NASA's Giant Leaps: Past and Future

just after a two minute mark on the countdown t-minus one minute 54 seconds and count our status board indicates that the oxidizer tanks in the second and third stages are now pressurized, we continue to build pressure in all three stages here at the last minute to prepare it for takeoff t-minus one minute 35 seconds in the flight of the Apollo mission to take the first men to the moon all the indications reaching the control center at this moment indicate that we are launching a minute 25 Seconds and counting our status board indicates that the third stage, fully pressurized and charged, the second mark has now been issued.

Turn on full internal power at month 52. The countdown guidance system turns on internally at 17 seconds before the power-on sequence at eight point nine seconds to approach sixty seconds. month on the Apollo 11 mission t-minus 15 seconds and counting we have had P minus 60 55 seconds and counting Neil Armstrong just reported that it has been a really smooth scam when we pass month 52 the energy transfer is complete, we are at internal power with the launch vehicle at this moment 40 seconds from Apollo 11 20 seconds in approximately t-minus 15 seconds the guidance is internal 12 11 10 9 ignition sequence start 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 liftoff we have a liftoff 32 minutes later the time hello, I'm Mike Collins 50 years ago Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin and I got dressed in this same room at that moment we were on our way to make history with Apollo 11 the first moon landing and there are the men of Apollo 11 Immortalized in bronze a statue of seven feet outside the Saturn 5 Center at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, meanwhile inside the Saturn 5 Center we welcome you to our program about NASA's

giant

leaps

past and present.

Hello everyone, it's me and Darryl Nail. I'm Murray Lewis and we're sitting under the Saturn 5 rocket, right behind us. It is the most powerful rocket ever flown. The Saturn 5. 7.6 million pounds of thrust propelled Apollo 11 and a total of 24 American astronauts to the moon and America's next

giant

leap to the Moon. The moon will take off from right here in Florida and we have teams of astronauts from Broadcasters and other guests around the country to help us honor history and you see them there, they will also help us project the

future

. We will take you to Johnson Space Center. in Houston, the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to Neil Armstrong's hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, the Museum of Flight in Seattle and some special guests, hey, who's this Adam Savage ?

Yeah, from Mythbusters, oh, I see it there and they're at the National. Mall in Washington DC and I'm Karen Fox from NASA, just a few minutes we'll be speaking live with Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and I'm Danielle Deleasa and I'm beyond excited to be here at Kennedy Space. The Center will celebrate the anniversary of Apollo 11, where we will celebrate and answer your questions and comments on social media. We will even interview people live at this Center if we don't respond to your questions or comments about this. show, don't worry, we have a team on standby ready to answer you, all you have to do is remember the hashtag Apollo 50.

Alright, thanks Danielle, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 is, of course, the reason why the one we are here today. We begin with our First Look at the remarkable historical achievement that the entire world is celebrating, that giant leap changed history and helped create the world we live in today. Telkom go Kenzi go peacock go Sergent go Capcom work go undock Armstrong Aldrin and Collins hit the moon on Saturday 19th July when we approached and rolled down and saw it for the first time it was a revelation it was gigantic It filled our entire window The next day, Sunday, July 20, we landed there and with much anticipation we finally got to the day that this is about to start landing on the moon was absolutely the hardest part of any Apollo mission, okay?

We talk about this as a controlled fall out of lunar orbit, the problem is that in this controlled fall out of orbit you only have enough fuel for one fry, the trajectory had been wrong, they were directed to this inhospitable place and then had to fly over this area at a high forward speed, then they rise to slow down, so they kill the forward speed and then start to descend like a helicopter, so now we are in a critical state of fuel and it is because that the 60 second call was given and in the 30 second call there were 25 seconds of Fuel left in the 20 seconds, okay, engine stop, API edition, hit them, okay, Pro, both the automatic reason and the command override is disabled and then I go. 413 is inside, we copy it, he goes towards me and the striking baby eagle has landed calmly, we copy it on the ground. you've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again thank you on landing for me it was a great celebration the nation was almost euphoric the US Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong is always known as the first man to die 2012, but his small step on the lunar surface continues to inspire our knowledge of the universe around us has multiplied by a thousand and more, this is the new ocean and we must navigate it and we must be leaders in it and that captured the imagination of the people and Later we will talk live with some Apollo astronauts and we will also hear from Mark Darrell, Neil Armstrong's son.

We're looking forward to Neil Armstrong's son looking like him too, right? I love listening to it. He's a great guy, we have our own astronauts. here two three I'm going to talk to Stan Love in a little while, even as we celebrate the historic milestone of Apollo 11, we're working hard to get humans back to the moon in the next five years while we chart an eventual course for Mars, we're calling it the Artemis program, a successor to Apollo in the 21st century. Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the moon in Greek mythology.

We will take that name with us to the moon again, landing astronauts by 2024 and establishing sustainable lunar exploration by 2028. To get there, we are building a powerful rocket, the Space Launch System, to send astronauts aboard our new Orion spacecraft to the gateway into lunar orbit, from the gateway we will be able to take astronauts to places we have never been before, including the lunar south. At the North Pole we will have a human landing system installed at the front door, but before that we will be back on the Moon with commercial robotic landings that will carry scientific instruments and technological demonstrations to the Moon starting in September of next year and we will need a new spacesuit generator as we send the first woman and next man to the moon as we do this we gain more scientific knowledge about the solar system we live in and American companies large and small are developing advanced technologies to make it a reality these dreams of space exploration for NASA and just like with Apollo, many of these technologies will later become everyday parts of life here on Earth and stay tuned until the end of our program.

We'll have a fun reveal about Artemis who now joins us live, astronaut Stan Love, who flew. space shuttle mission STS 122 to the International Space Station and is currently working on the development of a

future

human spacecraft Stan twelve astronauts walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972 Did Neil Armstrong inspire you in any way on absolutely any level? I think anyone my age had Those interested in science, technology, or exploration considered the Apollo 11 astronauts heroes. I remember when I was in grade school, when I was six years old, my little tin lunchbox had the astronauts on the Apollo spacecraft, so I had it there from the beginning and I remember coming to work on my first day as an astronaut driving through the gate of the Johnson Space Center and thinking, "Oh my God, this is where it happened, this is where we took people to the moon for the first time", there is a kind of sense of awe and incredible sense of honor to be able to join that effort, especially as a crew member, and then some trepidation, I really hoped I would live up to it. of the assignment and we actually got a video of you launching the space shuttle with a camera that had like an interior.

Look, it's not exciting right, oh yeah, absolutely, when they launched our light, those solid rocket motors and the shuttle, you know you're going somewhere in a hurry, it's like two strong guys shaking your chair as hard as they can. forks. It's pretty amazing now that you're working on a future human spacecraft, tell me a little bit about that involvement, so I'm working on the cabin of the Orion spacecraft, which will be the backbone of the main transportation device to take people to Moon. lunar sanity and then bring them back safely to Earth and I'm working on the screens and controls that the crew is going to use to see how their systems work, guide that vehicle and fly it, so it's up to me and the people who work to make sure the crew gets all the information they need and that the commands they send arrive correctly at the vehicle.

It's exciting work and Stan, thank you so much for joining us. Well, I'll send it back to you, Marie. Alright, thanks Daryl and Stan, and thanks, we'll hear more from current and former astronauts throughout this show, including Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins from Apollo 11 and other Apollo astronauts, now let's go to Houston and the famous Mission Control Apollo from the historic Mission Control Center NASA carried out some of its most legendary space missions the first time the US spacewalk, the Apollo moon landings and even the dawn of the shuttle era of exploration space in this room from 1965 to 1992, flight controllers monitored every aspect of the mission, electrical navigation communications and even the health of the astronauts, with everything that happened here, it is no wonder that this The room Flight control was designated a National Historic Landmark, but after years of inactivity, a historic hall fell into disrepair until a new mission was launched to save it.

A restoration effort set out to recover every detail of the room as it would have been during the time. of the Apollo moon landings, this is the biggest achievement that happened in 1969, so for us to recreate it and have that feeling and honor that moment and that success was really important to us, to find the original wallpaper and then recreate it. finding the original carpet and recreating it and then just restoring and reassembling the seats and then just all the little details, you know what was on the consoles, what was particular to that flight controller, so it's very custom, so what the work is historically accurate. has brought the room to life capturing a moment in time for flight director Gene Kranz the effort goes beyond the switches and monitors this room has an aura the people have worked here they have lived there they made the decisions there each of these controllers basically left a legacy here in the restoration I think that recognizes the work done in Mission Control by the Mission Control teams I'm Gary Jordan in that historic Mission Control and with me is Gene Krantz one of the Apollo 11 flight directors, who just listen, it's on the same console it was on 50 years ago when Eagle landed on the moon.

We also have Charlie Duke, the Capcom, the communicator pod that comes directly from his console when Apollo 11 landed. He was the voice between the teams here. in the room and the astronauts of the historic mission and then walked on the moon himself during Apollo 16, gentlemen, it's a pleasure to have you both here, thank you, great, Charlie, your famous words to Neil. I think part of that quote was, "You've got a group of guys over the term blue, we're redoing it, yeah, so this came right after Neil Armstrong confirmed that the eagle had landed, how did it feel to hear those words from the moon?

Well, very exciting, very close, we were almost out of Gas and then The Heretic contact engine stopped, what we did was a big relief. The containment was really high, that's right, that gene, that conversation followed a One of the most tense parts of the entire mission, really, the powered descent of Eagle to the surface of the Moon, the flight control. It was here it seemed so calm how they stayed like that and so focused during that tense time that it is a process of discipline training in the training room basically these are consummate professionals from a very young age they learn the discipline necessary to perform difficult tasks that's right, there wasn't much celebration in this room right after they landed, so Charlie, why No?

Well, first of all, we had to make sure that the lunar module was safe, that it wasleak when you land or the battery dies or many things could happen. We had to be ready to take off, so we stayed. Jean brought us back to attention after a few smiles and said we were going 41, so we had a set time t1 t2 t3 and I don't remember exactly how long it was, but we were focused on making sure this lunar module was safe and ready to go. work if we had to take off, that's right, the flight controllers in this room weren't much older than me.

I'm about 27, which I think is the average age. of the flight controllers tell me about the level of trust that was needed in the team to make that mission a reality, basically it is the trust that exists between the team and me, between my team and the actions we obtained and with the program office , I think trust is the essential product for the success of human spaceflight and I think one of the things that Charlie mentioned here was t3, stay, stay, yes, we had to wait two hours to join the celebration, but The rest of the world was at the console doing our work for two hours.

After the landing, we could celebrate right now, Charlie, when those first steps of Neil Armstrong on the moon and those famous words that he said for all of humanity, were you able to celebrate either immediately or when you really realized the significance of the achievement? after we went off duty after T 3 and went to a press conference, if I remember correctly, we went and celebrated with a few beers at that time and then I went home and was with my family watching it on TV while he I took the first steps and then I realized that we were on the moon.

Well, I hope we can have that feeling once again. Do we have just a moment to join us now? She is an astronaut who will be launching to the International Space Station here in just a few months. She was selected as an astronaut in 2013 and Jessica, you are training right now for a long-term stay aboard the International Space Station, about six months, which is actually longer than all the Apollo missions combined, tell me what you are going to do in the International Space Station, how. Will that help us in our future return missions to the Moon and Mars?

So I will be there for a six month mission as you mentioned and really the space station is a world class laboratory right now, it is a US National Lab and of course we are working with all of our international partners as well as with the Russian space agency, the Canadian, Japanese and European Space Agency, so we are carrying out all kinds of sentai scientific research and technology demonstrations that are really critical in our path for future exploration. So just to name a few, for example, of course we need to understand how spaceflight and the microgravity environment affects us and our humans, our bodies and our physiology, so we now have decades of research from all this research science that we have been carrying out. on the space station and then in the previous shows, we know a lot about how to maintain our muscle mass and our bone density, we have some hot topics right now, really vision, our vision and the health of our eyes, also what's happening to it to our blood. spacecraft looking at our carotid arteries and some changes we're seeing in astronauts that are very similar to the aging process, so we need to better understand what's happening here to make sure we can get astronauts safely to their destination and Make sure of course that we can get them there safely and you'll be able to do it first hand as an astronaut now, as I know, actually Charlie Duke inspired you to become an astronaut in the first place, yes, he was actually the same . first astronaut I ever met, so it's pretty amazing, it's really an amazing experience to be standing in this room with these two people when I was in high school.

Charlie was speaking in the next town. I grew up in a very small town in northern Maine and we didn't have many astronauts. I had never met anyone who worked at NASA or an astronaut, so I went to hear him speak and I'm sure he doesn't remember this, but I talked to him afterwards. He gave me his card, I told him my dream was to become an astronaut like him and I wrote him a letter and I thought you know he's very busy. I'm sure he gets a lot of these, but he actually responded to me and this.

This is the actual letter I found when I moved a couple years ago. This is the letter you wrote to me in 1996 when I was a freshman in college, so maybe that will refresh your memory, but thank you very much for doing so. It really was inspiring and it makes a difference thank you yes well good things always empower someone inspire someone thank you typewritten I love that now a gene when we think about our future missions you use the phrase hard and competent thinking Inspiring the next generations Do you think those same values ​​will apply to the people who are going to take us into the well because they are confident and really address the responsibility of the Mission Control team to basically take the actions necessary to protect the crew and achieve the objective? difficult mission meetings where you are always responsible for what you do and this was done after palawan, what we cannot do, always confident that we will never take anything for granted again, we will never stop learning from now on that the teams and Mission Control will be perfect, no, Charlie, what.

Can today's astronauts like Jessica do to inspire the next generation? Well, I think what she said, just the performance of her and what she's doing and being there, being able to do it in front of an audience and just telling her story, writing a letter, very good, thank you all three. of you for taking the time to be with us today here at historic Apollo Mission Control in Houston NASA's giant jumps continue in Wapakoneta Ohio, Neil Armstrong's hometown, we'll go there in a moment, but first some thoughts about explorers of a different kind. from Rocket Man they want adventures and I really admire those kinds of people, they are so brave and fearless that the pioneers and you know, without Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Marco Polo, we wouldn't know, Sir Francis Drake, all those kinds of people, the world.

It won't be what it is today, welcome to Wapakoneta Ohio, proud to be the hometown of Neil Armstrong. I'm Ty Bateman, an anchor with local stations in Lima, Ohio and we're located at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, which is about an hour north. of Dayton Ohio now which of course is the home of the Wright brothers who invented powered flight over 115 years ago. Now Ohio is also home to NASA's Glenn Research Center, named after another space pioneer, John Glenn, and it's the middle of summer. moon festival, which is an annual celebration of the Apollo moon landing and right now we have one of our 25 astronauts who comes from Ohio and is also a native of Cleveland and a veteran of four space shuttle missions Don Thomas, thank you very much for being here with that sign, it's great to be here today, well let's get into it.

Of course, you've been inspired by so many astronauts, but how did Neil Armstrong and the other Apollo astronauts inspire you? You know it was the first astronauts who launched in 1961 that first inspired us. To be an astronaut, I watched its launch on a small TV and I just said I wanted to do that, so all the first astronauts, John Glenn ed White who did the first space walk and then Neil Armstrong, they had a big influence on my career. . Well done. that's amazing, so you saw the Apollo 11 launch on TV and I understand you also invited Neil Armstrong to watch one of your launches.

Did you know that we can invite some VIPs to our launches? And I wrote Neil Armstrong a letter saying I was one of the Ohio astronauts. I told him that he was one of my heroes when he was a kid and invited him to come to the launch. He wrote back to me, said, I'll be there, and I thought, "Wow, Neil Armstrong is coming to my launch." I was very excited and the day before launch I got a call from NASA management at the Kennedy Space Center and they told me that Mr. Armstrong wanted to meet with me, so my wife and I, Neil Armstrong and his wife Carol, stopped by about an hour together in the crew quarters just talking and I showed him around and at the end of our hour I had a great time.

I was shaking his hand and said thank you for being here. I really appreciate you coming to the launch and I asked him how long are you going to be in town, I mean how long are you going to be in Florida and he looked me right in the eyes. he said how long are you going to be in town which means I'm going to stay here until you launch and we launched right on time the next day and it was the thrill of a lifetime to have him there for the launch. Amazing Don, thanks for those memories.

Well, let's look at Neil Armstrong, the man Neil Armstrong was born at his grandparents' farmhouse outside of Wapakoneta. We sat down with Neil's brother and sister and asked them to share some personal memories of his famous brother, which he was very good at. telling jokes and accent in the accent astronomy correct Scottish accent and a little bit of German sometimes too, but depending on the story he was telling, but he was good at it because he tells a story and he has this, you know, just a little bit of a smile . his face and then everyone laughs and he laughed, he laughed because he thought it was funny the legacy has not yet been determined in science the doors are still wide open and I really feel like it helped inspire the technical aspect of this country .

I know we had a lot of important technical advances with the NASA program and now you can see that continuing. I think my dad would be very pleased with where we are now because we are on the cusp of another era of exploration taking the next steps backwards. to the Moon because that is the place where we can learn the things we need when we go beyond, if we can remind everyone how the world was elevated by the Apollo program and by these efforts. I think we have a good chance to remain the Of course and continue that exploration forward, being an astronaut was our father's way of life, it was dad's job and we all supported and excited the astronauts, the guys, when they were there , the last thing they wanted to do was worry about what was going on at home, I think the wives were just trying to make sure family wasn't one of those things on their list of things to worry about.

The Apollo program inspired a generation to want to be better. work hard, work hard and follow your dreams because Apollo made it clear that dreams were possible and I think that made the world a better place now. As you drive around town or stroll down the sidewalks, you'll see how excited everyone is. In Wapakoneta, more than a dozen restaurants offer special lunar-themed items, such as cinnamon pancakes and a Buckeye on the moon on Sunday. It seems like every store sells premium Moon products, souvenirs and memorabilia, and history is all around us, it's part of the story.

I want to be able to say that I helped preserve it, it's not so much knowing what it was like when he lived here for me personally, but being able to preserve part of the history and keep it intact for future generations and with me now. Dante Centauri with the Armstrong Museum Welcome Dante, so let's get right into it, tell me a little about what people might experience if they visited the museum. Well, the Armstrong Air and Space Museum opened its doors three years to the day that Apollo 11 landed. 1972 we have artifacts from Neil Armstrong's early life and career, the plane in which he learned to fly right at side of the Gemini 8 capsule in which he made his first space flight, as well as the Apollo 11 backup suit, the actual suit that was part of his mission and to top it all off, we also have a moon rock collected from Apollo 11 collected by the Neil Armstrong himself on that mission.

Awesome, how does it feel to be entrusted with preserving the legacy of an American hero? Well, it's very humbling, but the best part here is that there is a tremendous team, there is staff, the board of directors that everyone supports in the community is a wonderful support for the museum and the legacy of Neil Armstrong here in Wapakoneta, right, Dante, thank you very much, thank you and now I would like to welcome you. Sonny Williams, another Ohio astronaut, is a Euclid native and a veterinarian for two Space Station missions, including seven spacewalks. Welcome sunny Hello, it's great to be here in Wapakoneta, yes it's amazing here, so how does research aboard the International Space Station help us expand exploration? just on the moon, but then I also got to Mars, so I had the luxury of being on the space station twice and saw that we were doing all kinds of experiments on propulsion systems, life support systems, even space suit systems. that will help us in our next efforts to return to themoon and even further out of low Earth orbit beyond Mars, well you're also set to return to space on one of NASA's upcoming commercial crew missions, tell me more about that, yes I'm scheduled to be on one of the first Boeing Starliner flights to the International Space Station together with SpaceX the Gret Dragon 2, which will take some of our colleagues to the space station and this contract will allow these other companies to take The people above will allow NASA to return to focus on getting out of low Earth orbit back to the Moon and potentially Mars for the next generation, so all the work that's going on on the International Space Station, including these commercial companies, will help allow us go.

Also, are you scheduled to do more spacewalks? Well, you know the space station is about 20 years old, it's like an old house and things need to be fixed and we're making new things to add to it, so it's pretty likely. and I would be looking forward to it, okay, sunny, thank you for that and thank you from here in Wapakoneta, let's go to DC, thank you. NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum are hosting this celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first man on Earth. On the Moon, there is a lot going on right here in the mall, there are tents highlighting both the Apollo program and today's plans from the moon to Mars.

Lego has an incredible Apollo 11 display that took days to build and Snoopy is here, of course, Snoopy was the name of the lunar module on Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the actual moon landing and, as you've probably seen, the people on The National Mall was captivated this week by a high-definition projection of the sad rocket five at the Washington Monument. In fact, we'll be able to see a recreation of a launch here tonight and tomorrow night will really give you an idea of ​​the scale of that huge rocket. Apollo 11 was the culmination of an incredible national effort, but it began with a promise from President John F.

Kennedy. go to the moon within the decade, the direction of the President of the United States is the stated policy of this administration and of the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years, so now NASA faces another audacious challenge and this time the ultimate goal is not just JFK's goal of landing on the moon and returning safely to Earth, but establishing a sustainable presence on the moon and eventually heading to Mars, so We'll do some interesting science when we're there and that's one of the really exciting things, for example, we'll be able to look at the giant craters, these deep craters. in the south polar region of the Moon, their places down there never get sunlight and we think there's water there so let's go check it out now, let's go to Adam Savage with astronaut Randy Bresnik inside the Air and Space Museum Randy Space.

You've flown the shuttle, you've flown on the shuttle, and you've spent time on the International Space Station. I'm curious to know when you first open the hatch to board the ISS, given all the training you had already received up to that point. Which surprised you and was exactly what you expected. What surprised me most was the fact that there were some crew members on the space station that I had not yet met and trained with. You know, they were up there doing the long duration mission and I happen to have a callsign that comes from the Marine Corps being a fighter pilot, it's comrade and it was interesting, we thought about the space station, you know, these Russian crew members that he had, man he had been, you know. adversaries, oh my f-18, Marika, you heard my critic, hey, comrade, come here.

I'll be surprised when they hear that you know someone who, in such a normal term, is at my crew members' house, but the good thing about it was that even though they were people. He hadn't met me, we floated through the hatch and it was big bear hugs like we were members of a long lost family who hadn't seen each other in a few weeks and we were catching up and it really hit us. I because I only had, you know, two and a half days, three days in orbit at that time, here we are now the crew of Atlantis, the crew of the station, twelve human beings in this magnificent orbital laboratory 250 miles above the Earth, going 17,000 miles a year. hour and we worked that was all that was all of humanity in a little bit we were there doing the shared mission and how that made us all part of this, it didn't matter what language we spoke or where we came from here we were just a family, all doing something incredible.

I know you, we were talking earlier and you said you spent 32 hours in space during spacewalks. What do you get used to and what always surprises you about getting in and out of the spaceship, we'll start with that part first because I don't think it's the first, or the fifth, or you know, I'm like Mike, your generosity on the 9th or 10th. when you open that hatch and the space station. it opens down, you know you open it, you're inside a cocoon of steel metal the whole time you open the hatch and it's 250 miles or 400 kilometers out, so for anyone you know who's afraid of heights, You know it's daunting, but for anyone who isn't afraid of heights, if you look at the edge of a tall building and you stand on the edge and put your toes on your body, it tells you to back away, you lean in. back, you have that intensity, really intense. feeling except type times a thousand two or fifty miles up it's okay, I know I'm not going to fall, I'm going to float though I mean this huge you're my personal space suit walking out the door, I know if I walk out there Let it go, no I'm going to fall, but your brain your whole life has told you that you would, yeah, get out there and, just like we practice in a neutral buoyancy lab pool in Houston where we have the space station, do you train? you reach out, you put your hand on the handrails, you know, you twist your body like you normally do, you take out your waste strap, you take out your you know restraint strap and you go ahead and you know, do what you trained to do, it's just a view instead of being concrete 40 feet below you at the bottom of the pool, you now have the land passing by at five miles a second to distract you while you're out there, oh my gosh, I'm curious what you think about how La Apollo-era technology led to the technology that put you in space.

Well, they were the basis of everything. I mean, I'm amazed, like you and everyone else, especially today, it takes time to remember and commemorate this incredible historical achievement. I mean, we had never had more than 15 minutes in space when President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon and within a decade we had O'Neill Buzz and Mike Colin Sarah on Apollo Nine, sorry, Apollo 11 , which is a sound sound and everything we've done since then has been based on those incredible investments in technology and the capabilities to live and work in space, the defense is there and the suit that was in space to talk He's the grandson of the suit that Apollo wore on a lunar surface, well, Buzz Aldrin couldn't be here, but we have a tribute video to Buzz that we can run.

Let's run this and see a little bit about Buzz. We have come to the conclusion that this is my war. pure agreement for the mouth sample of the insatiable curiosity of all humanity to explore the respective unknown talents of the looks on the acceptance of this talent was inevitable today I feel completely capable of doing it, except for the padded rolls and vacuum ready, are you excited about the future of space travel absolutely in the 15 years that I have been at NASA there has never been a more exciting time, we have two commercial vehicles that are preparing to launch and put people on the space station that we have had 19 years of continued presence on a space station, we have Artemis getting ready where we have the Orion spacecraft aboard the world's largest rock on the SLS and then we'll start launching humans in two years, amazing, you know? around the moon again and it's never been a better time for it Brandi thank you so much for joining us here today.

I really appreciate it Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin almost got trapped on the surface of the Moon when the crew was returning. to take off their space suits looks big and they were quite big and the lunar module is quite small and the process of doing so collided with the motor arm, the switch that was critical to turning on the rocket motor which did not allow it to launch from the surface of the Moon, the switch was broken, so when it came time to flip that switch to prepare to launch from the surface of the Moon, there was no switch during the spin, what was I going to do?

Buzz was thinking fast. He takes out a marker and inserts it in that place and is able to use the marker as a pseudo switch and they manage to leave the surface of the Moon and return home. My grandfather, President Kennedy, challenged the Americans to send a man. to the moon not because it would be easy but because it would be very difficult. NASA and our entire nation responded to his call to action and made that dream a reality. Today we salute the men and women of the Apollo generation and we look to the future and the new frontiers yet to be discovered and looking now over the water we approach launch complex 39 here at the Kennedy Space Center the two platforms seen in the distance there Pat B is where we are going to launch the first woman to the moon and the next man to the moon right there, which is actually the SpaceX platform that is currently, of course, launching their rockets the heavy and the Falcon, but it's a beautiful photo as we fly over the Banana River and towards that launch complex. there 39a where of course many historic launches occurred here yes at the Kennedy Space Center and we continue to celebrate as well yes absolutely beautiful and the atmosphere here is just euphoric.

I'm talking about so many people in awe of this nation's incredible achievement 50 years ago. and it's a warm day here in Florida, you can see the clouds bubbling over 39a in the crew access arm that extends from that deck; However, it is not as hot as the rest of the country because there is a heat wave that is currently raging. of the nation in most of the nation, but we're still pretty warm here in Florida and, in fact, Murray, we're celebrating the moon festival right now, a celebration, of course, of the 50th anniversary of Apollo, where our own employees were able to go out and the gantry eat mooncakes and dress in 60s outfits, yeah I think they were out of mooncakes so we didn't do it.

I don't know if anyone saved any for us, but they did, they gave it away. It was uh, it was a nice gesture, yes, on this historic day, yes, absolutely, and as we continue to celebrate the historic achievement of 1969, we hope to travel back to the Moon and to Mars, just as in the Apollo area era, we need many elements to get there, from rockets and spacecraft to life support for astronauts and more, all in support of science and exploration on the surface. A lot of work is already being done to make that happen with our Artemis program.

We are preparing to launch our new Space Launch System rocket. and Orion, which is a completely new space capsule, we are also developing a gateway to the moon, it will have new robotic and human landers and new spacesuits. All of this is happening as advances in science and technology will expand our knowledge and enrich life here in the future. earth and there is that list of those elements that I was talking about and we will tell you more about each of those elements that you see on your screen throughout today's program and it is important that each of those elements as they They come together for this program of the future Artemis is a very complex program, but we want to return to the Moon in a sustainable, printable and permanent way to test our technology to go to Mars, so everything is very key.

Did you know that one of the most valuable programs? The samples brought back from the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin almost didn't happen. Neela Buzz had a series of containers that they placed their lunar samples in and mostly walked around and collected rocks, but right near the end of their moonwalk while Neil was preparing the boxes to be sent back to the lunar module to return To Earth, Neil looked inside one of the boxes and realized there weren't many things there, he thought that wasn't right, we should bring more back. So he took the box, picked it up along the surface and took a bunch of dirt from the surface of the moon into the box.

It turns out that that lunar regolith soil was really important in helping us understand the solar wind and other properties of the moon and that was information that we didn't get from the rocks, so the impromptu sample collection is actually one of the most valuable things that we brought from the moon at the dance. I am Karla's friend and thisis the official visitor center for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center now Marshall has been designing and building the rockets that send astronauts into space since 1960. In fact, this machine here is an authentic F1 engine that powered the Saturn 5, the vehicle with which the Apollo missions were launched, the main architect of the Saturn Five was Marshalls.

The first director was Wernher von Braun and throughout the 1950s von Braun promoted space travel. He also helped pioneer much of the technology that first put Americans in space, and now the United States is ready for the next wave of human exploration. NASA's Artemis mission that will take Americans to the moon. and will set the stage to take humans to Mars Marshall is working again on the rocket to take them there the Space Launch System or SLS and Marshall we are proud of our heritage of fire and smoke here is a look joining me now is the astronaut Rex Walheim has now flown three different space shuttle missions including the last sts-135 hi Rex, how are you Carl?

It's great to be here now that you didn't have the opportunity to travel on a Saturn 5, but tell us what it's like to be an astronaut. being on a rocket at liftoff, well probably the most member is your first time and you're loaded onto the rocket about a couple of hours before launch and you're strapped in and it feels like you're sitting in this very high place. rises building rock solid and then about 6 seconds before launch the main engines start and even though you're still bolted in the platform shakes like it's falling apart it's really amazing and then if the engines run great for six seconds and the rocket solid The thrusters ignite and then you feel that jolt and you take off and it's an incredible ride from zero to 17,500 miles per hour and eight and a half minutes.

That sounds incredible now that we look back on Apollo 11, what are your thoughts as an astronaut about reestablishing a human presence beyond Earth's orbit, well, I think it's very important because the Apollo program went to the Moon's frontier farther than any human being has traveled in history and we need to get back there so we can learn how to do it again. Because it's very difficult to get there and we haven't done it in decades, we want to go there, learn how to do it and then go further and go to Mars. Now we have a question on social media that Manesh on Twitter asks what is the mission of NASA.

Let's plan future astronaut programs. Well, the first future astronaut program is similar to today's. We will select the best and the brightest. People from all over the country. The most diverse origins that we can get. People who have proven they can excel. several different types of roles and we will take them all to the Johnson Space Center to try to interview them: who will work best, it will be very similar to now, except there will be a different dimension with the autonomy that we are going to have. We need more expeditionary behavior where people go further than we have gone before and they will be so far from Earth that it will take minutes and minutes for just communications to go back and forth, so we have to become four operating by themselves, but for the most part it would be very similar to the way we choose astronauts today thanks Rex, you know, today thousands of NASA employees, contractors and suppliers are working in all 50 states to turn our plans into reality .

The Apollo program was also a national effort on a giant scale with so many unsung heroes behind the famous ones. names of faces and many veterans of the Apollo era are here in Huntsville, let's hear from some of them about their time, most of us are just out of college and didn't have much experience, but this is the challenge we are going to do something. ten months it's never been done before I mean you never went home with your desk clean, there was so much to do we were all heads down trying to get ready and you know it didn't matter that I was a co-op It didn't matter that I was 19, I didn't care work 80 dollars 80 hours a week because when you went to do something different you didn't go home until you finished your work, which was pretty standard in those days. going to bed late early to get up working like hell and advertising and we were committed to making it happen.

What seemed peculiar to me about the moon was when the sun was almost overhead and it was noon, below, the moon seemed to be warm and sunny. friendly place near dawn or dusk the place looked distinctly hostile what a great tribute to Apollo 11 command module pilot Mike Collins who now joins me live along with astronaut candidate Zena Cartman welcome Thanks Karin Thanks Xena yes, I hope to hear from both of you, yes, it's also good to have you here now, Mike, people may not know that after your career at NASA, you were the first director of this Smithsonian Air and Space Museum , taking over while the building was under construction and then being here when the doors first opened.

Opened in 1976, it's been one of the most visited tourist sites in Washington ever since, so Director Collins, welcome back, thank you, it's very nice to be back, the Smithsonian has always been one of my favorite buildings anywhere in the world. world and I used to go to the Natural History Museum and when I was maybe 10 I looked at snails, now they had these they weren't live snails, they were snail shells, but they had like 37 of them all in a row and I used to do it, for some reason, I was totally Fascinated by that display, I used to count them and find out why they were big and small and what colors they were and all that stuff.

So my education is the Smithsonian and Aaron's foundation, of course, came much later and I had a lot of help with people like Barry Goldwater, who was a senator on the right committees and who helped me get money to get the 40 million dollars per mass that we needed to dig the hole and erect the building. It was an interesting time, well it's a wonderful place to be now. Let's go back in time a little bit, you were orbiting the moon during Apollo 11, you did about 30 laps alone for about 24 hours, take us there, tell us what you were feeling and what that was like, you know, it surprised me.

They always asked me, weren't you the loneliest person and the whole lonely universe when you were in that lonely command module, just wandering around the we're sure we're alone, no, I was happy to be home, this was my little one. where Columbia was the command module, I had hot coffee, I had music if I wanted and if I had any problems or questions I just radioed Mission Control and they were always very helpful, they even tried to talk to me when I was alone behind the moon, but haha, they couldn't get to me in that situation, so on the ground was Neil Armstrong, who is obviously a larger than life historical figure, tell us what you would like people to remember about him as a fellow crew and as commander over crewmate nothing personal Neil was was an all-American person in many ways Neil was very intelligent had interests in science on both sides of the type of work NASA does He was modest, he didn't like the spotlight focus, but when they caught him he knew exactly what to say after the Apollo 11 flight.

We were very fortunate to have a trip around the world and Neil was our spokesperson and he did a masterful job. He had done his homework everywhere we went. He knew the background of the country. He knew what to say to the local people when he finished one of his five short ten-minute speeches. the audience was ready to jump aboard Columbia and go with us. He was just masterful, so tell us a little bit about your journey here. My background is actually in microbiology. I studied biology at university. My thesis was in poetry, believe it or not, and then I researched marine microbiology for my master's degree, but for me one of the most exciting parts of being in the space program now is how different everyone's backgrounds are.

We are test pilots. We are also microbiologists. We are geologists. We are submarines. Err, it's a really interesting and diverse group to work with, so we're still fielding questions from social media. We're sorry we can't answer them here and now, but we will certainly continue to answer them throughout the program. Tina gives us her perspective on Apollo 11 what is the legacy The Impala van actually talks about that for you two tell us about your perspective on the legacy of Apollo 11 sure it's part of the world I grew up in, you know, I never knew to world before men left this planet, so I have to ask the people who lived through that what that means to them and can they tell me where they were when they saw that happen.

Can you tell me the exact chair you were sitting in. It was this monumental turning point in human history and it's very moving for me to know that that's part of the world that I'm in now and it's this hugely inspiring challenge for my generation: What would our Apollo be? What could this be? something that people around the world will feel a part of a little bit about the legacy. I'm not a huge fan of legacies, I'm not sure, I think maybe 50 years isn't enough time to give it proper space, but I was. I was really captivated by something Gina said about her majoring in poetry.

I love that idea. It's great. I go to MIT from time to time and talk to the students there and of course the big push in this country today, and rightly so, is science, technology and engineering. mathematical root and I say now that is not a complete education, you have to put poetry in there, now we are going to throw Adam Savage back to the mall, who has a message not about poetry, but for those people who are still not incredibly grateful to Karen. There are still people who choose not to believe we went to the moon, although perpetrating such a hoax would have required a lot more energy than simply going to the moon, and on Mythbusters early in our tenure, my co-hosts Jamie Kari Grant and Tory and I debunked this theory of the conspiracy in almost every way we could have tested it we built miniature models we set up the vomit comet we wore space suits we tried everything and in fact our episode is used by moon landing deniers to reinforce their argument that I thought our model in miniature moonscape looked so good that it helped convince them that the moon landing could have been faked by Stanley Kubrick in some secret sound studio in the desert that is total Buncombe and when faced with that kind of willful ignorance, well I don't have no answer, but apparently Tahira has a question from the crowd at the mall to hear.

Oh hi, I'm Tahira and I'm here at the National Mall in Washington DC. It's a beautiful day here to celebrate. the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing right now I'm following the conversation on social media and Twitter user David says it would have been harder to fake it than do it regarding the Apollo 11 moon landing Adam, you broke it down in Mythbusters, what do you think? Oh, certainly one of the great pleasures of my life here is being able to talk to people from NASA, meet astronauts, and come to places like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The fact is that it is pride. To all the incredible men, women, engineers, and scientists who executed this incredible feat and continue to execute it daily, that pride is based in reality, not fantasy, and I am honored to be able to meet and speak with these people. when NASA's giant leap continues it will be with fire and smoke from Alabama two-one-zero liftoff with all engines running we have a liftoff 32 minutes welcome back to Wapakoneta and the Armstrong Air and Space Museum I'm Ty Bateman a anchor from my hometown stations and Lima Ohio and I'm here with a team from the Glenn Research Center that not only developed liquid hydrogen as rocket fuel but also developed electric propulsion and the team is also working on a new electric propulsion system generation that will power our gateway and outpost for astronauts in lunar orbit that will provide access to the surface and joins me now from the Glenn Research Center Mike Barrett hi Mike hi and how does electric propulsion work and how is it different from the Chemical rockets, well, traditional chemical propulsion burns a fuel and that generates a high temperature gas that is pushed out of the spacecraft in one direction and that propels the spacecraft in the opposite direction.

Electric propulsion instead of burning a fuel uses electricity to charge or ionize a gas and then that Excel accelerates out of the spacecraft. and that provides that propulsion impulse now, where does the energy come from? Well, for solar electric propulsion, the energy comes from the Sun, we use solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity and then that electricity is used topower both the spacecraft and the electric propulsion system. how we all are solar electric propulsion helped NASA get to the moon and eventually Mars, since solar electric propulsion doesn't have to carry all that fuel with it and uses sunlight for power, then that spacecraft instead From having to carry all that fuel you can carry things like oxygen water communications equipment scientific experiments anything else the astronauts need to complete the mission that makes the construction and design of that spacecraft much easier and the efficiency of the electric propulsion helps us make the mission more achievable Mike, very exciting Thank you very much, thank you and NASA's giant

leaps

continue at Space Center Houston, but first, as you can see in our program today, NASA is really on everywhere with technological and economic impacts throughout the country. 4x raishin innovation has an impact on our daily lives just as it did in the Apollo era forward with all engines running takeoff we have a takeoff of Apollo 11 name an extraordinary television this nation should commit to achieving the goal of landing a a man and return him safely to earth I think landing on the moon changed the sky from a barrier to a gate turned something like the backdrop of all of human history heaven into an invitation I would give anything to remember that moment My mom promises I saw it but I don't remember anything.

It could be one of the reasons I'm a little obsessed with the moon landing. I have the special edition of the New York Times when they were on their way to the moon on July 17. The models of the moon. Where we are? That's the Sea of ​​Tranquility, that's where they landed. Can I bring my family with me? Yes, I would go to Mars. There they have water and everything and methane. What else do you want? Hello, we are at the official Johnson Space Center Visitor Center. accompanied by President and CEO of Space Center Houston William Harris thank you Brandi welcome to Space Center Houston we are a dynamic learning destination where we share what NASA is doing every day where we inspire people of all ages through the wonders of space exploration thanks to William for presenting this segment for us and today we are joined here by Apollo 7 astronaut, Walt Cunningham.

Walter was on the first manned command of the manned Apollo mission and gave us the first live views of the astronauts from space, as well as performing some critical command module checks thanks for joining us Walt, it was truly a pleasure to be here with You guys after all these years, we appreciate it, tell us a little bit about what it was like living and working in that command module for 11 days, well, in retrospect, those 11 days were probably the best 11 days of my life that we worked, in I actually worked five years to get there, there were three different scheduled flights and I overcame several obstacles and to this day it remains the longest, most ambitious and most successful first test flight. of any new flying machine, so I feel very lucky to have been there, we are lucky to have you here with us after having done the longest and most successful flight test of a new spacecraft, do you have any advice for astronauts who They are going to visit?

I'll be on those first missions for Orion and Artemis. Well, I would probably have some advice, but I don't think astronauts have as much authority today to prepare for these things as they did 50 years ago, that means a lot, a lot. Many things have been perfected at the same time that Society has changed and astronauts are not driving everything like we used to. There's a lot of excitement here about the Apollo anniversary, that's what you hear in the background, but also Here with Walt and I we have Laura Kearney, who is one of the people in charge of some of the new technologies that we are developing to send people to the Moon.

Laura is the deputy program director for Gateway, so that's a key part of getting astronauts to the moon and you'll be in lunar orbit tell us a little bit about what that is. Laura is sure that the Gateway will be an orbital platform, basically the circles of the moon will basically provide an aggregation point where lunar landers can go from the ground. to the Gateway and they will be able to be added there and they will be able to fly missions to and from the moon, the great thing about Gateway is that it will give us access to the entire surface of the Moon.

How will it be different from the International Space Station? It will be different in some ways. For one thing, it will be much smaller than the International Space Station. The Space Station is basically the size of a football field, roughly the gateways will be much smaller, maybe a tenth of the size, so only a fraction, where the space station is also inhabited 24 hours a day. a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, the front door will only have people in it when Orion is visiting, so to begin with it will be about once a year, maybe 30 days in a row , so our spacecraft will have to be much more autonomous than the current space station and, of course, the obvious thing will be that we will be much more autonomous. further and this is a fairly new program for us, so where are we in the development of Gateway?

You know we're really making a lot of progress really fast. The first elements that make up what we call phase one of Gateway should all. be in place so that we can make and support the 2024 boots on the moon mandate that we have, so our first element is the main propulsion module and it should launch in 2022. We just announced the contractor that will help us build that module. Let's maximize our technologies so that they are on the way, the second module that we install will be a habitation module, it will couple with that power and propulsion element and we are very, very close to contracting that module and being on the way here in probably the next month or so. two and then the third element that will be part of that first phase one of 2024 is our logistics module and we should have it contracted by the end of this calendar year, so a lot of progress is being made very quickly, yes, a lot. of balls that now move so well, is there anything that upon hearing about Gateway you wish you had on Apollo 7 or that after having spent 11 days in space on Apollo 7 that you would personally recommend having on Gateway?

I find it very difficult to compare things today and what they were then 50 years ago is because organizations become more organized, many of the problems that we have had, I won't say solved, but they are like 98 99 percent compared to 50 percent, but I do see a difference in attitude when exploring space today. One was 50 years ago when everyone was a combat test pilot and we basically saw it as an opportunity to take a little risk to do it and what's amazing to me when I look at it is that here we are, 50 years later and Never in my life could have projected this amount of interest and association with what we were doing back then and at the same time, since it's a civilian operation, it wasn't military, if we had old military trained fighter pilots, what's going to happen?

A hundred years from now, two hundred and five hundred years from now, there will probably be only one thing you remember about the 20th century and that is that man went to the moon and Neil Armstrong will go down in history to where we are. today and we are grateful that he is celebrating well with us. I feel very lucky. I feel luckier today because what I took for granted on Apollo 7, which to this day remains the longest, most ambitious and successful first return flight. In those days it was a challenging job, we were committed to it, we had to do whatever it took to make it a success and now, fifty years later, I look at it in perspective with our overall achievement, Apollo, and frankly, I'm proud.

Having taken a small step with Apollo 7. Thank you very much. We hope to have some important milestones to celebrate in the coming years as well. The good thing about that and getting people back to the Moon will be the gateway. be cutting edge technology and that's saying a lot, since we had cutting edge technology 50 years ago, you probably know that the spacecraft to take us to the moon was incredibly complicated, but do you realize that there were 6.1 million pieces in the Saturn V launch vehicle on the Apollo spacecraft that had to be assembled and everything had to work directly so that we could reach the moon in July 1969 and welcome back to the Saturn 5 Center at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to take a look at the lunar module it was supposed to be. for Apollo 15, but it never actually flew once they decided they were going to take lunar rovers to the moon, but they say it works and it could have gone to the moon if we needed it, yeah, and it's one thing to see it, you know ?

The photographs are great on camera, but when you see them up close and in person, right next door, you really see that you know all those little details and it's just incredible what we were able to achieve together as a nation. You're right. and back here at Kennedy Space Center, if you're just joining us, of course we're celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo and looking forward to our plans for the next giant leap to the Moon and Mars and a reminder that we're taking your questions online using the hashtag Apollo 50th and that will have a fun reveal a little later about our show Artemis at the end of the show a fun reveal yeah tell me now well no then it wouldn't be a reveal on The Show You Got Away Okay .

I'm going to wait well. If you want to follow us, you can join us online right now and explore our subscription right there at

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.gov forward slash subscribe now Keep in mind that we didn't just develop technology in the Apollo years; is looking at the gantry right now at launch complex 39 where people like to gather to watch the launches from pads A and B and we have a special guest live, one of the last two people to walk on the moon, and We have someone to talk to him.

Amanda Griffin Amanda I don't know if you're out there I'm not sure what level you're at out there I'm at the top it's a beautiful day but it's breezy up here so I hope You can speak to us loud and clear here so behind us is the platform 39a. Today, commercial entities use it for missions to the space station and beyond, but 50 years ago, the first men to walk on the moon launched from it just a few years later. Apollo 17 launched the last men to walk on the moon and one of them was dr. Harrison Schmitt Dr.

Smith thank you so much for being with us today, it's great to be with you. I kind of miss seeing a Saturn 5 around. I know, but I hope you soon see an SLS Kennedy Space Center doing an extraordinary job preparing for that. excited, can you tell us that you were NASA's first astronaut scientist? Why was it so important that you were on that mission on Apollo 17? When Neil Armstrong completed his activities along with Buzz and Mike Holland, it became clear that we had the capacity. explore, in fact, it was clear even before that if we were successful on Apollo 11 we could explore and that's why the last missions and particularly mine were designed to be exploration missions and we all know that on Apollo 11 they collected maybe 40 pounds of moon rocks, but I understand you outgrew them.

How much did you collect? Well, we set the record at 240 pounds, but the total of six landings brought back 850 pounds of moon rocks and those rocks are really the Apollo mission continuing. because lunar and planetary scientists continued to work on them and almost certainly will indefinitely, yes, and I understand that earlier this month you and an astronaut candidate, her name was Jessica Watkins, had a great time in the laboratory of rocks from the Johnson Space Center, the old Man Spacecraft Center and we were narrating a lot of activity there about the samples, yes, for NASA, yes, let's take a look real quick, so all of these samples are very different and of course , we just talked about Neil Armstrong's sampling strategy in call 11. but by year 17 the sampling strategy was a little different.

Can you talk about what went into your sampling strategy and how you chose which samples to bring in for the whole Apollo 17 background in Worcester, as we knew it was going to be? Being the last Apollo mission was to fill in as many gaps as possible both in the sample collection and the types of features, so there are all kinds of stories that come out of these rocks about the evolution of particular materials, particular rocks on the moon. Jessica has what I consider to be one of the less important samples that Diehl-Armstrong collected when she thought the Rock box worked in theory and so she just filled itwith this material they are numbers 1008 for all of us.

The nerds know what it means, but what it gave us was our first really definitive look at what the surface resources on the move might be, either for the owner or for their settlements, exploration barriers that will need resources, protection against radiation, these waters and can be heated. This material forms and produces water anywhere on the Moon. You don't need to call the poles. Water was made from ice. You can do it. You have heated it up to about 6,700 degrees. 50 years ago, the sample arrived still giving yes, it is, they all are. as if the Apollo program never ended well because now there have been hundreds of thousands of people who have worked on the samples and are still working on the samples.

The advancement of analytical technology means you can go back to an old sample and get the right answer, dr. Schmidt, I love that the samples we took fifty years ago still benefit us today and in our future endeavors. Thank you very much for everything you have done for NASA and for the world and thank you for joining us here today. Well, it has been my Privilege and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. We'll send it back inside. Let's hear more about what we still have to learn from the moon. Well, thanks to both of you, it's awesome to hear about these. lunar rocks that they brought back fifty years ago and still teach us things today, the Apollo astronaut teaching the up-and-coming geologist.

I mean, it's a great story, yes, it's really amazing and unlocking those scientific mysteries is one of them. Of the main reasons we explore, whether on the moon or our home planet or even the farthest reaches of our solar system, yes, Kelsey Young, a scientist at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, has More information about what we already know and what we hope to learn. About our closest celestial neighbor, the six Apollo missions to the lunar surface were able to collect an incredible number of samples that continue to produce exciting scientific discoveries even today through the analysis of these samples and through missions such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the L cross we are In fact we have been able to discover that there is water on the Moon, but we have not been able to determine how much water is there.

We know that it is there in large enough quantities that we can begin to think about what to do with it through the use of Institute resources. We will be able to convert this water into usable products such as drinking water or fuel, allowing us to establish a long-term sustainable presence on the lunar surface. It is absolutely critical that future human and robotic missions to the moon help quantify how much water there is and continue to answer the really interesting and important scientific questions we have left about the moon. Next we want to go with Danielle Russa, who she has been interacting with here on Daniella View, meeting some interesting people, thanks Marie. 11:00 It's personal, a lot of people, whether it's watching the launch, reading about it, or just being a space enthusiast in general, but for me it's about family.

My grandfather was the command module pilot of Apollo 14 and his capsule is actually here at the Kennedy Space Center to be in the same place, the capsule is truly inspiring and I am beyond grateful to be here, but today I have a guest very special, Kenan, why don't you come here? He is 10 years old and visiting the Kennedy Space Center, what is the longest time? car ride you've been doing about six hours six hours Wow, okay, imagine being in a capsule with two other people crammed together for nine days, how does that sound? What are you eating?

I'm crushed, overheated and squashed, and there's probably nothing white. button okay and what's your favorite planet voted as the moon looks like cheese moon because it looks like cheese cool and are you enjoying your day here at the Kennedy Space Center? Yeah, great, well that's all I have now and we'll be wandering back. soon very good thank you Danielle it's great to see those little kids so excited to see how we get to the moon and you know they are dreaming of being the next generation to go there and there are so many of them here inside Saturn five. seven, you can hear them in the background, yeah, just filling this place, which is cool, now the Apollo 11 command module is on tour and it's in Seattle right now, that's the one that was flown by the Apollo 11 astronauts and is outside with Natalie is with Natalie Joseph from NASA in Seattle Natalie Hello, we're at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, the largest independently owned nonprofit air museum in the world.

It is also the temporary home of the Apollo 11 command module Columbia, the only part of the spacecraft to return. It returned to Earth and more than 55,000 people have already been here to see it in Seattle and the festivities continue as more visitors arrive to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo. One thing that visitors can't easily see is an interesting piece of graffiti within Columbia. After landing, command module pilot Mike Collins, a quick tribute inside the lower equipment bay, praising Columbia as the best ship to arrive Now, NASA has a new ship on the way. Orion, a new capsule that sends humans further than ever astronaut Randy Bresnik compares Orion to Apollo Oh Ryan is the vehicle that will carry and take the next man and the first woman to the moon by 2024 it is the vehicle that has to Getting us safely out of Earth's atmosphere the 250,000 mile stretch to the moon put us into lunar orbit at the Gateway Space Station and then we sit there and wait while the astronauts step down to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972 and then your pets will return to The Gateway, hop on, return home, re-enter the verse and mr.

We look to be the ones to bring us safely back to Earth now that the laws of physics still apply just as they did in the 1960s, we had to return from Mach 32 lunar return speeds and dissipate all that energy, so that's the shape of The capsule you see behind us is more or less the same. We have a heat shield underneath that allows us to take a degree out of the atmosphere. The important thing is that when you enter, it is 30% larger. Orion can carry four crew members for 21 days, where Apollo. There were three crew members for 14 days and now they are also taking great advantage of technological developments, where we now have the latest cabin, we have digital screens to control all the systems and we can provide that only in a digital format. our electronic procedures and emergency function also have much better computing power and compared to Apollo, they are 4,000 times faster than Apollo computers because Apollo computers had less computing power than what we have in our watches today, many more safety redundancies, it also has composite materials, we can make it lighter or we can also use 3D printing to do things that we couldn't do before, so it will really be in the next generation vehicle that will allow us to have that return to the moon in 2024 and then continue to come back every year after that and make that sustained presence at that South Pole that will host it and do all the things that we need to be able to be ready to go from the moon to Mars shortly after. by astronaut and NASA doctor dr.

Michael Barrett Hi Mike, how does it feel to be back in your home state? Well, it's great to be back in the great state of Washington and here at the Museum of Flight. One special thing for me is that I took off on the Soyuz that's right across the street from here, the last time I saw it there was smoke from every entrance in the Kazakh desert and now it's here, so it's cool, it's amazing, so you mentioned that you launched on a Soyuz but you also launched on a shuttle. So how would you like to take a ride on Orion?

Well, I think the Soyuz on the shuttle have been fabulous spacecraft and they've done their job getting people into low Earth orbit for years and they've done it magnificently, but the Orion is a very different beast, it's designed to take us away. from low Earth orbit and taking us on exploration missions to the moon and beyond, we would all love that and there is something more to the fact that we have all participated in the astronaut office. In designing and building the Orion, we have a docking connection that we haven't really seen between crew members and their spacecraft for a couple of decades, so how would you fly it?

I would fly it like I was going somewhere amazing. and I would fly it like it belonged to all of us, that's awesome, so one of Ryan's jobs is also holding down the crew, so what are some of the human factors issues that humans in space can face? during long flights and as we progress? closer to sending humans to Mars, yes that's a great question, we're pretty good at flying for six months in weightlessness and the human has shown an incredible ability to adapt to that, but when you break orbit and head to Mars you can be After three years, the Earth becomes smaller and you cannot evacuate to the Earth if something medical happens, so you have to be completely autonomous and autonomous.

Cabell and then we are seeing the cumulative effects of months and years of weightlessness or fractional gravity. on Mars and there's a little bit more radiation, there are nutritional aspects to all of this, now we've shown tremendous adaptive capacity and we'll see that we just have to approach this, I would say methodically and carefully, and document it as we go, but there's no doubt that we will face these challenges that will be great explorers, well, thank you Mike and happy Apollo 50, thank you and now we are joined by some museum visitors, come on, join me, what is your name, what is your name and where are you from?

My name is Jeremiah Jones and I am from Tacoma Washington. I'm Dan Miller. I'm from Federal Way Washington. Awesome, you guys saw Columbia, right? It's amazing to see it on the ground, but remember it when she landed and when she launched. It was just an incredible thing to see and what was it like for you Jeremiah? He was great. I really loved it. It was the first time I really liked it. I really got to experience something like this and I really loved it. I would really recommend it to anyone who comes. and see it well, thank you very much and thank you for joining us here in Seattle, back to the Saturn 5 Center, thank you very much, Natalie, from Seattle, Washington to here in Florida, 3,000 miles away, you are watching live from platform 39b.

Here in Florida, the future of Orion, where it will launch back into space aboard an SLS rocket, once the world's most powerful rocket is completed, we have been watching Apollo 11, then Apollo 11, now we celebrate the Apollo 11 forever just a few hours ago in this one. gallery The US Postal Service issued a 50th anniversary commemorative stamp to seal forever, in fact, one stamp shows Armstrong's iconic photograph of Aldrin in his spacesuit on the surface of the Moon, the other stamp which see on the right, a photograph of the moon showing the landing site of the lunar module eagle in the Sea of ​​Tranquility a pleasant moment right here in the Center of the Saturn Five now it was in that place where 50 years ago Neil Armstrong took the first steps of any human being into another world and those moments help people transfixed in front of televisions around the world, deal with me, you're coming down the ladder now we could see it while it was happening, we could see on live television our man and the fact that 600 million people around the world Whether we watch or listen on radio and television, what happened is a measure of the impact this had on the consciousness of the world on the surface, as , as we said, it was fine grained with lots of rocks, it took footprints and footprints very well. remained in place, the LEM was in good condition and showed no damage from landing or descent.

It's a photo of the staircase after the Apollo 11 flight Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin. I had an assignment around the world and every place I went, I thought some places have the attitude of oh well you Americans finally did this, it's not an attitude at all, every country, regardless of their internal politics , everyone said it was done by us humans, all before July 20, 1969, humans only had experience on one planet. body from that moment on we were at least to some extent a multiplanetary species when Neil and Buzz walked on the moon they did it of course without weapons the only thing they brought were cameras it was a very peaceful undertaking and it was Of course, before exploring the lunar surface, we need to get to the surface around the world and for decades NASA has shown how robotic and human exploration can work together to understand this distant world and our future plans are no different looking back. observers open our eyes to new frontiers cameras and instruments pave the way for future explorershuman robotic satellites test missions and landing craft paved the way for human-piloted missions today NASA and our international partners watch our lunar neighbor from above as we prepare for commercial landings for new scientific missions to the moon it has been said that we choose go to the moon as part and we have done it now we will return sustainably and to Mars the first landers laid the foundation to take us to the moon now the director of NASA Human lunar exploration programs explain what is next for the lunar modules landing of the Artemis generation.

I'm standing in front of the Lunar Power Module, although this one never flew, it's exactly the same size and scale as the one Neil and Buzz used to fly to the surface of the Moon. 50 years ago, the Apollo Lunar Module was actually two vehicles put together, The crew boarded the vehicle in orbit and landed on the surface of the Moon, once they landed and completed their mission the top of the vehicle would exit and return. to orbit where they would be aboard the command module to return to Earth, the Artemis human landing system will work very similar to Apollo, we will have a decent active scenario that will land on the surface of the moon, however it will be updated With 21st century technology, we will have advanced flight computers, we will have lighter components and systems and, most importantly, we will be able to transport up to four astronauts and this will allow us to land the first woman and the next man on the surface of the Moon the next. gateways a place where the landing system and the Orion crew that is delivered by Orion will join and the crew will board the human the human landing system Artemus will go to the surface of the Moon when the mission ends complete it will return to the Portal the Portal actually allows us to go anywhere on the surface of the Moon and we really want to go to the South Pole because we believe there is water there and we can use the water to learn how to live and operate on it. other planets the systems we are developing to get us to the moon the interaction of the systems we will use to go to Mars and beyond taking humans further and further than we have been before and meeting us now is an astronaut who has finished two spacewalks on the International Space Station Stan, love, welcome back, thank you, so you flew in a glider, the shuttle when it landed, if you ever thought about what it would be like to be in a spaceship landing on the moon or possibly even on Mars, yes.

It would be a different type of landing, of course, you know the shuttle landed like a plane, but of course it landed like a glider. You have exactly one chance to put it on the concrete instead of in the swamp with the alligators, so it's important to be safe. Things are fine and that will also help us land on rockets on another planet. The Moon and Mars do not have an atmosphere in which wings cannot be used to land with the thrust of a rocket engine. This raises an interesting difference between landing on the moon and landing on Mars on the moon during Apollo and we go again, we will probably have a two-part spacecraft part with the crew inside and then a part with the engines and the legs for the landing and you'll be burning that little engine on your way down and yet the part you're on as a crew has its own propulsion to get you back away from the moon and into orbit, which means that if something goes wrong happens on the way down, that engine goes out or you land. one leg collapses and you're about to roll over, you can just get out and go back to orbit and decide what you're going to do next, but nevertheless you're already in your own rear module all the way to Mars.

Mars is a planet that is difficult to get off of, which is why giant rockets are needed to get us off Earth. Mars is much bigger than the Moon, not as big as Earth, but bigger than the Moon, so a sent vehicle is too big for a decent Module to transport and land softly on the surface, so it will be in your descent module and you'll probably land and walk to your asset module and upon launching it's time to go home, but that means you don't have that backup spacecraft. with you when you're landing, so it's absolutely necessary to get it right the first time.

You can't hit a rock, the engine can't stop, although it can't collapse anyway, so that's another reason why the moon is a great place to practice before we're ready to go to a good testing ground. , in fact, yes, thank you very much standing up. I know there are many young people looking up to you today, so thank you very much for being with us. Thanks, okay, as we continue our coverage we want to take you to a video from Lancaster Pennsylvania that shows a corn maze there, if you look closely on the left side of your screen, you can see the outline of an astronaut position, is that you are there, yes, and there, to the right, is the world. largest mooncake that appeared in the visitor center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and some of our employees, not the ones at Kennedy, but the ones that Marshall was able to try, seem to have enjoyed it there and now we want to send it back to you to Danielle Russa she's at the Apollo Center Saturn Saturn v just above Danielle how are some people here celebrating the 50th anniversary while I'm back here at the Kennedy Space Center and I'm reading some of the social media comments that you guys have sent us using the hashtag Apollo 50th, one of whom is Twitter user Adi, notes that 50 years ago NASA's Apollo 11 mission changed our world and the ideas of what is possible by successfully landing humans on the surface of the Moon and bring them home safely for the first time. moment in history, if you really think about how many things had to have gone right for us to successfully land on the moon, it's truly mind-boggling. three-box on Twitter writes that the Apollo 11 mission was an immense piece of engineering and completely changed our understanding. of the solar system couldn't be more true, he looks at the Apollo 8 image of the Earth's rise, the way we saw the Earth totally transform in that photo.

Well thank you very much. We look forward to hearing more comments from you on social media. Send them. about the Paulo 50 hashtag, okay, sounds good, thanks Danielle, now let's go back to Washington DC to see the spacesuits. Man, I'm so obsessed with spacesuits. I love seeing all those photos of spacesuits over the years, of course, inside the National Air and Space Museum. At this time, the original spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore when the Eagle landed in 1969 has been restored. and went on display this week The restoration was funded by the public through a Kickstarter campaign and museum visitors can now see it for the first time in 13 years.

I'm here with Lindsey Aitchison, NASA spacesuit designer, and astronaut Randy Bresnik Lindsey, what are the key differences between the legacy suits you guys are currently using, the so-called aces, the EMU, and the new generation of suits? , one of our biggest changes for the EBA suit is that we are trying to turn them into an evolvable architecture so that it has a single core architecture that meets every destination from low Earth orbit and the ISS to the surface of Mars, oh really, There are no separate suits for each stage exactly, so if you think about our life support system, it's like your computer's motherboard is new. technologies you can just take off the old piece and attach a new piece so it's really a great way to continue so what I have to do is a new suit for each mission and Randy you're actually testing these new generations of suits for Artemis.

That's right, it's clear that we've gone to test how we're going to fit the suit. Where do we need mobility? Can we use things like ports on the suit and be able to leave the suit outside and be able to get in? a little hatch in the back of the suit, that's my favorite novelty. How are you testing it in giant vacuum chambers? We actually have a giant vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center and a couple of years ago we took one of the prototype suits. called z1 and we actually had it inside the vacuum chamber, so this is the added value of the chamber inside, I mean making Rana jump in it, you know, with like 10.2 psi, for what the suits are stiff like they are on the spacewalk and you have to crawl in. the back of the suit, put your arms and legs in it, they closed the back of the suit and then we closed the hatch and actually removed the suit, vacuumed and did a bunch of mobility translations around the area, what can we reach? touch, but then the key point for the tests at the seaport was to go back to re-enter because obviously you need to reconnect to be able to enter through the door, so he worked on the different ways of being able to see or be able to feel or make little look guides to guide you back to be able to open it again and drag you back right now to here has a question from a fan in the mall for hero what do we have hello it's here again From the National Mall right now I'm done Just finished seeing some of these incredible exhibits that are here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo, but also show some of our future plans for our Artemis missions to return to the moon and eventually go beyond Mars.

We're joined right now by Carly and some of her friends from Maryland and they have a question for Randy and Lindsey: What does this mean for America? space program to be able to return to the moon Randy the question is what does it mean for the United States? space program to return to the moon well, we'll see if it goes to the moon. I mean, the moon is a stepping stone, you know, the path that lights the way to Mars, but it's the important part because we need to test all the All these rovers adapt to all the habitats, all the hatches and make sure that everything can work because when we go to Mars we are not three days from Earth and we can return if necessary, we are literally more than a year away.

It means that it is the transit time and the fact that you have to wait until Mars gets close to Earth to be able to return, so we have to make sure that everything and all the risks fall on the hardware, the Moon is where we test that and that's just one of the many reasons why we go back to the moon there's a scientific aspect there's an energetic aspect. I mean the moons are just a huge treasure trove of scientific and energetic opportunities for us to explore and learn more because the last time we were there 50 years ago was just for a few days.

Now we are going to stay there. Randy Lindsay, thank you all so much. Karen Fox is inside the National Air and Space Museum right now with another special guest. here with General Tom Stafford he was the commander of Apollo 10 that mission was a dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 the crew orbited the moon descended near the surface but without landing General Stafford tells us a little about the legacy of the program Apollo for Well, the legacy of Apollo was that we started with almost the impossible and we did it in such a short, impossible period of time and with so much success.

Lessons learned if we think we can do something new, innovating war, but I don't think you probably can. Get a lot better as far as management goes, how we did that program, you know, President Kennedy on May 25, 1961 said we would go to the moon and come back safely, which is great, but the question is how are we going to Moon. until 12 months after it was decided how we were going to the moon, which is a lunar orbit rendezvous, and if we had to make a decision and all the senior leaders and NASA had different ideas and I was floating around like you have different ideas. today what can be done, but he told this senior engineer at Langley, John Huebel, and his team told him that he had demonstrated it to dr.

Stevens, a great deputy administrator, former Aero and Astro at MIT needed that the lunar orbit rendezvous could be done in a way that would be a smaller vehicle, it would be possible to do it faster, at much less cost, and it would be safer, so it was. So Steven stuck around and hit other people's heads and this is Allegra leaving and then I was lucky enough to write a show with the second group of astronauts two months later. Thank you so much. You were also the commander of the Apollo-Soyuz test. project 1975, when American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts met in space for the first time, tomorrow we will have an example of an international space partnership in real time on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.

NASA astronaut Jim Morgan and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano launches alongside Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov on a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station. I think it's a great honor for both my crew, the Soyuz crew.as for the entire crew of Expedition 60 that will join the Apollo program, which shows that if humans put their ingenuity within reach then really anything is possible we want to explore we want to improve our technology and improve our science and this will allow us to go deeper in the solar system and the moon is a stopping point on the path as we delve deeper and head to Mars and look to see a program that will take us to the moon for science and achieve more technological advances.

My mission on the ISS is a stepping stone in that direction and I am very excited and honored to be able to do it. We will be serving in this way and our station's current team members, Nick Hague and Christina Cook, also shared their thoughts on Apollo's legacy. You know, growing up in a generation like we did after Apollo, we never knew a world where people hadn't walked on the moon when we did. Looking at the moon at night, it did not seem as distant as it may have seemed to the generation before the Apollo mission.

These spacesuits take their heritage from the Apollo program and the equipment, the technology that was tested and then we continue to refine as we prepare to embark on our journey back to the moon, so returning to the moon in many ways will inspire this next generation. . One of the reasons why it is so important at the generational level is to show that as humans as a country or as an international association, when we come together to achieve something great, we can be successful, international partners will be needed, business partners will be needed, it will unite us, The goal of landing the first woman on the moon means a lot to me.

It's wonderful to be involved in the space program, especially as an astronaut and as anyone participating in a time when we are harnessing all the talents, skills, ideas and innovation of everyone who wants to participate, not just a few Apollo astronauts who are. the ones that set everything in motion to return to the present day and it may seem like we have come to the moon for the second time or that we have returned to the moon, but in reality our space program has been moving forward from day one and the next crew that Step on the Moon is just another step in that long line of the show moving things forward into the Stone Age, but I think there's a lot we don't know but we have to keep exploring.

I am you, I have to thank you that the greatest thing a human mind can do is explore, whether it is reading, creating painting, you know, and these guys are pioneers and they are exploring to gain the benefit or the advantage with the thirst for knowledge, It is the most important thing. Welcome back to the Kennedy Space Center 39 launch complex. We're joined now by Regina Spellman, Senior Project Manager for Platform B, who is overseeing all of the modernization of Platform B as we prepare to return to the Moon, so Regina, both platforms were built for Apollo 50 years ago, how are they doing?

They are doing very well. These platforms were built with the best engineering in the 60s and have now survived to carry out space flight programs and are ready for the third platform. We got a complete makeover, we've modernized and restored her and she's ready for space flight. What are some of the things you've been doing to modernize the B platform? For SLS and Orion we are going to a clean platform architecture. So one of the first things we did was get rid of some of the old shuttle infrastructure and go to a clean platform to have a permanent minimum infrastructure off the platform that we have modernized over the last 10 years all the existing systems.

I can't think of a single system that we haven't touched in one way or another. Everything has been updated and modernized, removing the old Apollo era, some Shuttle era and incorporating new technologies, taking what was old, useful and really good. and build on it and I love it I love that we're taking these pads that were built to go to the moon and now we're going to the moon again so I love that it's coming full circle and it's really exciting thank you Too much Because it's us, Regina, we're going back to Danielle. Hey guys, we're right behind the Saturn 5.

Here we have two very exciting KSC guests and Akash. So what inspired this trip well when I was six years old? I remember seeing it. the moon landing on television and it would be such an impressive event. I wanted to bring the family here. Is incredible. Is this your first time? Yes, okay, what exhibit are you hoping to see or have you already seen? Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the launch tomorrow to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary, that would be yes, launch, do you want to go to space right now? So you have your next astronaut here.

Alright guys, thank you very much, Danielle. Well, it's been great to be with you at the Saturn 5 Center, here where we put on our NASA show, a look back and forth at Apollo 11. Yes, that's right, but first, today's final word on Apollo 11 is held by Commander Neil Armstrong. I would like to introduce you to Tal 11 through astronauts Neil Armstrong Michael Collins Admiral was the ultimate peaceful competition between the United States and the USSR. I do not claim that it was a distraction that prevented a war, however, it was a distraction, it was intense and it enabled both sides.

Taking the high road with the goals of science, learning and exploration eventually provided a mechanism to generate cooperation between former adversaries in that sense, among others, was an exceptional national investment for both sides. Welcome back to DC. I'm here with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. It's been very inspiring to be here with all of you, Jim, tell us about the next big leap. You've definitely heard a lot today about Apollo's incredible achievements. There are now several generations of Americans who have dreamed of returning to the Moon and going. Beyond this, many were born long after the Apollo program ended, we are now in charge of sending humans to Mars and we will first prepare for that trip to the moon.

We call this, we call this program Artemis and today I am proud to share. with you for the first time the Artemis logo this is the exploration image that will take us as we once again send humans beyond Earth's orbit, we invite you all to join us and follow the story at nasa.gov slash artemis there is much work to do and many great stories to tell along the way stories of perseverance, exploration and discovery stories of humanity once again pressing into the unknown what we are going towards and as we move forward I hope that women and men of all ages and origins consider themselves to be part of this the Artemis generation 50 years ago we went to the moon we called it Apollo well many people don't know that Apollo had a twin she was a woman called Artemis goddess of the moon we are returning men as a new generation of explorers this time to stay and prepare to achieve humanity's next great leap: sending the first human missions to Mars.

We believe that our course will redefine what is possible, that we will discover life-saving Earth-changing science, and that future challenges will inspire generations. This is our manifesto to everyone who was wondering if we could bring back the girl who dreamed of pressing VI. This is your buddy let's go all over America let's go like the Artemis generation let's go you you