Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Celebrating NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Jeremy Graeber, the assistant launch director at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, joins us to recount his experience on the night of Artemis I’s historic launch. We celebrate the success of the mission and share a short segment about The Planetary Society’s new Space Life Goals list. Bruce Betts pops in to share more about this week in space history and what to keep an eye out for in the night sky in this week’s What’s Up. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2023-celebrating-artemis-1See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There and back again, an Artemis I lunar mission tale, this week on Planetary Radio. I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. We've all heard it before, but some things are worth the wait, and NASA's Artemis One mission to the Moon was no exception. This week, we celebrate the amazing success of the first launch of the Artemis program with Jeremy Graber. He's the Assistant Launch Director for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. Getting humans back to the Moon for the first time in over five decades is an excellent goal, but we'll also share a new resource to help you accomplish your space life goals here on Earth.

If you're a fan of the Artemis program, you're going to want to stick around for What's Up with Bruce Betts and a chance to win a special Artemis prize in this week's space trivia contest. It's no secret that we love solar sails here at the Planetary Society. We all shared in a big moment last November when our beloved, crowdfunded LightSail2 spacecraft reached its end of mission, but its legacy lives on in a new generation of solar sails. Last week, we were thrilled by the launch of the Gamma Alpha solar sail mission. Gamma is a French aerospace company that drew on lessons learned from the Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft. This new mission aims to further test solar sailing technology.

It consists of a six-unit CubeSat about the size of a large shoebox. CubeSats are a class of mini-satellite based on a cube unit that's 10 centimeters long on each side. Gamma Alpha will attempt to deploy a solar sail about the size of a tennis court from within that confined space. That's really impressive. We also got word that researchers from the University of Western Ontario in Canada discovered something curious when studying a fireball that streaked across the skies of Alberta in 2021. The rocky meteoroid's trajectory suggests that it came from the Oort cloud. That's the immense cloud of icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. We're used to observing comets that travel into the inner solar system from the Oort cloud,

but this object suggests that it may contain rocky bodies and not just icy ones. You can learn more about these and other stories in the January 6th edition of our weekly newsletter, The Downlink. Read it or subscribe to have it sent to your inbox for free every Friday at planetary.org slash downlink. Now, if you do read this week's downlink, you'll notice that our theme for the newsletter is all about space life goals. To help inspire and motivate you to live out your space dreams, we put together what we consider to be the ultimate list of space life goals. Here's Kate Howells, our public education specialist, to tell us more. Hey, Kate, how's it going?

Hi, Sarah, it's going great, just kind of getting out of the holiday lull. Yeah, and I know we've got a really fun thing to kind of give people something to look forward to in the coming year. Can you tell us a little bit about our new space life goals? Yes, absolutely. So yes, it's the time of year when people are making and maybe already breaking their New Year's resolution, but for people who are space enthusiasts, we have a really great tool to help you not only set resolutions, but also sort of guide your progress as a space enthusiast and potentially inspire things

that you could do throughout your life. So the Space Life Goals was inspired by actually birdwatching lists. So birdwatchers have what's called a life list, where it's basically a list of all the birds that you could possibly see in your region or even beyond if you're into traveling. And over the course of your life, you tick off the birds that you've seen, you make little notes. So we had the idea to do something similar with space with all the things that you might see or do to enrich your

passion for space. And to put together this list, we crowdsourced it from our members and our email list and our social media subscribers and just everybody in our broad community. So people submitted ideas for things to do or see as a space enthusiast that you should do within your lifetime. And we've put it all together, organized it into categories, and it's now available on our website for free. So you can go check it out and see ideas that maybe are within the scope of what you want to do as a space enthusiast, maybe things that are bigger, more ambitious, maybe not for you. But overall, there's something for everybody here.

That sounds like so much fun. I know I have so many personal space life goals, but are there any that you're hoping to accomplish in the future? Yes, many, of course, because as a space enthusiast myself, I nerd out about this stuff. And there's a lot of stuff that I want to do within my lifetime. I would love to see the Aurora, for example. I live in Canada, but not far enough north to get to see the Aurora Borealis. So I'd love to travel farther north and see that. I would love to do sidewalk astronomy, which is where you bring a telescope out to a public place, like, you know, downtown, wherever you live, something like that.

And as people walk by, you invite them to look through the telescope at whether it's just the moon or it's the daytime and you have a solar telescope, or if it's nighttime and you've got a big enough scope to see Jupiter or something. I've been a passerby invited you have a solar telescope, or if it's nighttime and you've got a big enough scope to see Jupiter or something. I've been a passerby invited to look through a telescope and I know it's such an enriching experience to get to see something for yourself.

So I would love to be the person setting up the telescope, inviting other people to check it out. I would love to tour the lab of a space scientist. That's one of the ones on our list that I think sounds so cool to actually see somebody who's working on analyzing lunar rocks or Mars meteorites, or who's just doing cool theoretical work on black holes. Any of that stuff sounds really cool to me. Like I said, there's something for everybody on this list, and there's definitely

a lot for me. That sounds like so much fun. I know the one I've always wanted to do is go check out a meteor crater or something like that. Yes, I've done that. I can tick that off my life list. I saw the Arizona meteor crater a few years ago. And it's so cool. So cool. It was mind boggling. Definitely recommend. Well, thanks, Kate. That sounds like a really great time. I'm going to link to this page on our Planetary Radio site so everyone can go there. You can check it out at planetary.org slash radio. I'll put it in the links under this episode. Thanks so much, Kate. Thank you, Sarah. And I hope everybody enjoys and has some great space experiences this year. One of the things

on our space life goals list is going to see a rocket launch. And if you haven't done it yet, I strongly encourage you to try to see one of these things. It's amazing. My first rocket launch wasn't that long ago, actually. I went to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to watch the launch of the DART mission. That's the double asteroid redirection test that smashed right into the asteroid moonlit Dimorphos last September. I was really hoping that my second launch was going to be the Artemis 1 mission. NASA's Artemis program is the modern-day equivalent of the Apollo program that first took humans to the moon in the 1960s and 70s. Not only does the Artemis program hope to return

humans to the surface of the moon for the first time in over 50 years, but the plan ultimately includes building the first permanent lunar settlement and a moon orbiting space station called the Lunar Gateway. After many years of dreaming and hard work, the first uncrewed launch of the Artemis program, Artemis 1, blasted off on November 16, 2022. My Planetary Society colleagues and I adventured to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last August, and we really hoped that we would be able to see that first launch, but of course, it was scrubbed. But that's okay. Matt Kaplan, the show's former host, shared many of our adventures during that trip in the September 7th, 2022 episode of Planetary Radio.

I'll link to that on this week's Planetary Radio page at planetary.org slash radio. Since we couldn't be there to watch that launch, I had to talk to someone who did, which is why I invited Jeremy Graber to this week's show. He's the Assistant Launch Director and Chief of the Test, Launch, and Recovery Operations Branch within the Exploration Ground Systems Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. He witnessed the inspiring night that Artemis I launched firsthand and joined me to celebrate the mission's success. Thanks for joining me, Jeremy.

Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. I just wanted to say congratulations to you and everyone that worked on Artemis One launch. That was absolutely amazing. Thanks, Sarah. I'm so proud of our team and so happy with everything that's gone on. Launch countdown, the mission, splashdown just yesterday. Fantastic for everybody involved. Really proud of our teams.

Yeah, we're actually recording this a little early and the splashdown of Orion was just yesterday. So it was really timely and really exciting to watch that. Were you watching it in San Diego or were you actually watching a broadcast of it? of the U.S. Navy Portland LPD ship. And so that team's been out there for weeks and it really just didn't work with being part of the launch team and then also being part of the recovery team. But that team has been training for years to get to this point along with the U.S. Navy. And they just did a fantastic job in coordination with the flight control team in Houston and the Mission Control Center. Did a fantastic job. Great splashdown, great recovery, and I'm really proud of that team. Right. It just all comes full circle. It's wonderful seeing the launch be so successful. And finally, this moment getting that capsule back. It's all really

exciting. Absolutely. And I'm wondering, you know, you've been working at Kennedy Space Center for about two and a half decades now. And you've seen so much launch history, everything from the end of the space shuttle era to, you know, now, the SLS rocket launching and the beginning of the Artemis generation. And after all of that, what did it feel like to finally see Artemis I launch? Well, you're absolutely correct. I've gotten to see a whole lot of things here at the Kennedy Space Center, be a part of a lot of different things. a part of a lot of different things. My perception of all of those things throughout time as a young engineer moving through and moving into new and different opportunities, getting to move in to be a NASA test director and run launch countdown, and then getting to be a part of STS-132 being the

launch NASA test director for that mission was a big milestone. And then moving into Ares 1X and getting to be a part of that launch team for that single mission, that was an amazing experience. Then moving into the next generation as we move forward, I got to be the NASA recovery director for Exploration Flight Test 1 and recover Orion for the first Orion flight and splash down. and recover Orion for the first Orion flight and splash down. But what I'll tell you is from about 2012 till just this November, we've been working in building this launch team in this launch of Artemis I and working for and with Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, our launch director, and putting together this team that has basically built this whole launch from scratch

has been a unique and amazing experience seeing how this team has created the software and all the simulation capability for us to do over 30 launch countdown sims with our whole team dozens of additional sims with smaller teams to prepare ourselves to be ready for the launch of Artemis I. And being a part of all of that from the beginning has been just the most rewarding events. And to see all that come together and finally come off with the launch on November 16th was just truly an amazing opportunity, something that our whole team is so proud of. And for me, it's really seeing that team grow, mature, and really be spot on, ready to go, and just really

have a spectacular launch of Artemis One. It's really, really rewarding. That's fantastic and really impressive, honestly. Did you and the team have like a really fun party afterwards? I really hope you did. So we didn't have a really fun party right away. It's a really long launch countdown. Yeah, and a late night. And a late night. So the timing of it made for, but the celebrations that we had immediately after launch, you know, Charlie is very in tune with her team and very understanding of

what's important to this team. And every one of us in every position, it was the first time doing that and launching. And that's a really big deal. Coming into the shuttle program, I came in in the middle of a 30-year program and many of the people that were part of that program had been doing it for 15 years. And I got to do the last 15 years. So there was a lot of history and a lot of things built. None of us had ever launched before. And so recognizing that, and it's a tradition amongst the launch team that when somebody fills a role for

the first time, they get their tie cut. Every one of us did that for the first time, filled that role for the first time. Charlie had some very specific scissors made just for that occasion. And I believe she cut every single launch team member's tie or whatever they had, their scarf or whatever it was that represented what was important to them on launch day. That was such a great moment to watch, moment for myself to have my tie cut for my position as the assistant launch director, but then to see the whole team get recognized and feel that honor to be a part of that team was such a great thing to watch. And really the team

wanted to stay in the control room for a very long time after launch because it just wanted to soak in what history they had just made and been a part of. So that was our party. That was what was really important to us. And it was a great celebration for us as a team. That's really great that you bring up the ties because I've been wondering for the longest time, like, did everyone actually get their ties cut? And what are you going to do with yours? Is it going to frame it? Absolutely. You can see behind me it's not framed.

But for SDS 132, my tie for that launch and Mike Leinbach cutting my tie for that launch is there. And as I get some imagery and some other things put together, the Artemis one will go right up on the shelf as well or somewhere up on the wall. Did you pick a special Artemis tie? I didn't. You know, for me, it's you never know when you're actually going to launch. And I want to because, you know, we did scrub a couple of times. For me, it's let's just get in there and do the work. And whatever you're wearing is what's going to be commemorated on that day.

So no, I just wore what felt right that day. And that's the one that's going to go up on the wall. And I do think it's really something that's great that will connect this team forever is that tie cutting. And I'll see that in years to come with other members of this team. And I'll go in their offices and see their tie cut. And, you know, I'll know that connection is there and just be able to talk about that and reminisce about that amazing launch night. A moment you'll remember forever. Absolutely.

And you did bring this up a little, which is that Artemis did scrub a few times. It went through a lot of struggle. My coworkers and I were actually there in August to try to see the first attempted launch. It was so awesome to be there, even though it got scrubbed just to be there with the crowd. But in that interim between that first scrub launch and when it actually did get off the ground, what was the atmosphere in, you know, Kennedy Space Center? Was it tense or was it just everyone dedicated to that moment? Well, that's the thing that is really impressive about this team. There wasn't disappointment, you know, nobody's hanging their heads. Everybody just looked at it. We've got this next

problem to go solve. Today wasn't our day. We need to circle back and we need to look at what we need to do differently. We need to learn our lessons. That's one thing that Charlie always says to this team. And it's something that I carry with me to my teams as well is we want to learn a lesson once. carry with me to my teams as well is we want to learn a lesson once. We don't want to learn it multiple times. So through each one of those launch attempts, we learn something about how this rocket works. And through each wet dress rehearsal, we learned how this rocket works. You can do all of the testing and all of the analysis and look at all the models, but the reality of how all of the systems interact is really where you understand how the rocket really works and how it's going to work on launch day.

And so through each one of those opportunities, we learned something and, you know, throw in a couple of hurricanes for us to work through, added some exciting challenges for us. But really, once we got through our tanking test, we really understood cryogenically how to load the vehicle, how we needed to do that specifically. We really were ready after that tanking test to get to that next launch attempt. And if it had not been for the Hurricane Ian that came through, we really would have had that next launch attempt there pretty quickly. But again, the team didn't look at it as a disappointment. They said, what's our next steps?

We've got to protect this vehicle. So we rolled back to the vehicle assembly building and did all the right things there. Once we were ready, we rolled back out, had a surprise hurricane for us in Hurricane Nicole. And what's really impressive about this team is we rolled out, got all of our preparations completed. We're able to ride out a hurricane that came through on a Thursday. We got into our pre-test briefing for launch on Saturday. We got into our launch countdown on Sunday,

and we launched early that morning on the 16th. So just an impressive set of days and amount of work that this team did in those days leading up to launch. But again, it's how this team looks at things. Nothing is too hard. Everything is just what's the work, what's the issue, what's the challenge that's in front of us? Let's put all of our heads together and work through it. And all of those amazing results were shown to the world on the 16th. That was fantastic to see and witness and be a part of. Yeah, it was really impressive to see it all come together after all of that, especially after all the hurricanes. And then there was that tense moment during the night when there was another

fuel leak detected, and they had to send the Red Crew, that specialized team of technicians out there, to make sure that that leak was fixed. And were you just holding your breath the whole time that crew was under the rocket? I wouldn't say I was holding my breath, but the key thing about a Red Crew, the idea of a Red Crew has always been a part of, since I've worked at the Space Center, a Red Crew is a really specialized capability. And you really hope you never need to use it. But you put all the work in ahead of time to ensure that they know how to handle their work if they're called upon. called upon. And we know how to handle protecting them and watching them every step of the way through the entire time that they're out at the pad. You know, for me, I didn't hold my breath because I knew the preparation had been done and we knew how to handle this situation. One of the

tasks that I had as a part of the Artemis One launch was to put all of our emergency capabilities in place. So we've got a fire rescue team that's ready to go in if there's an emergency while the Red Crew's in. So we worked with those teams to plan out how we would accomplish that type of rescue in case of that very unlikely situation. We have emergency medical teams on site, prepped and ready to go right outside the launch control center. And we've got emergency medical evacuation via helicopters ready to go in case there had been an emergency. So you do all that preparation beforehand and have all those resources ready to go. In addition, all the preparation for the Red Crew members, all the training, all of the

expectations that they go through to be ready. And they're staged and ready. They were staged and ready through every wet dress, every launch attempt, and really having all of that preparation, having those individuals ready to go do that work. And then also through our launch countdown simulations, we trained on problems that drove us to Red Crews so that our teams in the control room knew how to go through that process. All of that work was put in place and then it became necessary on launch day. You hope it doesn't, but it did. It was the exact type of situation, exact type of location that we could go to, send personnel in. And the thing about a Red Crew that's so important is

we do not send folks inside the launch danger area lightly. That is a very, very big deal. Charlie absolutely, as our launch director, is responsible for every individual that goes inside that launch danger area. She takes that very seriously and so do I. And so we watched every moment that they were inside that launch danger area. We were conscious of any situation that could have come up during that timeframe. And we were very happy with the result, very happy to see them get out of the launch danger area. And then we were able to successfully get through the rest of launch countdown and be ready to go pick up with terminal count. That was kind of by the playbook exactly how a Red Crew should go.

And those guys did a fantastic job and really proud of them and really proud of the team and all the preparation that went into getting us to a successful launch on that day. Yeah. I remember watching a little bit of the broadcast where the Red Crew was being interviewed. And it was fun for me, because there was never a moment that I doubted that they were going to get out of it safely. I feel like we've reached this point in space travel where I can truly trust that everyone involved is going to be safe. And so it's way less tense. It was more of a just look at those heroes out there, you know, just hard hats off to the Red Crew because they were the unsung heroes of the night, or I guess partially sung heroes of the night. Yeah, they've definitely, you know, gotten a chance to be recognized.

And that is so fantastic. It's I'm so proud that not only that they did a great job, but they're being recognized for it, which is which is awesome. Hold that thought. which is awesome. Hold that thought. We'll be right back with the rest of our interview with Jeremy Graber after a short message from the Planetary Society's new Digital Community Manager, Amber Trujillo. There is so much going on in space science and exploration, and we're here to share it with you. Hi, I'm Amber, Digital Community Manager for the Planetary Society. Catch the latest space exploration news, pretty planetary pictures, the Planetary Society. Catch the latest space exploration news, pretty planetary pictures, and Planetary Society publications on our social media channels.

You can find the Planetary Society on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. I hope you'll like and subscribe so you never miss the next exciting update from the world of planetary science. Well, this rocket turned out fantastic, but I know that there are going to be some changes between the Artemis I rocket, which is an SLS-1 rocket, and then the next generation is going to be a Block 1B SLS rocket. There's going to be a few changes between now and then. Can you briefly describe kind of the major differences between these two rocket types? SLS Block 1 is what we're going to fly. We have flown for Artemis 1 and we will fly for Artemis 2 and Artemis 3. The Block 1 SLS, the upper stage that we have is the interim cryo

propulsion stage and it has one RL-10 engine and it allows us to meet the mission requirements for the first three Artemis missions. When we get to Artemis 4, that is when we get the new upper stage. And what that new upper stage allows for, it's bigger tanks. It's about 40 feet taller than the current rocket that we've got for SLS Block 1. It's got four RL-10 engines. It gives us a much bigger payload capacity to the moon. It allows us to not only bring Orion and the astronauts, but a massive amount of cargo to the moon as well. And there are a couple of different iterations. There's a cargo only version that gives us an amazing amount of capability moving forward,

which is really what Artemis is all about, is taking incremental steps towards permanent presence on the moon so that we eventually can take our astronauts to Mars. And it's really exciting to be a part of this and really exciting, really, to lay the groundwork for this multi-decade program that we're working towards that really just extends our reach into the moon permanently and eventually to Mars. Very excited to see that. And as you mentioned, not just those changes, there will be changes from Artemis 1 to Artemis 2 as it relates to the flight crew, because we will fly astronauts on Artemis 2. That will add some capabilities to Orion, very specific

capabilities for the flight crew, all of their environmental control capabilities to keep the crew safe and comfortable through their flight. Some of those systems will be added in. On the ground, we've got several capabilities that we're updating as it relates to our emergency egress system that we're installing as a part of updates to the mobile launcher and the pad capabilities. That's a really important capability that we're installing as a part of updates to the mobile launcher and the pad capabilities. That's a really important capability that we need flying crew. Some of the capabilities on our crew access arm will be upgraded and improved because we now will have a crew flying. So you'll definitely see some adjustments and some differences as we move forward to Artemis 2.

And we've already started moving forward with those. And we're only a few weeks into Artemis 2 planning. It all started well before Artemis 1 and continues as we're flying Artemis 1. Yeah. We have about two years until Artemis 2 launches, right? Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of amazing things ahead of us to get to that Artemis 2 launch. Very much looking forward to those. You know, we've got different capabilities. You know, Artemis 1, the intent was not to have any personnel inside the launch danger area through once we started cryo loading. had that difference. But for Artemis 2, we absolutely will have personnel inside the launch danger area. And that'll be the flight crew and our closeout crew that will be in there to get the flight crew loaded on board Orion. So that alone will change the launch day operations. And that's additional work that will have to be worked into our normal launch countdown timeline. So we've got a plan for that. We're going to work through

that. We're going to perfect that and it'll look a lot different as we move into Artemis 2. And I'm excited for that. Having a flight crew makes a big difference in a mission. The visibility is much different. The level of scrutiny and safety and safety-mindedness on everything that we do from this point on is ratcheted up that much higher because our primary responsibility in everything we do here at Kennedy Space Center is safety of our crew, safety of our ground crews, and then the safety of our flight hardware and our ground systems. But the crew and the ground crew are our primary responsibility that they are safe, and that will be carried through in everything we do from here on out. Do we have any idea when we're going to know who some of these crew members are going to be?

I mean, A, because we want to, you know, cheer them on while they're still on earth, but also because I want to start collecting action figures. So the word I'm hearing is in 2023, we will start to hear some of that news. I'm looking forward to it as well, because building that relationship with that flight crew and the training they work together. Really important aspect of how we manage that. Because again, the teams that I'm a part of are the launch side and the recovery side. And it's both of those are very big pieces of what the flight crew has to go through during a mission. And so building those relationships will be really important for us. I'm also, as a woman who loves space, I'm really excited that we're going to have

a more diverse cast of people getting to adventure to the moon. And part of that is that we need to study how space and these long term spaceflight missions affect people's bodies over time. So I know two of the mannequins that were on board this Artemis flight were actually modeled after female bodies to, you know, see how that actually impacts them over time. And I'm wondering, do we have any evidence that there might be differences in the way that women's bodies deal with long-term spaceflight? Yes, we absolutely do. I mean, that's the one thing that I think is really kind of my view. This is my own personal Jeremy Graber view of NASA and what we've done through our history. And when I look at Apollo, Apollo was, let's demonstrate this amazing capability that we can put together and fly humans to the moon, right? And land them on the moon, bring them back safely. Those were the first steps that kicked everything off. And then everything after that has been, let's build on that capability,

build on those successes. And what the space shuttle program really has done is demonstrate how we can live in space for a long term, how we can build an amazing it's like to live in space. Have astronauts be on board for more than a year. Really demonstrate what living in space does to the human body and then take that next step. Now we're going to take all of those lessons that we've learned through all of these successful missions and now take it that next step further. And so missions and now take it that next step further. And so we have already learned so much, but the next step is how do we live even further away from earth, not low earth orbit. Now we're going to live at the moon where things are considerably different. There is radiation. There is all these things that the low earth orbit has protections against. And that really is the focus of the capabilities that the mannequins that are on board Artemis I and Orion are really bringing back that data.

We collected a certain amount of data during Apollo, and now we've got so much more advanced technology, sensors, all those things that we can now bring that data back and be able to adjust designs, adjust capabilities on board so that we do make those adjustments based on physiology, male, female, all of those things and protect our astronauts as best as possible moving into Artemis II and beyond. So yeah, I really love that. Again, it's learning lessons. Don't learn them more than once. Learn it once and then go improve upon it and then carry that into the future. And that's our goal in NASA all the time is learn those lessons and then move forward. but also potentially having a lunar gateway in orbit, or also having a base on the moon. And I'm wondering, I know this is kind of, you know, not your thing, but if you could select a target for people to land on the moon and go explore, what features on the moon do you think you would want to go see more of? Well, some of my background where I started in the space shuttle

program was the fuel cells on board the orbiters that powered the orbiters while they were in space. So fueled by gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen, they're great. They give off heat, electricity, and water. The best thing is you can get all of that from water. And so in my mind, landing in a location at one of the poles that has the potential for water just opens so many possibilities and opportunities. Because if you have water, you can make those key elements that you need to be able to generate power. And then once you can generate power on a consistent basis, you can sustain human life in that location. And so that's really exciting to me. And so, you know so if somebody came and asked

me, that would be one of those locations would be the primary spots from my perspective. I love to hear that because I too think those permanently shadowed craters at the poles of the moon where we can actually find water would be a perfect place to go. Well, while the Orion capsule was going around the moon, I was just so excited to see all those beautiful images. I know no one was up there except the mannequins to actually see that view out the window, but particularly the images of the Apollo landing sites really kind of struck a chord with me. And I'm wondering if there are any images that you think people should definitely go and look up, which were the images that really stuck with you?

and look up, you know, which were the images that really stuck with you? Well, so I've got to plug every single picture, image, video of the Artemis I launch were the, by far for me, the most amazing views. I'm an assistant launch director. I'm kind of biased. Second on my list are all of the entry interface for entering the Earth's atmosphere. all of those images coming from Orion and then full shoots open and splash down. Those are amazing images. Just seeing those yesterday just warmed my heart. Being a former recovery director, getting to see the EFT-1 Orion splash down from the ship with my own eyes was amazing. And I know the team got to do the same thing. So I know what emotions they were going through. But for the specific question that you asked me, there's an image on day 20 of the mission. And you can see a bit of the service module. You can see a big aspect of the moon and you can see Earth rising behind the moon.

behind the moon. I've seen it described by many different folks, whether it's on Twitter or wherever, they can't believe this is a real picture. This looks like something out of a science fiction movie. And that image to me really does represent, you know, that image is from a massive distance away from Earth, the moon in the foreground, and all of us on Earth in the background in this tiny little blue planet that is rising over the moon just encapsulates everything about what Artemis is all about. And so that's probably one of my favorite images that I've seen so far. Yeah, and I'll make sure to put that up on the website with this episode. So if anybody wants to check it out, they can because I think it's almost the exact same image that you're mentioning. Anytime you see one of those pictures that evokes that Carl Sagan pale blue dot feeling, it's always really humbling and makes me feel so hopeful in my heart. Absolutely.

Well, before I let you go, I do have one last completely silly question for you, which is, see, I'm a huge Snoopy fan. I don't know about you. But I know that on board this mission, they had a zero G indicator plushie astronaut Snoopy. And I know that you appreciated it too, because I saw a picture that you posted on your Twitter of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float of Snoopy. And I'm really excited about this because my grandmother had her pilot's license and had iconography of Snoopy flying all over her home. So I was very endeared to that. And I know too that you once won an award, the Silver Snoopy, which I believe is awarded for emergency egress training and equipment development. Did you actually get a physical Snoopy statue? So not a statue. So the Silver Snoopy Award has been around a really long time and it comes from service and support to NASA astronauts. And it's really a NASA astronauts award, basically, that says you have contributed to the safety and well-being and success of a NASA astronaut crew or mission or whatever. And so it's not a statue. It's a little pin.

And I was awarded the Silver Snoopy. And Butch Wilmore was the astronaut. He's a good friend of mine that presented it to me. And it's a really, really special honor to get. And you mentioned what I received it for. And that's a really important aspect of my job during the shuttle program and continues today as the assistant launch director. The safety of the flight crew and the ground crews is one of my primary responsibilities. And so as we move forward into Artemis II, developing and perfecting the

training that we do for emergency egress is right back up there in the top items that we've got ahead of us. And so Silver Snoopies are really, it is a really big honor. I'm so honored to have been a recipient and I've nominated a lot of really great people to get them as well, because it just shows the true nature of somebody that works so hard to protect our NASA astronauts. And it's great to recognize them. Yeah, I love that balloon at the Thanksgiving Day parade. That was awesome. So the zero G indicator Snoopy that is flying on Artemis 1, Charlie Blackwell Thompson, as our launch director, got to welcome Snoopy on board Orion when we closed out Orion for flight, leaving the vehicle assembly building

the first time. And so he will be recognized and displayed, I'm sure, and very prominent features moving forward coming down. Orion will be back in port today. And I'm sure that Snoopy will be one of the first members of that team and that payload consistent to be offloaded and with honors, I'm sure. That makes me so happy because I would love to go see that Snoopy. And, you know, thank you for everything you've done, not only to protect our living astronauts, but also our little Snoopy astronaut. Absolutely.

Thanks, Jeremy. This has been a wonderful conversation. I'm so looking forward to the next Artemis missions. And hopefully we can talk again in the future about this. That would be fantastic. Thank you so much, Sarah, and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and your listeners. I had such a fun time with that conversation. Jeremy, if you're listening, don't be surprised when I show up at the Kennedy Space Center with a Snoopy plushie and a dream of cheering off the top of one of those launch towers. My partner in crime during my first and only visit to KSC so far was Bruce Betts. We'll go to him for this week's What's Up.

Once more, I am joined by the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, the amazing, the marvelous, the stupendous Dr. Bruce Betts. Oh, I love these introductions. Hi, Sarah. How are you doing, you wonderful, amazing, tremendously awesome host person? See, that's why I do it. So you say nice things to me. No, I know last week I said I was going to be extra mean, but I figured I'd throw you

a curveball. I know. It confused me. Hey, you want to know what's up in the night sky? You probably already know. But how about I tell other people? Yeah, what's up? We've still got super bright Venus coming up, getting easier to see low in the West.

It's going to hang with us and get higher over the coming weeks and months. Brightest star-like object in the night sky. And then if you look higher above it, there's yellowish Saturn and they're coming together. They're coming together and will be really close to each other, but very low on the western horizon after sunset on January 22nd. And then Saturn will keep dropping lower. Venus will get higher. Meanwhile, farther up in the sky, we've got Jupiter looking bright. And over farther in the sky, we got reddish Mars, which is still quite bright.

It looks quite lovely compared to Aldebaran, the reddish star of Taurus. They are hanging out near each other. And you can watch Mars dim as we get farther away from it over the coming weeks. Yeah, that'll do. Okay. How about on to this week in space history? It was a busy week. And here's a small sampling just from the 2000s, the aughts, whatever that decade is supposed to be called. 2005, the Huygens probe, European Space Agency Huygens probe that flew with Cassini to Saturn, went through the atmosphere of Saturn and landed on the surface. Really, really amazing. A year later, Stardust returned cometary material to the Earth via sample return. And two years after that, Messenger had its first flyby of Mercury. Very memorable to me because it always bugged me that we hadn't seen half of Mercury up close,

and flyby number one pretty much filled in the rest of the map. And then, of course, great mission after that. I remember when Huygens landed, eventually, it took a few years, but they made just a really beautiful video of the imagery that it took on its way down to the surface. And if you look really carefully in the background, you can see the shadow of its parachute just kind of moving overhead, which I encourage people to look up on YouTube. It's fantastic. Hey, did you realize that the Planetary Society partnered with the acoustic instrument on the Huygens and helped with our colleagues to process that data. And I do a mean impersonation I've done over time of two and a half hours of descent through the very thick atmosphere in 10 seconds or less. All right, here we go.

There it is. That was it landing. You could hear it land. Okay, moving on to random space. I like that one. You could hear it land. Okay, moving on to Random Space Fart. I like that one. Did you notice that we didn't auto-tune you last week? Yes, I appreciated it.

I may need auto-tuning, but all right, here's your facts. You may have discussed the SLS rocket in the show earlier. I'm just guessing. No, didn't even come up. Oh, okay. If you set the SLS rocket on its side, it would stretch about the length of a football field. Yikes. That really puts it in context, you know? I mean, being at Kennedy Space Center, it was like tiny, tiny in the distance, but...

It's big. It's big. I mean, I wouldn't suggest putting it on its side, but if you did, that's what it would look like. Well, okay, we move on to the trivia contest. And I asked you, what hardware? What hardware did the Planetary Society fly to Mars as part of these Spirit and Opportunity missions? How do we do, Sarah? We did pretty well. We got a lot of really great answers. I know you said that we don't need great detail on this one. People did, in fact, send us great detail. But the dice have spoken. I used a die this time to figure out who won instead of a random number generator, just because it's extra fun. And because I'm a nerd with a bag of dice bigger than anyone should have. But our winner this week is Gene Lewin from Washington State, USA, who sent us this beautiful little poem. He wrote, if you have the opportunity to visit Planum Meridiani, you'll find a disc of silica, a secret coded DVD. And if the spirit moves you,

stroll over to Gusev Crater. You can read the secret message, but you'll need to be a good translator. Each disc is a time capsule, 4 million names they both possess, mounted on the lander's pedals and provided by TPS. Of course, that is the Planetary Society. Excellent finish there. Nice. It was impressive. Well, good. Congratulations, Jean. Yeah. You know, it's a tradition with us sending people's names, people who submit their names to us, but also just the names of all of our members on to spacecraft around the solar system. So becoming a member of the Planetary Society is a good way to get your name plastered all over planets and different bodies across our solar system. How many planets do you think, or how many worlds do you think

that your name has gone to? Well, I could check our pages about messages from Earth a lot, flying through space as well. And it's burned up a few times. We just had names burn up with light sail too. We've been a lot of places. Planetary Society started doing names collection going back to Cassini. And now it's been adopted by NASA. They do it a lot now. And so Cassini actually had signatures that were scanned by our volunteers that were included with Cassini. And then Mars Pathfinder included a small micro dot that included names. And then we've done all sorts of missions since then. I love that. It's a great way to make yourself feel like you're a part of that mission going somewhere. So I submit my name for every mission I can. And during this week, we got a lot

of really good messages from people. I can't read all of them, obviously, but I really do want to thank people personally for all of the really great messages they sent to me about my first episode. It's really daunting to step into Matt Kaplan's shoes now that he's retired from the show. So every message I get that tells me that I did a good job makes me feel so much better and really made my week. Hey, Sarah. Yeah? You did a good job.

Really? Thank you. Yes, really. Sorry, couldn't notice this. I did want to read a little bit of a message that was sent to us for Matt, because, you know, I think this is really true. It came from Nate Podgajny from Maine, USA. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly.

Nate wrote us, what I will miss about Matt specifically is his quiet, compassionate way of lifting up the voices of so many incredible people working in space exploration. That's been such a reassuring presence over the last 15 odd years. That's how long Nate has been listening to the show. And what's kept me fascinated with the Planetary Society's work. You can hear even the shyest guests light up with their passion for exploration and humanity over the course of the interviews in such an extraordinary way. I don't think I've ever finished an episode without feeling newly thrilled that we live in such a marvelous universe full of such marvelous people. I agree.

Oh, Matt's cool. Matt's cool. But you know, if you want to send a message to Matt or me or Bruce, we'll also give your messages to Bruce. Really? Yeah. You can always email us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. So what's our new trivia question for this week? Well, in a rare combination of theme words, last week I asked you about the original Doom video game. We'll get to that next week with the answer. Now I'm going to take a different Doom trek. We're going to play

Where in the Solar System? Where in the Solar System is Doom Mons, named after Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. I love this one. I remember pointing out to people in previous jobs how cool it was that there was a particular place in the solar system with many names from The Lord of the Rings. Excellent. Yeah, I wouldn't go to Mount Doom, though. I mean, you know, if you have good reason, if you're carrying some kind of, you know, maybe evil ring or something with you. Yeah, like that would happen. Okay.

Well, all right. If you have the answer to this question, you can submit your answer until Wednesday, January 18th at 8am Pacific time. And you're probably going to want to actually send in your answers for this because we have some special prizes this time. When Bruce and I went to Kennedy Space Center to watch the first scrub launch of Artemis I, we went to the gift center and I went to Kennedy Space Center to watch the first scrubbed launch of Artemis I, we went to the gift center and I got a whole bunch of Artemis pins. So we'll be giving away up to two of these Artemis pins. Cool. Yeah, I do remember that while I was picking up the pins, you were out shopping for a gag gift for Matt. Yeah. As is tradition. It is. He's still way ahead

of me in the gag gift thing. Every time he'd someplace like JPL, he buys some little weird thing. I have Mars mud still sitting on my desk. It's not actual Mars mud. If only. Sample return is just as easy as going to the JPL store. How do you feel about astronaut ice cream? If I bring you astronaut ice cream from every trip I go on, would you eat it? I would. Would I be you eat it? I would. Would I be excited about it?

Probably not. But I would eat it because you brought it to me and that would be a nice thought. Except now I'm sensing it's not actually a nice thought. Hmm. I could just see the look of disappointment in your eyes when I give you just once more astronaut ice cream. Oh, I sense a theme. All right, we'll make sure that Sarah doesn't travel.

I've doomed myself. Mount doomed myself. But anyway, all right, Bruce, it is time for you to take us out. All right, everybody go out there, look up at the night sky and think about gnomes. Thank you and good night. Gnomes.

You heard it here, folks. That was Bruce Betts, the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next week to share the inspiring story of Jason Achilles. He's a musician and a space fan who found his way onto the team responsible for putting one of the first successful microphones on Mars. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by our dedicated members. You can join us and help many more amazing space missions

launch to success at planetary.org slash join. Mark Hilverda and Ray Paoletta are our associate producers. Andrew Lucas is our audio editor. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. And until next week, Ad Astra.