeah, A little bit. Yeah. I gotta find out what's going on with that.
• 0:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, we will see. Slippery slip to depression, and then you're going to have to be on other meds.
• 0:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Thing had be on uppers.
• 1:00
  Speaker A: Wow. Okay. Well, that might work for me. No, I mean, I wouldn't say it's not. It's not like I don't think I'm anywhere near that. I just think it's. It's. It's blue. Blue. It's a good example.
• 1:10
  Speaker B: Sadness, wearing your emotions on the outside. Here we are.
• 1:12
  Speaker A: Here we are today.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:13
  Speaker A: What are you wearing then? I don't even know. What's your emotion today?
• 1:16
  Speaker B: It's cold. I'm wearing my fuzzy jacket. And it's cold for Southern California because It's only like, 70 degrees today.
• 1:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is a little cold. My hands are.
• 1:23
  Speaker B: And I think it's chilly.
• 1:24
  Speaker A: Oh, no. I'm freezing even in here.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: You see, I didn't turn the heater on because he usually complains how hot it is.
• 1:28
  Speaker A: Usually? I'm just saying, usually a little.
• 1:29
  Speaker B: He's a little pret.
• 1:30
  Speaker A: I'm usually a bitch.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: Little Goldilocks over here.
• 1:33
  Speaker A: Too hot.
• 1:33
  Speaker B: Too hot.
• 1:34
  Speaker A: Breaking Bad. Were you a Breaking Bad?
• 1:35
  Speaker B: I was not.
• 1:36
  Speaker A: Oh, my God.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: I know.
• 1:37
  Speaker A: Please watch it, Jesse Pinkman. He says bitch better than anybody on the planet. Not that. I mean, that shouldn't be something you should be proud of.
• 1:45
  Speaker B: But anyway, we love Jesse, so we digress. What is our topic for today?
• 1:50
  Speaker A: It should be Breaking Bad. That actually would be excellent. That would be a sort of sophisticated episode. That's the one we should do. But we are not doing that today. That would be much more interesting than what we're Actually doing today. See, there's the sadness again. We are Debbie Downer. I know, right? Today's topic is officially titled Artemis 2. The awkward question NASA has to answer.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Hmm.
• 2:14
  Speaker A: Ba ba ba. Today we're going to explain why after 50 years. It's been 50 years, Amanda. Why NASA decided that four really brave or insane astronauts are going to do another flyby of the moon. We go into the moon again.
• 2:30
  Speaker B: I got questions.
• 2:31
  Speaker A: Well, of course you have questions.
• 2:32
  Speaker B: Well, let's just start with the first one. How's this gonna make us more cultured, Pete?
• 2:36
  Speaker A: Because going to the moon is very cultured. How's that? The moon is full of culture, full of bacteria, it's full of. I'm sure that. I'm sure there. There's a lot of things happening. Let me see. How is this gonna make us more cultured?
• 2:51
  Speaker B: Cause there's a science behind it. Blah, blah, blah.
• 2:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:56
  Speaker B: It's the moon.
• 2:56
  Speaker A: Do you know the last time we landed on the moon? Did we digress? What? Yes, we landed on the moon.
• 3:04
  Speaker B: I don't know. Have you seen Fly Me to the Moon?
• 3:06
  Speaker A: Fly to the Moon?
• 3:08
  Speaker B: It's like with Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson.
• 3:11
  Speaker A: What is this?
• 3:12
  Speaker B: Let me just tell you.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: What is it?
• 3:13
  Speaker B: Did we fly to the moon?
• 3:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, we flew.
• 3:15
  Speaker B: Or was it all soundstage in la?
• 3:17
  Speaker A: Oh my God, you're that person.
• 3:19
  Speaker B: Did you not watch this movie?
• 3:20
  Speaker A: I did not know and now I'm not going to watch this movie. Yeah, we landed on the moon.
• 3:24
  Speaker B: So at the Richard Nixon Library, you go through this like, little section of it and they have like the astronaut spacesuits, but you look up at it.
• 3:31
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 3:32
  Speaker B: Uh huh. And then I go, huh? Did it actually happen?
• 3:35
  Speaker A: This is insane. I didn't know my co host was a conspiracy.
• 3:38
  Speaker B: I'm not.
• 3:39
  Speaker A: No, you've brought this up a lot. Not just the moon stuff, but like, you are always the conspiracy side of this podcast whenever I come up with a topic like did.
• 3:46
  Speaker B: But it's good to be inquisitive. Why are you being judgy?
• 3:50
  Speaker A: Because inquisitive's different.
• 3:52
  Speaker B: No, it's not. It's about classical education. Being fearless to ask questions and not just accept it as truth.
• 3:59
  Speaker A: Okay, fine. I don't know. I don't know how we're friends, but I'm gonna keep being.
• 4:03
  Speaker B: I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna convince me right now.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: Conspiracy theorists co host. I didn't even answer how we're gonna be more cultured. So I don't even know but here's. Here's what I would say about being cultured. I. All I got is it's been 50 years. We haven't practiced in a while. I think practicing stuff and sciency stuff and, like, putting that all together and making sure we, like, are good at things is a way of being sort of sophisticated and being more cultured. Like, because you got to practice to be, like, good at anything.
• 4:30
  Speaker B: Right.
• 4:30
  Speaker A: So I'm going to throw it. Why?
• 4:31
  Speaker B: I just, like. I question things.
• 4:33
  Speaker A: Okay, keep questioning. Okay, that's fine.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: It's going to make me more cultured.
• 4:37
  Speaker A: Whatever.
• 4:38
  Speaker B: All right, well, what's our wow?
• 4:40
  Speaker A: Our wow. Word of the week? Wow. Word of the week is cloying. Cloying.
• 4:47
  Speaker B: Cloying.
• 4:48
  Speaker A: Cloy. It sounds very New York. Cloying. Cloy. C, L, O, Y, I, N, G.
• 4:54
  Speaker B: Cloying, which would be cloy. What is cloy?
• 4:57
  Speaker A: Cloy.
• 4:57
  Speaker B: Not coy.
• 4:58
  Speaker A: Cloy comes from the Middle English verb cloan. Yeah, cloen. But today it refers to excessively sweet or flattering to the point of causing annoyance or irritation. That's cloying.
• 5:12
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 5:12
  Speaker A: Excessively sweet or flattering to the point of causing you, like. Like, I go over the top with how much I flatter you all the time.
• 5:18
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:18
  Speaker A: Does that make sense?
• 5:19
  Speaker B: Yes. It'd be like, stop cloying.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. Stop clawing. Yeah.
• 5:22
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 5:22
  Speaker A: Pandering maybe. I don't know. I don't know if that's an synonym. We'd probably.
• 5:26
  Speaker B: All right, we're trying. We're going to try it.
• 5:27
  Speaker A: Flattering to the point of annoyance.
• 5:29
  Speaker B: Okay, well, are you going to give me some history about moon landings that may or may not have happened?
• 5:32
  Speaker A: Oh, I'm going to give you.
• 5:33
  Speaker B: Before we get into the new mission to the moon, the first, I'm going to give you landing.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: Have you seen Modern Family?
• 5:39
  Speaker B: No.
• 5:39
  Speaker A: You've never watched Modern Family episodes? No. Oh, my God. Do you even know the characters? This isn't even gonna work. When two men touch butts in the gym when they're naked, it's called a moon landing. Thank you, Cam. That was Cam on Modern Family. And then, like, if they just get out of the shower, they call it a splashdown. That's total, total Modern Family.
• 6:00
  Speaker B: The more you know, Jay camp.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: It was funny. Go watch that episode. It was hysterical. Okay, we'll do brief history of moon landings, and then we'll get right up to Artemis. Okay, so here's what's going on. This actually doesn't really go back that far. Right. Because it's not like we've been.
• 6:12
  Speaker B: 1972.
• 6:13
  Speaker A: Right. Well, not like 1969 or whatever actually.
• 6:16
  Speaker B: Landed on the moon the first time with Nixon.
• 6:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. So it basically started back in the 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union were in their Cold War. Right. Coming out of World War II, we went through the 50s, the whole cold war thing, and they were sort of doing this dick measuring contest.
• 6:36
  Speaker B: Okay, Right.
• 6:37
  Speaker A: To see who could get to the moon and back the space race. Right. Like, who could get to the moon. The fact. Who could build the most nuclear weapons event like that. That's what was happening at the time. So the. The moon represented one of those things. So basically, we went nuts and threw pretty much everything at it. And spoiler alert, we won.
• 6:56
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 6:56
  Speaker A: We landed on the moon. Amanda. Okay. No conspiracy theory.
• 6:59
  Speaker B: Got it.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: Worked. Okay, so between 1969 and 1972, how many times did we land on the moon?
• 7:06
  Speaker B: Zero.
• 7:06
  Speaker A: And yet. Just kidding. How many times do people say we officially land?
• 7:11
  Speaker B: But, like, hold on. What's the definition of landing on the moon? Landed because, like, park. Only time that there's no flyby. No, no, but down. But with people. Because I know, like, people. I mean, there's the big one, obviously, with buzz. People that got out and like.
• 7:26
  Speaker A: Nope, not necessarily got out. Just landed.
• 7:27
  Speaker B: Oh, okay. But that's what I'm saying. Like, when you. Okay, you're saying spaceship touched the moon. I have no clue.
• 7:33
  Speaker A: 6. Okay, we did six times between 1969.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: Why didn't they get out?
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Well, some of them. I don't know. Maybe some kind. Listen, this was not an episode on moons. I don't know on how that all works.
• 7:43
  Speaker B: I'm just telling you, I did it.
• 7:44
  Speaker A: Okay, fine.
• 7:45
  Speaker B: Six times. Got it. O.
• 7:46
  Speaker A: And then as far as I could tell, in 1972, we just sort of stopped. Just. That was it, Right? Wasn't like something bad happened. Well, something bad did happen. Apollo 13. Did you watch Apollo 13?
• 7:58
  Speaker B: I did. Okay, that's very. It's a very sad one.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: So you watched that? Okay. Yeah. There you go. So that kind of sucked. But, yeah, I think it was just like, they figured out they did it. They beat the Russians, and so they were done. They didn't want to spend their money on it anymore. That's kind of what I found. And then since then, no humans have gone back. Since then, Gene Cernan was the last guy on the moon. December of 1972. Okay, so basically, the whole idea of the moon was we did something super hard, assumed we could do it over and over and over again if we wanted to. And then slowly realized we completely and totally forgot how to do it. And so here we are today talking about we need to learn how to go back there.
• 8:35
  Speaker B: But isn't there, like a space station that's up in space somewhere?
• 8:39
  Speaker A: There is.
• 8:39
  Speaker B: I don't even know relation to where it is compared to the moon. But there's a space station.
• 8:43
  Speaker A: There is. There's the International Space Station. Station. That is a perfect segue because that was space shuttle program. So that came in the 1980s. So the moon is like, whatever it is, what, 250,000 miles away? It's like, far away. The International Space station is only 250 miles away, like above the Earth atmosphere. So, like, we're not even in real space at the International Space Station there. I mean, you're right about, you know, we are. We're in sorta space. That's what we are. Yeah. So that's the space shuttle program. Like, I thought when I was researching all this, I was like, oh, didn't we do it again with the space shuttle? Absolutely not. We did not. The space shuttle program was built with the whole premise of, like, trying to figure out how to build the International Space Station. So that wasn't even really a rocket. The space shuttle was more like a cargo ship. Think of like a big rig on the freeway. Okay, that, like. Except more like a. Like a Mercedes G wagon. But like as long as a big rig, right? Because it was like super expensive, super complex. Like, we go big when we make stuff. But the whole idea was to haul shit up there, haul tools up there, haul parts up there, build the International Space Station, and then, like, be able to come back and forth, back and forth all day long. That was a space shuttle program.
• 9:50
  Speaker B: How long did that go? 30 years.
• 9:51
  Speaker A: Shit. Yeah, like 30 years. I think it did right till like 2011. Question mark.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: And then we just, like, abandoned it.
• 10:00
  Speaker A: Well, we did. There was a few. There was a few mishaps. Oh, do not remember 19. 1986. 1986. Okay. Oh, I totally remember this.
• 10:13
  Speaker B: And this was in August.
• 10:14
  Speaker A: Okay. But there was another one in 2003, so I'm gonna quiz you on that in a second. So wait, so 1986. I totally remember this. So I am sitting in eighth grade, Mrs. Smith's class. And I remember when the Challenger took off.
• 10:27
  Speaker B: Oh, that's.
• 10:28
  Speaker A: And I don't know what it was a minute. A minute into the flight. I don't remember exactly. And the whole thing blew up. I mean, we weren't watching it live. But it was crazy because the program had only started a few years ago. So, like, it was massive. Like, everybody was watching all the launches all the time. And I remember all of our teachers got immediately called to, like, whatever they call it, like the learning center. I don't know what they called it. Whatever. And then they came back and they told us all what just happened. And then they wheeled in the televisions and we all turned on the live feed and watched, like, the aftermath of everything. I was, like, super freaked out by the whole thing. I could not believe I'm like, this shit's just happened. This is real. It scared the shit out of me. Yeah, yeah. And then it happened again in 2003. You were alive and kind of old by then.
• 11:09
  Speaker B: I mean, it was still in college.
• 11:11
  Speaker A: Do you remember what the name was? No. The Columbia space shuttle. Columbia. Yeah, I think that one. That one was on re entry.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: This is why we do the show. Because, like, things that I should know in my lifetime.
• 11:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that one was worse. Well, I mean, I don't know what's worse.
• 11:24
  Speaker B: They didn't die. It's not like they imploded.
• 11:26
  Speaker A: They died. So in 86, they exploded and died in the middle of the air. You watched them all die. It was terrible. Then in 2003, they pretty much just disintegrated and melted on the way back. Yeah, couldn't get back. Couldn't get back in. Oh, fucking terrible. Like 15 people, like seven and 14 people died. I don't know.
• 11:45
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 11:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. So. But. So here's the thing. You would think, you would think the space shuttle program would have ended in 2003, right?
• 11:52
  Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, new technology, they kept going.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: No, no, right, exactly. But then again, hey, the over under on. The over under on. Number of deaths before we shot the program must have been 15, because 14 people died. Seven astronauts. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:04
  Speaker B: I would say that space exploration outweighs. Like, that's the mentality that they would have, though.
• 12:10
  Speaker A: You are terrible.
• 12:11
  Speaker B: Not me.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: Oh, my God.
• 12:12
  Speaker B: The mentality probably is that space exploration outweighs, you know, casualties. I think.
• 12:18
  Speaker A: I think that that's true. And sucky.
• 12:21
  Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
• 12:22
  Speaker A: But here's the thing.
• 12:23
  Speaker B: Both things, you could. You can sit in both things where there's truth and still uncomfortably.
• 12:29
  Speaker A: Yes. Okay. That's where I am. So I think the real reason they ended up shutting it down was because they figured out they were like. They did the thing after 30 years, they built the space station. They drove back and forth a lot.
• 12:39
  Speaker B: So just that they're empty now.
• 12:41
  Speaker A: They were just sort of. I mean people are in it. I don't think any Americans, I don't.
• 12:44
  Speaker B: Just rescue like some people from space.
• 12:45
  Speaker A: We did, we did.
• 12:46
  Speaker B: I don't know. Elon rescued them, right?
• 12:48
  Speaker A: We should check that out. Yeah, no, I, yeah, I think they just shut it down because it just got boring. Like they were just like, we don't really have a grander plan than this. So that sort of killed it. And then they just sort of like said forget about. Remember what I said about how expensive it was to run the whole G wagon idea? I think that's why they were like, yeah, we're done. This is just too much money for like no real payoff.
• 13:06
  Speaker B: Did you find anything after we looked it up?
• 13:08
  Speaker A: I have it right.
• 13:09
  Speaker B: Did you confirm or deny?
• 13:10
  Speaker A: I confirmed, yes. We should have known this because this was last year.
• 13:12
  Speaker B: Well, we knew, we knew Elon went up and he saved some astronauts, but I just didn't know what.
• 13:16
  Speaker A: It wasn't Elon. I mean it was his company, whatever. SpaceX. Yeah, space. The SpaceX Crew Dragon, sure, in March 2025, rescued Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who ended up staying in space at the International space station for 286 days when I guess their spacecraft had technical problems. They were only supposed to say 10 days. They say 286.
• 13:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 13:40
  Speaker A: That's crazy. Like it took that long to get them down anyway, whatever.
• 13:44
  Speaker B: In space.
• 13:44
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 13:45
  Speaker B: I don't know. I have no desire to go.
• 13:46
  Speaker A: But we weren't using the space shuttle anymore by that time, that's for sure.
• 13:48
  Speaker B: That is true.
• 13:49
  Speaker A: That's all I know.
• 13:50
  Speaker B: So we now know we started the space program 1960sish, landed on the moon, created the space station, did some shuttle runs.
• 13:59
  Speaker A: Just so you know, my co host just said we landed on the moon. She officially agreed that we landed on the moon. No more conspiracy.
• 14:06
  Speaker B: I mean I'm just going through your history timeline, but anyway, so then.
• 14:09
  Speaker A: Never mind.
• 14:10
  Speaker B: So then we do the space shuttle, build the International Space Station.
• 14:14
  Speaker A: We were shuttle and baby, it was a lot of shuttle.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: And the International Space Station still around, still operational. I think it's closing like 2030 ish.
• 14:24
  Speaker A: And then we're going to like the Russians are in charge or something now? I don't know.
• 14:27
  Speaker B: It's very stranger things. But like where does Artemis fit into this? And why is it Artemis 2? Like what happened to Artemis 1?
• 14:34
  Speaker A: There's so much here. Do you even remember Artemis from our episode about The Greek gods. Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. Artemis. Yeah. She was a baddie.
• 14:44
  Speaker B: Very fitting name.
• 14:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. We were gonna name our dog Artemis.
• 14:46
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 14:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker B: Now she's June.
• 14:49
  Speaker A: She's Juno. Yeah. Another.
• 14:50
  Speaker B: Oh, Juni. Juno.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: Juno. Juno. Yeah, that's. What is Juno? Juno's, I think, Roman God, right? Oh, yeah. Roman goddess. Yeah. Okay, so let me explain the whole Artemis program in general, and then I'll explain Artemis 1 because nothing happened. Artemis 1.
• 15:01
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: Like, it's. Got it. It was alive and well. Basically, we end up between 2011 and, I don't know, today. I mean, not really, because Artemis program already started. But we'll say, like, up to 2020, like, hitching rides with the Russians up to space. Cause, like, we still wanted to, like, Uber there and be participative in the whole thing. And that's why we still have US Astronauts that go up. But because our space shuttle was so expensive, they were like, yeah, we're not doing this anymore. So we use what's called there. Totally. We use something called the Soyuz. Russia's Soyuz. Like, they made the Toyota Corolla version of a space shuttle. And we made, like I said, the Mercedes G wagon. So that's why I, like. So whatever. So then we get to, like, 2020. I don't know if I'm exactly right, but we're like, hey, shit, we have to, like, get back in this race. The United States can't just, like, sit out by and, like, just keep ubering back and forth. Doesn't make any sense. So we launched the Artemis program, the whole program itself. We're restarting and re. Kicking off what we're talking about as sort of our new space program. But now we need to know, like, what we're doing that for. Because they didn't want to redo the Apollo program. They didn't want to redo the space shuttle program. We've already done all that. So this time it was about the ability to le. Leave Earth on purpose, question mark. Like, not in a panic. Apollo was like, hurry up and build it really fast. We'll see if we can get there at all costs. Let's see what happens back to, like, human life. If they died, who care? Like, I don't want to say who cared, but you get the point. Like, they were pushing hard. Now, the whole concept of the Artemis program and what NASA's trying to do is we have to prove we can do this again. But now this is a launch pad to, like, something bigger, but sort of step one, Artemis 1, Artemis 2 is about, can we even get to the moon and back and do it safely and do it repeatedly and like, are we good at this? Okay, get the training wheels put back on. Does that make sense?
• 16:50
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 16:51
  Speaker A: Okay, then the difference between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 is that Artemis 1 just went and did the whole thing without people. So they already finished that. That was like 20, 22. They took it, they went right, right around the moon. Everything worked great. So now we're like, perfect. Now we're just going to do the same thing. Not landing on the moon, we're going to fly by the moon, do the same thing with four astronauts. Artemis 2.
• 17:11
  Speaker B: Okay, yeah.
• 17:12
  Speaker A: So that's it.
• 17:12
  Speaker B: That high risk, high reward.
• 17:14
  Speaker A: High risk, high reward. This is absolutely what's happening.
• 17:17
  Speaker B: Okay, so we're sending four people to go around the moon, not land on the moon. But when you started the episode, I think the title was like the awkward question NASA has to answer. So what's the awkward question?
• 17:29
  Speaker A: I don't know. How about why they stopped doing this for 20 years?
• 17:33
  Speaker B: We all know my philosophy to that answer, but it's fine.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: How about the United States has to be better at everything than everybody else? I would say the actual question is, after 50 years of not doing this, how do we make sure we send humans into space, like deep space, back to earth successfully, over and over again on a repeatable basis all the time. Think about it, okay? Not just can we launch the rocket like we did with Apollo. Okay, that's not the point. Not the robots, because we did robots, we did the space shuttle, we did all that whole thing. So what they're trying to figure out is whether or not the humanness part, the human part, still works of this whole thing, like the engineering and the discipline and the decision making and all those things. You don't know what's going on in space eight gazillion miles away.
• 18:18
  Speaker B: Okay, so we're basically just trying to see if we have the competence and the discipline to actually bring humans back around the moon.
• 18:28
  Speaker A: Yes. Okay, that's it. Okay, Total reality check. This is what we're doing.
• 18:31
  Speaker B: Is there anything that we should be worried about? Is it. Is anyone freaking out? Is there high. I mean, we know it's high risk.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: High reward, but is there things we should be freaking about? Yeah, people are going to die. That's what I freak about all the time, because I care about human beings. Is there anything NASA's freaking out about? Probably not. They don't give two shits. Just kidding. Yes, we should be worried. But Also, yes, we're ready for. And everything's ready to go. So there's. There's a little bit of, I don't know, calculated worry. Question mark. I don't know. It's space. Like, are you worried about going to space?
• 18:56
  Speaker B: I mean, I wouldn't go to space.
• 18:57
  Speaker A: You know what space is? Space is the final frontier. Star Trek nothing. Okay. So, like, yeah, they're not even freaking out about, like, the launch or anything like that. More about reentry. I think they figured out, like, hey, they can launch. They'll get them around the moon, like. But, like, ultimately, they're just always freaking out about reentry because reentry is, like, the scariest part of this whole thing.
• 19:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, that tracks. That would make sense.
• 19:19
  Speaker A: It was one thing when the space shuttle, like, came back from the International Space Station, because that. I shouldn't say that was easy, but, like, it was easier.
• 19:24
  Speaker B: I mean, you said it was only, like, 250 miles away, right? So, like, 250 compared to, like, 250,000. And once you get back into gravity and the force of gravity and all the things.
• 19:34
  Speaker A: All the things. So here's the deal. So have you ever jumped off your treadmill?
• 19:37
  Speaker B: No, I usually eat off the treadmill, but sure, okay, put whatever.
• 19:39
  Speaker A: Like, so you're walking on a treadmill three miles. I'm trying to, like, give context for listeners. You're like, you're walking three miles an hour on treadmill, and you fall off or jump off, like, you ain't gonna die. All right? You'll be, oops, I tripped, or I'm up. Or most of the time, you land on your feet. Like, that's like, International Space Station. That's space shuttle. Okay? Moon. And coming back from moon is like, the treadmill's on the back of a truck on the freeway going, like, 100 miles an hour. And then you fall off the treadmill.
• 20:04
  Speaker B: A very good visual analogy.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: Okay. And then you hope that you land on your feet.
• 20:08
  Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
• 20:09
  Speaker A: But you really don't because you end up, like, dying.
• 20:11
  Speaker B: But in theory, didn't we do it before?
• 20:13
  Speaker A: You roll into oncoming traffic and then, like, they're swerving out of the way and then you're dying. Yeah, but we did it before. But, like, this is my whole point.
• 20:20
  Speaker B: Of, like, in the 70s.
• 20:21
  Speaker A: Okay, hold on a sec. 1972. Thank you very much.
• 20:23
  Speaker B: Last time, which, like, technology wasn't even as far as it is now.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: All of that is true. But remember what I said. They did it sort of heroically.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: In a soundstage. I'm just kidding.
• 20:34
  Speaker A: Or in a soundstage at this point. You know what? She might be right, actually. I think she's winning me over.
• 20:40
  Speaker B: I'm just kidd.
• 20:40
  Speaker A: You think? Okay, I have another one for listeners here. This will help. Ready?
• 20:44
  Speaker B: Ready.
• 20:44
  Speaker A: Well, imagine learning how to ride a bike. You were, like, five or six years old. You start pedaling around, you do that whole thing. Right?
• 20:49
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 20:49
  Speaker A: And you do that six times, six days in a row.
• 20:52
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 20:52
  Speaker A: And then you never get on a bike again until you're 56 years old.
• 20:55
  Speaker B: You're gonna tell me it's muscle memory?
• 20:56
  Speaker A: Okay, absolutely. That's exactly what's going on. So I know we've done it before, but they are absolutely freaking out, because that's the whole problem. They don't know what they don't know. Like.
• 21:04
  Speaker B: All right. I mean, I'll give you that.
• 21:06
  Speaker A: I guess I'm gonna nerd out on you for a second.
• 21:08
  Speaker B: Can I go on? Yes, yes, go ahead.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: I'm gonna get super sophisticated here. This isn't even super sophisticated. This isn't even our brand, people. This is crazy. Okay, so check this out.
• 21:16
  Speaker B: Maybe this is what's gonna win me over.
• 21:17
  Speaker A: This is it.
• 21:18
  Speaker B: Maybe.
• 21:19
  Speaker A: Okay, so when the Orion capsule hits the Earth, like, our Earth's atmosphere. Wait a second. So the Orion capsule, sorry, is the name of the actual capsule that the four astronauts are gonna be in of.
• 21:31
  Speaker B: The Artemis 2 project.
• 21:32
  Speaker A: Right. So the Artemis Program. Artemis program. Then they did Artemis 1, flew some robots around.
• 21:37
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 21:37
  Speaker A: Then they do Artemis 2.
• 21:38
  Speaker B: Got it.
• 21:39
  Speaker A: And Artemis 2, we're calling it. The Orion capsule is like the little thing the guys are in. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that before.
• 21:44
  Speaker B: Got it.
• 21:44
  Speaker A: Okay, so that capsule will be traveling 25,000 miles an hour when it hits our atmosphere. 25,000 miles an hour. Okay. And because it's coming from so far away and it hits, like, our air or whatever, that hard quote. The friction will create a plasma field around the capsule that reaches 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. For anybody who doesn't know what 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit is, that is half the temperature of the surface of our sun. That is how hot.
• 22:17
  Speaker B: How do you even test anything? I don't even understand how you would test that.
• 22:22
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 22:23
  Speaker B: Hence.
• 22:23
  Speaker A: Right. We should be freaking out.
• 22:24
  Speaker B: I mean.
• 22:25
  Speaker A: Right? Okay. For a minute. Like, just. And now go back to whatever. All your conspiracy theories, Apollo 13, all the things. How much metal is between 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the person's feet inside the little capsule. I mean, what, a foot? Two feet?
• 22:42
  Speaker B: Well, that's my whole point. Five feet.
• 22:43
  Speaker A: I don't care.
• 22:43
  Speaker B: Like, it just logically doesn't make sense.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So on the one hand, here's what we've come down to. We are either moving onto the conspiracy theory side, like, for sure, or we have to give engineers so much credit.
• 22:57
  Speaker B: I do believe that there are brilliant people that we just don't hear about.
• 23:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 23:00
  Speaker B: Yes. Beautiful Mind.
• 23:02
  Speaker A: And clearly not even just the astronauts. These engineers behind this. This is insane. What's up? What's about to go on here? Right.
• 23:09
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 23:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 23:10
  Speaker B: All right.
• 23:10
  Speaker A: So I've been setting you up for this whole thing. Are you ready?
• 23:12
  Speaker B: Oh, dear.
• 23:13
  Speaker A: Because I've been doing that.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
• 23:14
  Speaker A: So during Artemis 1, the whole unmanned mission we were talking about earlier. Yeah. So when they tested them, they tested it all.
• 23:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker A: They got it back to Earth.
• 23:22
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 23:22
  Speaker A: But here's the deal. When they inspected it afterwards, they found parts of the heat shield.
• 23:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker A: Right. Ripped off and disintegrated in places they did not calculate. Oh, right. So.
• 23:34
  Speaker B: But it didn't implode.
• 23:35
  Speaker A: Nope. But they're kind of shitting their pants because all their calculations said it shouldn't.
• 23:40
  Speaker B: Have, but then it did. So, again, things that we didn't know.
• 23:43
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 23:43
  Speaker B: So we think we know, but we don't know.
• 23:45
  Speaker A: So you said, should they be worried? I think the answer is calculated worry. Yes.
• 23:49
  Speaker B: There's some pretty people think this is a good idea.
• 23:50
  Speaker A: What do you want me to say?
• 23:51
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 23:51
  Speaker A: I mean, we got it. We're doing this.
• 23:53
  Speaker B: At some point, I guess we're trying it.
• 23:54
  Speaker A: We're going. This is a big deal.
• 23:55
  Speaker B: Okay, so then who are the astronauts going? And, like, I think we all should pray for them. But also, do they get paid enough for this?
• 24:03
  Speaker A: Oh, my God. They get paid a million dollars. I have no idea what they get paid. Look that shit up. I want to know. All right, so let me give you some details on this mission. All right, so it's currently scheduled for launch on February 6th. And the whole trip is supposed to take about 10 days. That's if they don't run into any trouble. That's like always. How long it's supposed to take? So three days there. Three or four days to get around the moon. Three days back. That's sort of the concept. Did you figure out how much they.
• 24:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, you're not gonna believe this.
• 24:29
  Speaker A: Wait. Oh, my God. Wait. Should I be happy or sad?
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Oh, very sad.
• 24:32
  Speaker A: Oh. Oh.
• 24:33
  Speaker B: So it ranges from approximately 71,000.
• 24:36
  Speaker A: Oh, my God, no.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: To a little over 156,000 annually.
• 24:40
  Speaker A: What?
• 24:40
  Speaker B: Depending on their, you know, pay grade scale of GS11 to GS14, they do not receive special moon bonuses or danger pay, but they do receive standard government per diem and benefits while on missions. And sometimes it's like $5 per day if it goes over.
• 24:55
  Speaker A: I have a question about per diem.
• 24:57
  Speaker B: Maybe it's not $5 per day, but.
• 24:58
  Speaker A: What do they need it for? Are they gonna pull up to a gas and sip somewhere at the International Space Station and be like, hey, can I get a pack of smokes for my five dollar per die? Like, what is that all about? That's really weird. Can I ask you another question?
• 25:11
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: Doesn't like the LA Fire Chief or something make like $300,000 a year or like $350,000 a year? And like, I don't want to get into this whole thing, but basically screwed up the entire, you know, fires that went on in Malibu and Pacific Palisades and everything and then like fucked off and got fired.
• 25:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, fire Chiefs are like 113,000 to about 242, with top earners for specific roles exceeding 400,000. Thank you.
• 25:36
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 25:36
  Speaker B: And after one of them in 2023 was over 439,000. So basically what we are saying is, is that risking your life to go to space is not as important, evidently as LA Fire Chief, who has no water in its things. Also, Spencer Pratt. Have you been following Spencer Pratt?
• 25:53
  Speaker A: No.
• 25:53
  Speaker B: He is running for the mayor of Los Angeles.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: Really?
• 25:56
  Speaker B: Do you know who he is?
• 25:56
  Speaker A: I don't know enough.
• 25:57
  Speaker B: He's on the hills. That's all I really know about him. Married.
• 26:00
  Speaker A: Is he gonna win?
• 26:02
  Speaker B: He's like, growing this whole, like, rally. But you brought up the LA Fire Chief and this is part of his thing of like.
• 26:07
  Speaker A: It's terrible.
• 26:07
  Speaker B: We're paying all these, you know. Anyways, sorry.
• 26:10
  Speaker A: So clearly they're not making enough money. No, we got it.
• 26:12
  Speaker B: I wouldn't do it for 150,000.
• 26:14
  Speaker A: Oh, not. No, not.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: But I guess you have to love it.
• 26:16
  Speaker A: Love of the game. Love of the game. Okay, here we go. Let's pray for our astronauts. Ready? So this is I took from the most recent report I could find. Like, so I'm going to nerd out a little bit. I want to do them justice. Reid Weissman, he's the mission commander, former U.S. navy test pilot and the person ultimately responsible for the crew and the whole mission.
• 26:33
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 26:33
  Speaker A: He's like the CEO Okay. Right when the shit hits the fan, reads in charge, pray for Reid. Okay, next we have Victor Glover. He's the pilot, aerospace engineer, and former naval aviator who operates and monitors the spacecraft's systems and trajectory. He's the guy who's going to make sure we boomerang around the moon. He'll be the one to slam on the brakes or hit the gas, like when they go through the whole reentry process and not. Not kill them.
• 26:54
  Speaker B: Got it. Okay.
• 26:55
  Speaker A: Pray for Victor, everybody. Okay, next is Christina Koch, mission specialist. She's the engineer and long duration space flight veteran responsible for managing life support, power communications, and all the onboard systems. So, like, if the computer breaks, she's the person that has to fix it. Oh, okay. She's the baddie.
• 27:13
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 27:14
  Speaker A: And then finally you got Jeremy Hansen, also another mission specialist, a Canadian dude, fighter pilot, who supports all, like, the other spacecraft operations, like system monitoring and all the contingency procedures. So he fixes all the other shit that Christina is not in charge of fixing. Got it. That's the four of them.
• 27:32
  Speaker B: So read Victor, Christina and Jeremy. Make sure you're praying for them because, well, holy smokes, man.
• 27:36
  Speaker A: This is happening, huh? Right? And all for 71,000.
• 27:39
  Speaker B: Why is it not more like. And I know there's a bunch going on in the United States right now, but why isn't this more, like, covered and talked about?
• 27:47
  Speaker A: So. It's totally covered. It's like, I. Like, you can find it. I mean, I got.
• 27:50
  Speaker B: But it's not like, for normal people. I feel like it.
• 27:54
  Speaker A: What do you want me to say?
• 27:54
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 27:55
  Speaker A: The Olympics.
• 27:55
  Speaker B: I mean, we should. We should find out more about.
• 27:57
  Speaker A: Everybody loves the Olympics.
• 27:58
  Speaker B: Instead, I think it's fascinating that, like, as a society, this is all happening, like, in your daily life. It's. Oh, it's my daily life. It's fine. Like, I never think about space or I never think about something bigger than me. Does that make sense?
• 28:11
  Speaker A: Yes, totally.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: I mean, but, like, this is happening.
• 28:14
  Speaker A: They're up there.
• 28:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker A: There's like, families affected that are, like, freaking out. Right. So, okay, not to go down this rabbit hole, but this is how I think about death now. Like, because, like, same thing. Like, everybody's going around their life like it's not a big deal. And I'm like, how? How?
• 28:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker A: Like, I don't get it.
• 28:29
  Speaker B: We live in ignorant bliss, which I.
• 28:31
  Speaker A: Think is like a protective mechanism. So I can't even be mad about. Like, I was mad about.
• 28:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:34
  Speaker A: Like the first year after Galley Pass, I Was like, in my shit. Like, I could not get past that. Now it's sort of like, why do I wish that on anybody? I don't wish that on anybody. Like, of course. So, like, this ignorant bliss is kind of cool, but I think we absolutely should be watching this, following this, praying for these people. Like, praying for their family. Like, it's a big deal.
• 28:50
  Speaker B: But that's how you get sort of sophisticated, right? Is that you're taking yourself out of your normal and think about something.
• 28:55
  Speaker A: That was a huge win around. I love that. Thank you.
• 28:58
  Speaker B: All right, well, so basically NASA's getting back in the game. We have the Artemis program. Now we're on mission number two. And I'm sure there's like mission number two.
• 29:08
  Speaker A: I know I'm 12 years old.
• 29:10
  Speaker B: I figure that there's like a bigger vision for all of this. Like, they're not just going around. I get it. To make it more repeatable. But I'm sure they have bigger plans. They have to.
• 29:19
  Speaker A: Oh, they got. They got bigger plans.
• 29:20
  Speaker B: What is it?
• 29:21
  Speaker A: It is something NASA calls the Lunar Gateway.
• 29:25
  Speaker B: Okay. The gateway for what?
• 29:28
  Speaker A: The upside down, Stranger things. What do you think? Yes, Absolutely. Okay.
• 29:32
  Speaker B: To bring life to the moon. What?
• 29:34
  Speaker A: No, not the moon, dude. The gate. Check this out. Okay, so the whole idea is this gateway is going to be like the International Space station, but not 250 miles above Earth, orbiting Earth. This is going to be 250,000 miles away, orbiting the moon. Like a really small space station. Okay? And they're calling it the gateway. And the whole idea is from there to be able to use it as a base camp or a launching pad to bigger missions to Mars to explore deep space, all the other planets. I mean, we're going to start with Mars. So, like Mount Everest. You know, enough about Mount Everest, like, base camp, right? You don't. You don't start to climb Mount Everest from, like, the town.
• 30:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's baby steps.
• 30:21
  Speaker A: And then you go, you go up to base camp, you acclimate, right? So the whole idea, if you can imagine, if we launch from the moon to Mars, we're already 250,000 miles closer. So if we can figure out a way to live in this.
• 30:34
  Speaker B: They're trying to frogger this shit.
• 30:36
  Speaker A: Absolutely. They're frogger the shit, right? Their whole mission is Mars, baby. I shouldn't say Mars. Their whole mission is deep space. The concept of this whole thing is get the gateway opened. Get the portal. This is what I mean, this is Stranger Things. Shit. Open, dude. Let's go. We're Going to the Upside Down.
• 30:53
  Speaker B: This is planning this in, like, in our lifetime.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Because.
• 30:56
  Speaker B: Mildly frightening.
• 30:56
  Speaker A: They are totally planning this in our lifetime. Like, I shit my pants on. You want to guess?
• 31:00
  Speaker B: I don't know. They're shutting down the International Space station in, like, 2030. So I assume it has something to do with that.
• 31:05
  Speaker A: Yes, it does. In the 2000 and 30s, it's like, what are we, 20, 26?
• 31:10
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You got, like, four years, right?
• 31:11
  Speaker A: So in the 2000 and 30s, they're already planning to have that gateway totally functional, and then make their first trip to Mars before 2040. Really? We'll be alive, dude. Yes. Humans to Mars. This is fucking fascinating.
• 31:26
  Speaker B: I mean, it's like Elon's dream, right?
• 31:28
  Speaker A: I want to go. I have an idea, people. Anybody who DMs us totally can get on board. We're going. You can go with us. We're going to Mars. We're going to be the first people. Let's explore.
• 31:37
  Speaker B: I will not.
• 31:38
  Speaker A: I want to go.
• 31:38
  Speaker B: Did you not see what happened? You and Katie, did you not see what happened?
• 31:41
  Speaker A: Let's go.
• 31:41
  Speaker B: No.
• 31:41
  Speaker A: Why not? Who?
• 31:42
  Speaker B: Origin that, like, barely got out of space and. Not that it's not, like, a big deal. It's a big deal.
• 31:47
  Speaker A: That was a terrible publicity stunt, and they pretended it wasn't a publicity stunt. Yeah, and then everybody on the View loved him and thought they were the best. Oh, my God.
• 31:55
  Speaker B: But, like, one of the astronauts, she, like, has severe, like, PTSD and, like, has gone through a lot of mental health stuff because of the backlash that she got. It's very sad.
• 32:03
  Speaker A: Not like Katy Perry.
• 32:04
  Speaker B: No, not Katy Perry.
• 32:05
  Speaker A: But, like, what? Like, somebody like. I don't know.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, but I'm interested, like, how far that actually went. Like, how far up.
• 32:11
  Speaker A: No, that just went to touch space and come back. I don't even think it went, like, 250 miles. No, no, no, no, no.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: Okay, so didn't go, like, space station far.
• 32:17
  Speaker A: No, I'll look that up. I'll look that up. Right.
• 32:19
  Speaker B: But I was going to say earlier was, no, I'm not gonna go to Mars, because. Did you not see what happened to the thing that imploded the submarine? What was that called? Titan. The Titan.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: Oh, but that was different. That wasn't like. That was rinky dink, dude. That wasn't like. They have it all organized and together.
• 32:32
  Speaker B: We don't know. We don't know. Going to Mars.
• 32:34
  Speaker A: Oh, my God.
• 32:35
  Speaker B: That's like.
• 32:35
  Speaker A: Matt Damon's already been on Mars, hasn't he? I think he has. Was it the Martian? Wasn't it? I think it was. Okay, anyway, I don't even know. 62 miles. 62 miles above Earth.
• 32:47
  Speaker B: How far do planes go up? How many miles do planes go up?
• 32:50
  Speaker A: No, they go, like, six miles, right over Mount Everest.
• 32:52
  Speaker B: Oh, that's it.
• 32:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 32:53
  Speaker A: I think they fly at 30,000. Yeah. Our altitude of 30,000ft. Yeah.
• 32:57
  Speaker B: How many feet are in a mile?
• 32:58
  Speaker A: Six miles. 5,280. You're such a dork. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
• 33:05
  Speaker B: That's amazing. Okay, so are there fun facts about this? I feel like we've digressed into, like, the.
• 33:10
  Speaker A: Are there fun facts about space? There are plenty of fun facts. Well, no.
• 33:13
  Speaker B: About Artemis.
• 33:14
  Speaker A: About Artemis, yeah.
• 33:16
  Speaker B: Specific.
• 33:16
  Speaker A: I can. So there are fun facts.
• 33:18
  Speaker B: The program.
• 33:19
  Speaker A: There are fun facts.
• 33:20
  Speaker B: I mean, there's tons of stuff about space, but I don't really care how, like, big a black hole is right now.
• 33:24
  Speaker A: You don't care about. All right, here we go. Fun facts about Artemis program, Artemis 2, all that kind of stuff. Have you ever heard of the term Munakin?
• 33:35
  Speaker B: Like a mannequin moon. Yes, because it's a fake moon that's in a stage. Soundstage.
• 33:40
  Speaker A: Close. No, not the sound stage. This was when Artemis 1 went up.
• 33:45
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 33:45
  Speaker A: Okay. Right. They didn't use people. They used a mannequin.
• 33:47
  Speaker B: Right.
• 33:48
  Speaker A: They actually put a mannequin in there.
• 33:49
  Speaker B: That's funny.
• 33:49
  Speaker A: Right? And they named him Commander Munakin Campos.
• 33:55
  Speaker B: Stupid.
• 33:56
  Speaker A: I would have. Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker.
• 34:00
  Speaker B: Anything better than that?
• 34:01
  Speaker A: Moonikin Campos.
• 34:02
  Speaker B: I feel like you could just call him a Moonakin, period. But not his name.
• 34:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Check it out. This Munakin guy, he was all covered in, like, sensors and buzzers and all the things, whatever they attach to. Right, right. Because they want to make sure, like, vibration and radiation and engineer shit that they could, like, figure out. You want to. You want to know what they figured out? Like what? At what temperature? Right. Because, you know, he's plastic, so he's got to melt. Right? Because they're going to be going like, what is it, 5,000. 5,000 degrees, you know, Fahrenheit. Whatever. It's crazy. Okay.
• 34:32
  Speaker B: Going to be fine. It's going to be fine.
• 34:34
  Speaker A: Everything's going to be fine. Let's just pray for them all. It's all good. Okay. All right, number two. So the Artemis 2 mission actually has two pieces to it. So the Orion capsule. Yeah, the thing that they're going to be in. Right. And then they have something else called the space Launch system, the sls. Right.
• 34:47
  Speaker B: Does that, like, get, like, booted off?
• 34:48
  Speaker A: Ooh. Huh. So check this out. It produces £9 million of thrust. £9 million?
• 34:56
  Speaker B: That's insane.
• 34:56
  Speaker A: I don't produce that many pounds of thrust. Like, I produce probably. I mean.
• 35:00
  Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
• 35:00
  Speaker A: 10 pounds of throwing on, like, what do you think?
• 35:02
  Speaker B: You digress.
• 35:02
  Speaker A: Okay, but wait a second. That's. It's a lot of thrust, right? Anyway, some perspective on 9 million pounds of thrust. That is the same horsepower of almost 200,000. Thousand.
• 35:13
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 35:13
  Speaker A: Corvette engines running in parallel.
• 35:16
  Speaker B: That's crazy.
• 35:17
  Speaker A: At the same time to, like, launch this frigging Orion thing into space before, like, the SLS thing, like, blows up.
• 35:23
  Speaker B: That's crazy.
• 35:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
• 35:24
  Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
• 35:24
  Speaker A: It's a lot of thrust, baby. It's a lot of thrust. Okay. We haven't used cloying, have we? Not have either one of us cloyed each other?
• 35:31
  Speaker B: No.
• 35:31
  Speaker A: Can we say we've cloyed?
• 35:33
  Speaker B: Past tense.
• 35:34
  Speaker A: And cloying. We didn't use cloy. How are we going to get cloying to be over? Flattering, right? Was that the idea of flattering?
• 35:40
  Speaker B: I think you were being very cloying while talking about your thrust power. Okay, there you go.
• 35:44
  Speaker A: I was being. Wait, I was being flattering to myself.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 35:47
  Speaker A: Wow. That was me. That was like a backhanded compliment. That hurt my feelings a little bit.
• 35:52
  Speaker B: I don't know what you want was the truth.
• 35:53
  Speaker A: I'm a little sensy right now. Sadness, you're terrible. Okay, that sucks. But I guess we'll count it. Okay. Not one of our best word of the weeks.
• 36:01
  Speaker B: Or the best, right?
• 36:02
  Speaker A: Let's go. Number three. The Artemis 2 mission will be the first time a woman, Christina Koch, will ever be in space. How do you like that? And super fun fact, it will also be the first time a person of color will be in space. Victor Glover. Yes. Now, the space shuttle has done this because in 1986, I understand there was a woman who died also. But because that was only 250 miles from Earth, that doesn't count as, like, deep space. So I guess I shouldn't have said space. It'll be the first time a woman or a person of color will leave the Earth's orbit. Oh, okay. Like, that's better, right? That's better. Okay. It's wild. I know. Okay, number four. So remember how I said reentry was, like 5,000 degrees?
• 36:41
  Speaker B: We're talking about this.
• 36:42
  Speaker A: Okay? Right. Death. Death. Okay. NASA engineers have figured out a way to do Something called a skip entry, like when we get back in to our Earth's atmosphere. So they're literally gonna skip, like bounce off the atmosphere like a number of times. Have you ever like skipped a rock, like a flat rock across a bottle? And it slows down? This is exactly what they're trying to do. Yeah. So they can not melt to death. So I was like, well, have we done this before? Okay. So I looked this whole thing up with Apollo. Apparently we didn't do that. Apollo. We just like went right through, like.
• 37:14
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Crashed and.
• 37:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, right, with all the things right when we just went right through and then the pod came down and we like survived. Yeah, and we did that six times, mind you. So we were baddies. But this time they're doing this whole skip system that they believe is going to like.
• 37:27
  Speaker B: Do they do this with Artemis 1?
• 37:29
  Speaker A: Yes, they did the same thing with Artemis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right, so remember we were talking about engineers, I think of like mathematicians and physicists and all the people have to be involved. Like, like you have to figure out.
• 37:38
  Speaker B: And so I feel like, oh my God.
• 37:40
  Speaker A: I don't think that skip method, I think is one of the coolest things. If they figure if this is all it works, like if this is all repeat can be repeated. I think it's amazing. This is a testament back to all the, the new frontier science and shit. Oh my God. It's crazy. Okay, and finally this last one, I always saved the best for last. And I thought this one was super cool. Okay, so first context. So the Apollo missions way back in the day, they had less processing power than a modern day toaster. Like the computer system. Okay, you get it.
• 38:07
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 38:07
  Speaker A: But the Orion, on the other hand, has more computing power than your smartphone, your car and your home all combined.
• 38:14
  Speaker B: Okay, well, I'd hope so.
• 38:15
  Speaker A: No, Right. But here's the fun fact, okay? It's gonna blow your mind. They can't use modern chips because they'll like fucking melt. It won't work. So NASA intentionally is using 1990s technology on the Orion capsule with all the old school radiation like hardened computers, but with the processing capability that they've upgraded.
• 38:39
  Speaker B: Huh?
• 38:40
  Speaker A: So shit won't melt when they're like coming back in. Right?
• 38:43
  Speaker B: All right.
• 38:43
  Speaker A: And so when everything else fails, they'll still have like some level, some shit.
• 38:47
  Speaker B: It goes back to the manual not.
• 38:49
  Speaker A: Or victor steering correctly.
• 38:51
  Speaker B: Not all high tech technology is the best technology.
• 38:53
  Speaker A: Knowing how to like pump the clutch.
• 38:55
  Speaker B: Back to the 90s, okay, 90s is the best.
• 38:57
  Speaker A: The 90s okay, that's all I got for fun facts. Did we do, like, a service here of the space program?
• 39:03
  Speaker B: You took it from, like, a cool space trivia episode to, like, wow, this is actually kind of a big deal. And, like, we should be invested. And, you know, as humans going through this historical moment, we should pay more attention. And the fact that, like, it's way bigger than just, like, repeating Apollo because we now want to go to, like, Mars. And so it's like, a big, like, first step to future deep space exploration.
• 39:23
  Speaker A: I would say that, like, I would follow this for a lot longer now, like, now that we're back in the groove with, like, 50 years of not doing this. Because in my lifetime.
• 39:30
  Speaker B: Right. Pay attention.
• 39:31
  Speaker A: In my lifetime, I had nothing to pay attention to after the 80s, really.
• 39:34
  Speaker B: Right.
• 39:34
  Speaker A: This is it. Like, for the next 25 years, we're going to be, like, really active in this space. I'm on board.
• 39:39
  Speaker B: So crazy. I don't know if I'm on board. Seems a little out there.
• 39:42
  Speaker A: It's happening.
• 39:43
  Speaker B: All right, well, if we want to keep following it, are there, like, certain things that we should watch or do I think we should all watch Flight of the Moon and see how it's all a conspiracy, but anything else besides that?
• 39:51
  Speaker A: You said Scarlett Johansson was in it. Yeah, I can totally watch it.
• 39:54
  Speaker B: Okay, There you go. Here we go.
• 39:55
  Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
• 39:55
  Speaker B: What's our call to action?
• 39:56
  Speaker A: Call to action. Okay, so if we want to learn a little bit more, dig a little deeper into Artemis. Go to NASA.govartemis. they have the track the Mission feature, which is super cool because you could see everything firsthand.
• 40:10
  Speaker B: That's fun. First of all, it's like the Santa Finder.
• 40:12
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. For space. Let's go. You can find information on the flight crew, the whole Orion, pretty much. They also have a live feed. So, like, you can. Yes. You'll follow, like, everything that's super cool. Yeah.
• 40:23
  Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. That seems high risk.
• 40:24
  Speaker A: They also have info on Artemis 3 and Artemis 4.
• 40:27
  Speaker B: Like, yes.
• 40:29
  Speaker A: So you could get. You already know what their plans are. They're like sharing information. If you want to get cozy and read a book at night instead, then check out the book the First Museum on the Moon by Ian Crawford. That will give you sort of the cultural side of things, not the science side of things. More what, like, the moon means to us as humans and how we should be intentional about how we leave our story on the moon and how we treat the moon. So this is not, like, just a destination. Get there. But Like a respect thing. The same thing with Earth, like a sustainability. So here we are, we're already exploring the moon. What are we doing about it, guys? So shout out to Ian Crawford. That's the solid book there. And if you don't read, then watch National Geographic's series Mars. It explains exactly why this moon mission is basically the essential like building block to the whole point of us going and it's already out there. National Geographic has a great series about how we're trying to get to Mars. And if you don't do any of those things, that's fine with me. Just remember these details to seem sort of sophisticated. Number one, Artemis 2 is a 10 day, 500,000 mile journey with a four man crew that's doing a flyby of the moon and then loops back to Earth. It's not for fun. It's a mission to test our competence. To prove that after 50 years we still have the discipline and skill to safely navigate outer space. Number two, the deep space jump is massive. The International Space station is only 250 miles away. The moon is 240,000 miles away. Artemis 2 is testing the life support and communication needed to survive that leap. Number three, the Artemis program is all about building repeatable systems. Unlike Apollo and their space race panic, Artemis is designed to build sustainable infrastructure like the lunar gateway. So going to space becomes a capability we keep not a miracle. We pulled off once or six times and then forgot how to do. Number four, the heat shield is our Achilles heel. It always has been. Returning from the moon requires surviving 5,000 degree plasma at 25,000 miles an hour. Artemis 2 is the final stress test for the Orion capsule's ultimate safety. And finally, the moon is just a pit stop before we set our sights on Mars. The ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to use the moon as a testing ground for technology, radiation shielding, communication, and the psychology we'll need to eventually send humans to Mars.
• 42:40
  Speaker B: Well, there you have it, dear listeners. A deep dive into the Artemis 2 mission. The mission that's teaching NASA how to leave, quote, the shallow end of space and remember how to swim without floaties. So if we did our job right today, you're walking away a little more sophisticated, a little more aware of the 240,000 mile gap we're about to cross. And maybe ready to casually drop a fact about Moonekin Campos at your next get together. And as always, if you like this episode, hit, subscribe, leave a review and share it with that one friend who still thinks the moon landings were either fake or easy, like a man. And, like, for the record, I don't actually think it's fake. I just have questions.
• 43:13
  Speaker A: You like? Like to.
• 43:15
  Speaker B: You like to. I like to goat. You. You do? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, until next time. Stay curious, stay competent, and remember, being sophisticated isn't about knowing everything. It's about knowing whether you still have the skills to go somewhere hard and make it back alive.