1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,900 [Music] 2 00:00:00,900 --> 00:00:04,571 So the most exciting thing to me about Artemis II is just the return to the moon. 3 00:00:04,571 --> 00:00:06,873 We haven't been there in 50 years. 4 00:00:06,873 --> 00:00:08,341 Human eyes are going to see parts 5 00:00:08,341 --> 00:00:11,845 of the moon that haven't been seen by anyone before. 6 00:00:12,278 --> 00:00:15,115 It also recommits us to exploring the solar system 7 00:00:15,115 --> 00:00:17,083 in a way that we haven't in a long time. 8 00:00:17,250 --> 00:00:21,421 And I think it provides an opportunity for younger generations to understand 9 00:00:21,421 --> 00:00:24,424 the excitement of doing that kind of exploration. 10 00:00:24,424 --> 00:00:34,100 [Music full] 11 00:00:34,100 --> 00:00:37,704 The moon is this great sort of chiaroscuro subject, 12 00:00:37,904 --> 00:00:40,673 because the most recognizable thing about it 13 00:00:40,673 --> 00:00:44,577 is the changing sun angles and how that brings out 14 00:00:44,577 --> 00:00:48,048 the shape of craters near the terminator, which is the day-night line. 15 00:00:48,415 --> 00:00:49,716 Because there aren't, 16 00:00:49,716 --> 00:00:53,620 you know, oceans and clouds and all the things that you see on Earth, 17 00:00:54,087 --> 00:00:59,392 the moon is really all about its shape, and the shape is telling you something 18 00:00:59,392 --> 00:01:03,029 about its long history and the history of the entire solar system. 19 00:01:03,563 --> 00:01:04,964 All the things that have happened to 20 00:01:04,964 --> 00:01:08,301 the Earth have been erased by geologic processes 21 00:01:08,301 --> 00:01:11,938 and weather and climate, and that doesn't happen on the moon. 22 00:01:12,405 --> 00:01:16,009 The moon has recorded everything that's happened since its formation 23 00:01:16,009 --> 00:01:17,911 almost 4.5 billion years ago. 24 00:01:17,911 --> 00:01:21,881 That tells us a lot about where we came from, where the solar system came from. 25 00:01:22,148 --> 00:01:26,186 It also reveals something about the composition of the Earth 26 00:01:26,186 --> 00:01:29,255 that we can't see because it's buried beneath the crust. 27 00:01:29,456 --> 00:01:33,293 Some of that is on the surface of the moon because it's been excavated 28 00:01:33,293 --> 00:01:34,994 by all the impacts. 29 00:01:34,994 --> 00:01:38,264 Artemis is our return to the moon after 50 years. 30 00:01:38,598 --> 00:01:41,668 The emphasis of Artemis is going to be, first of all, science. 31 00:01:41,901 --> 00:01:45,839 But second of all, learning to sustain a presence on another world, 32 00:01:45,972 --> 00:01:49,342 first on the moon, but we're hoping that that's a steppingstone 33 00:01:49,342 --> 00:01:52,979 to Mars and other destinations in the solar system eventually. 34 00:01:54,481 --> 00:01:56,449 Artemis II will be a flyby mission. 35 00:01:56,449 --> 00:01:58,084 It's not going to land. 36 00:01:58,084 --> 00:02:01,454 We're testing all of the technology that we've created 37 00:02:01,454 --> 00:02:04,124 for flying to the moon since Apollo. 38 00:02:04,124 --> 00:02:07,026 A lot of systems have been modernized, and we need to make sure 39 00:02:07,026 --> 00:02:08,495 that all of those work. 40 00:02:08,495 --> 00:02:11,831 The astronauts will be looking out the window at parts of the moon 41 00:02:11,831 --> 00:02:14,734 that have never been seen by human eyes before. 42 00:02:14,734 --> 00:02:16,536 They will be flying by the moon 43 00:02:16,536 --> 00:02:19,506 at an altitude that's much higher than Apollo's orbits, 44 00:02:19,672 --> 00:02:24,711 and so they will see the entire disk of the moon, including areas that are closer 45 00:02:24,711 --> 00:02:29,482 to both the north and south pole, that astronauts from Apollo never saw. 46 00:02:29,916 --> 00:02:33,753 All of that depends on the lighting, which we really won't know 47 00:02:33,753 --> 00:02:37,457 until launch day, but we can practice with different lighting scenarios. 48 00:02:37,790 --> 00:02:41,027 It's hard for people to sort of picture that in their mind. 49 00:02:41,227 --> 00:02:45,999 If you can make a visualization of it and show them a movie, that helps everybody 50 00:02:46,032 --> 00:02:49,502 choose the targets and also practice aiming at those targets. 51 00:02:49,769 --> 00:02:53,573 The astronauts have actually been looking at these visualizations through 52 00:02:53,573 --> 00:02:57,877 the lens of the camera and practicing aiming at the various targets. 53 00:02:57,877 --> 00:02:59,646 [Music] 54 00:02:59,646 --> 00:03:02,849 This is a map of the surface of the moon, obviously, 55 00:03:02,849 --> 00:03:04,317 but it shows what 56 00:03:04,317 --> 00:03:08,188 the Apollo astronauts could see in sunlight while they were in orbit. 57 00:03:08,454 --> 00:03:11,457 The brighter parts are the parts that they could see. 58 00:03:11,558 --> 00:03:15,128 The darker parts, like this entire area here 59 00:03:15,128 --> 00:03:19,132 and places that are farther north and south are places 60 00:03:19,132 --> 00:03:23,069 that they couldn't see in sunlight, either because it was nighttime there 61 00:03:23,203 --> 00:03:26,206 or because it was beyond the horizon of the astronauts. 62 00:03:26,539 --> 00:03:29,142 All of the Apollo flights orbited 63 00:03:29,142 --> 00:03:32,345 the moon at a distance of about 110km. 64 00:03:32,579 --> 00:03:36,950 Because the astronauts were flying at such a low altitude, 65 00:03:37,050 --> 00:03:41,187 their horizon was actually quite close and they couldn't see the north 66 00:03:41,187 --> 00:03:46,726 and south poles, and this whole area over here was not in sunlight at the time. 67 00:03:46,926 --> 00:03:50,763 And it includes this amazing impact feature here called Orientale. 68 00:03:51,364 --> 00:03:54,200 Orientale is a very large impact feature. 69 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:57,203 It's about 650km wide. 70 00:03:57,203 --> 00:03:59,639 It's got multiple rings. 71 00:03:59,639 --> 00:04:03,409 These are rings that form like ripples in a pond from the impact, 72 00:04:03,610 --> 00:04:05,812 but of course it's on a huge scale. 73 00:04:05,812 --> 00:04:10,049 The middle of Orientale has that sort of dark basalt 74 00:04:10,049 --> 00:04:14,020 lava covering it like the dark spots that we see on the near side. 75 00:04:14,220 --> 00:04:17,790 It's one of the biggest ones that's more on the far side than the near. 76 00:04:18,057 --> 00:04:21,894 So seeing it with human eyes and sort of picking out features that maybe 77 00:04:21,894 --> 00:04:26,032 you don't even see in robotic cameras is an important goal for the mission. 78 00:04:26,399 --> 00:04:29,302 [Music] 79 00:04:29,702 --> 00:04:31,237 One of the photographic targets 80 00:04:31,237 --> 00:04:33,606 that is on everybody's list is 81 00:04:33,606 --> 00:04:36,342 pictures of the Earth beyond the limb of the moon. 82 00:04:36,909 --> 00:04:40,880 During Apollo 8, on their fourth orbit, they finally turned their 83 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:44,484 spacecraft around so that they could see in the direction of the Earth. 84 00:04:45,084 --> 00:04:47,420 [Anders] Oh, my God, look at that picture over there! 85 00:04:47,420 --> 00:04:48,655 There’s the Earth coming up. 86 00:04:48,655 --> 00:04:49,889 Wow, is that pretty! 87 00:04:50,123 --> 00:04:53,026 [Borman] Hey, don't take that, it’s not scheduled. 88 00:04:53,026 --> 00:04:56,229 [camera takes picture] 89 00:04:56,229 --> 00:04:58,364 [Anders] You got a color film, Jim? 90 00:04:58,364 --> 00:05:03,803 I think it surprised all of them how beautiful and how human it was to see 91 00:05:04,037 --> 00:05:08,474 the entire planet Earth from behind the horizon of another celestial body. 92 00:05:08,975 --> 00:05:12,612 That photograph, called “Earthrise,” had a huge impact on the public, 93 00:05:12,745 --> 00:05:15,782 because from space you don't see country boundaries, 94 00:05:15,782 --> 00:05:19,452 you don't see some of the human problems that we deal with on the surface, 95 00:05:19,719 --> 00:05:22,555 and you also recognize that the Earth is a finite place. 96 00:05:22,555 --> 00:05:24,857 It's not infinite, it's not everything. 97 00:05:24,857 --> 00:05:28,194 It is a pale blue dot in the vastness of space. 98 00:05:28,828 --> 00:05:32,965 Artemis is going to have that opportunity once again. 99 00:05:33,299 --> 00:05:36,903 I anticipate that the astronauts will have the same feeling 100 00:05:36,903 --> 00:05:40,840 that the Apollo 8 astronauts did, and I think it will have a similar effect 101 00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:44,610 on a new generation of people who are watching this mission unfold. 102 00:05:44,777 --> 00:05:56,022 [Music]