Mission to the Moon: Artemis II Returns (Part 1)

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Those speeds and the heat from it are causing a six-minute communications blackout. That's what we're in right now and I just want to be clear. What you're looking at is NASA's calling it a visualization. It's essentially an animation that NASA is putting out. This isn't something we've created. It's something that we're putting out to give you a sense of what it looks like, what the capsule is experiencing, and what the astronauts are experiencing. Shortly before that blackout began, Commander Reid Weisman remarked that he had a great view of the moon out the window, but smaller than it was a few days ago. Houston replied, we'll have to go back, and they certainly will. So now, having endured the steepest, hottest part of its descent, the Orion crew module is getting ready to slow to a few hundred miles an hour, and the subsequent parachutes will slow it further to about nineteen miles an hour, all of which you will see on camera when communication is restored in just a few minutes. It's going to slow to about nineteen miles an hour, bringing Reid Weisman, Mission Specialist Christina Cook, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, who's a Canadian astronaut and pilot Victor Glover back home. Joining me right now is CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Montine, a three very distinguished former astronauts. We're going to take you to the Arizona Center of Markelle, Jeanette Epps, and Garrett Reisman. I appreciate all of you being with us. So, Senator Kelly, as we are watching this, what does it feel like inside that capsule? Well, they're going to get up to about four G's, so it'll get pretty heavy. Your body will feel four times its weight on Earth. And where we're told helicopters have a visual of the capsule. That's great. That's good. It's still a while until the shoot's open right here. They're going to splash down to the A07. So, they've got a little ways to go here. Crew's busy now monitoring the trajectory of the spacecraft. Not a lot they can do about it. But Orion will do a series of role reversals to change its bank angle, to control its lift vector, to control the place it's going to land. Obviously, Artemis II, Jeanette, is coming in a different trajectory, a re-entry trajectory, than Artemis I was. Yes, it is. Well, we've got a crew on here this time. So, it's going to do slightly different maneuvers in order to make it a little bit more comfortable for the crew as well. And then when the parachutes come out, the crew will feel that force. And once that happens, it'll slow the craft down to a much slower speed, manageable speed. And then the secondary, the main parachutes, the three main parachutes, will deploy. Pete, right now, what is that do? What should we all be watching? This is the most dangerous part of this whole mission. And the crew is not out of danger yet. Remember that the heat shield faced problems after Artemis I. They're saying trajectory is perfect, and we're starting to get intermittent views. I just want to be clear. Yeah, and this view that we're seeing here, this is switched by NASA, it's directed by NASA. And this is coming from a P3 aircraft flying high cover near the Touch Transome. Listen in. You are clear. Your trajectory is nominal, and your recovery teams have visual. Guys, we're in. So they have communications now. The visit is to be the end of the block. No action for the enabled internal camera controller fail. Big cheers from the viewing room here in Mission Control as voice communication re-established with Commander Reid Wiseman. For America, an awaiting world, integrity is five and a half minutes away from coming home. So all the concern about the heat shield, they seem good. Well, not sure exactly where peak heating is. Passing 100,000 feet now. They're probably through that. Peak heating would be about 4000 to 5000 feet. Yeah, about half the temperature of the surface of the sun. Also about twice as hot as the space shuttle tiles would get during re-entry. So it's hot. They're coming back at Mach 35. We'd hit the atmosphere of about Mach 25 on the space shuttle. And just in terms of the speed, Pete, that they're going to be landing, it'll slow what, Jen, it's like 20 miles an hour. And that's what, Fred, the actual splashdown? That's for the splashdown. So I'm not sure the exact speed, but like the trajectory they're coming in is so that they'll land in the exact spot so that the crew can pick them up immediately. Okay, and they're about to deploy the shields. The interesting thing about this trajectory is they're not just hitting the atmosphere and re-entering. They actually skip off the atmosphere a little bit. As to slow down a little bit, control the temperature, and then re-enter, sort of re-enter like a second time. Four and a half minutes to splashdown. Here is the superlative, Anderson, we've gone from Mach 32 to the surface of the ocean, the speed of a bike, and 13 minutes time. This is an incredible feat of engineering here, and we're going to see the set of 11 different parachutes begin to deploy. They're clearly through the danger zone. Yes, yes. Now the critical part of this is making sure the... Look at how fast that is. I mean, that is falling. Making sure the drogue shoots open. And then the main parachutes are open. For the astronauts inside that capsule, do they have a sense of how fast they're moving? Are they seeing land so that they can have a sense? Because I've heard from other astronauts who have had a different kind of trajectory, they can see the land so they get a sense of how fast they may be going. But this is a series of parachutes. The drogue shoots are still there. So if they're looking out the window, they're looking out. So they can't see the water. Two good drogue shoots. Next up... We copy. We see them. Next up, the deployment of pilot parachutes that will pull the main shoots out. Time to splash down three minutes in ten seconds. The drogue is essentially designed to sort of stabilize the spacecraft as it's making its initial descent here in the atmosphere. The atmosphere did a lot of the deceleration for the spacecraft, bringing it to about 300 miles an hour. Perfect to center it according to flight dynamics. We see the same on board. Awesome. Passing through 10,000 feet. Still on drogues. They're probably going 300 miles an hour or something like that. Maybe a little less. There it goes. There it goes. That's good. That's those are the main shoots. Main shoot deployed. The main shoots were fully deployed. Roughly 5,000 feet. Roughly the size of a football field. Three different parachutes here. The surgery recovery beacon has been activated on integrity. Feed in surface area. And we have three good main shoots. Now they're in really good shape. Good three main shoots. Good briefing. Good descent rate. We see three good looking parachutes. Just like the previous ten days of the mission. Integrity. Cabin pressure indicates no need for hydrazine checks. Integrity copies. The next big test here is when... This is a perfect descent for integrity. It's crew sounding hail and hearty on board. When integrity touches down... Time to splash down one minute 15 seconds. Will it be right side up or upside down? And that is the big question here. And bags will deploy. Five of them. Filled with helium around the circumference of the spacecraft. In order to ride it if it lands upside down. If it lands right side up. All okay. This is the first time the Orion capsule is doing this. No. The first Artemis mission. It was the Orion capsule but with no crew members on board. It was the Orion capsule. We're about a minute out to splash down. And so far the timing has been really good. The estimate was that this was happened at 7.07.07. Central time in Houston. Passing through 1000 feet. And the nape vessel. They are right there. They are not far from the splash down. All very close to the ship. Very close. It seems they have this... There is touchdown. There it is. Should be about 60 miles or so I think from San Diego. And this is the view from the USS John Murtha. We figured he swatched out sending post landing command now. Splash down confirmed. So now they have teams who are already on the water. Who will go to them. They'll have divers who will check the outside. There are four Navy helicopters standing by on the USS John Murtha. Two are camera ships. Two are part of the recovery operation here. Incredible. The reference there of course of the helium bags that I referred to before. Obviously not needed in this case. Because the integrity in Orion capsule is upright. Would be needed if it was upside down. They are still going to do the test anyway. On this long litany of milestones and tests on what has essentially been a 10 day long test flight. Of the space launch system and the Orion capsule. Paving the way to Artemis 3 in 2027. If anything here went wrong. This would have pushed the timeline. The unofficial splash down time. 707 in 47 seconds p.m. Central time. We'll get that refined for you. That would put the end of the mission at a mission elapsed time of nine days. One hour 31 minutes 35 seconds. One critical aspect of this is going to be to take a close look at the heat shield. And do the necessary analysis. And we're configuring for very low data rate. Make sure it performed as I expected. After Artemis 1 that was so critical. Because it was clear that. Splash down occurring in the Pacific. Southwest of San Diego. At 707. And the time is now. In the Pacific. Southwest of San Diego. At 707 and 47 seconds p.m. Integrity Houston. Com check on VLDR. Boats are there fast. Those are boats, divers. With medical personnel as well on them to do medical checks. And essentially they do a bit of a triage on site. We have you the same. To figure out if there's anything amiss among the four crew on board Orion. Perfect communications. And the good. Is that Christina Koch will be the first step. Yeah, there's a full medical team on the boat to check them out. Reed Wiseman reporting for green crew members. That is not their complexion. That is the fact that they're in great condition. That's what that means. She's probably sitting right next to the hatch. So stable one. Upright the crew module. Uprighting system is being deployed. The five airbags being inflated through helium. To maintain the upright configuration for the vehicle. This was a textbook entry and a textbook touchdown for integrity. Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen back on earth. After a journey around the moon. What is that? What does that feel like? I mean after being in space. Yeah, it's like being on the water to just being home. And having gone through reentry. I mean they're hitting the water say 20 miles an hour. It's like a 20 mile an hour car. A little bit of a car crash. My four missions were all aboard the space shuttle. So I didn't experience anything like this. But I will say like emotionally they're there. They and they should be right incredibly proud of the what they've accomplished. The mission. They must be a little bit sad that it's over. You know, I felt that way when when I came back from space. But they're also looking forward to seeing their families again. And having the opportunity to talk to people about this. And they may be a little deconditioned as well. What were you saying? They may be a little deconditioned. So they may, you know, their inner air is probably going a little crazy. But they're feeling great about it. A little wobbly. Just as probably slightly wobbly. But it's normal. It's normal. How long does that last? Well, it depends on how long you're in space as well. Like on the shorter duration missions, you do come back deconditioned. But the longer your way, you're probably a little more deconditioned. Say a hundred days, 200 days, you're a lot more deconditioned. And so it takes a little longer to come back maybe six months. I'll say that from my experience. But for the shorter duration, probably I'm not sure what you would say, Mark. I would say it seems to be about the amount of time you spent in space. Yeah. Is about the time it takes to recover. Because I know just speaking to my brother about this, it was in space for a year. He felt it was a year before he got back to Earth. Right. And Dr. F, you were saying it took you about six months? It took a little longer than that. But in general, 95% back about six months. Yeah. We also have Dr. Garrett Reisman, former astronaut. Dr. Reisman, what was it like for you of returning? Well, I was really scared coming back because the guy that was on the controls of the spacecraft on my first landing was a guy sitting right next to you, Mark Kelly. But we had a much... Perfect landing. It was a perfect landing. We had it easy compared to what these guys just went through. I mean, we didn't pull much more than the G. They reached up to 3.9. And we were coming in a lot slower. We're at Mach 25. They're at Mach 35. So we didn't have parachutes. It was much more gentlemanly the way we came back. So they had quite a wild ride. And they must be so happy right now. And Anderson, I also think they're kind of relieved. We have a lot of confidence when the NASA engineers do their homework and tell us that they've done the analysis and everything's going to be okay. But you're still in your head. You still know that there were problems the last time we did this around this entry period with the heat shield. So I'm sure that didn't escape their notice. And now sitting there in the ocean, there must be a sense of relief and just exaltation and a sense of victory that they got through that and everything went great. I mean, it was just perfect. How long do you think, Garrett, that they're going to be in that capsule waiting before the hatch is opened? I don't think it's going to be that much longer. I think they're going to deploy a kind of a porch, is what I heard. Like an inflatable porch. And then they're going to be plucked out by the helicopters one by one. And then only a few minutes to get them on the deck of the ship. So, you know, they have a couple of checks to go through. The boats out there are sniffing for hydrogen to make sure there's no leaks of that toxic fuel. And as long as that's all clear, I think the helicopters will come in pretty soon. But Pete, I mean, you can't understate this. Given the problems with the heat shield on Artemis-1, which they say in the analysis they did, if there had been humans on board, they would have been okay on Artemis-1 if it was carrying astronauts, which it wasn't. But given those problems, there were concerns about the heat shield this time. It seems like there may, obviously, as you said, Senator Kelly, that's got to be examined. But they're okay. There were definite concerns. But the news that they were okay, the jubilation and mission control and the press room that we're hearing, when Combs was reestablished after the six-minute blackout was widespread, of course, NASA will want to know whether or not it's change in the angle of attack, essentially the change in the bite that the spacecraft was going to take first when it skipped off the atmosphere and then came into the atmosphere, if that really worked to make it so that the heat shield did not take as much abuse for essentially a shorter period of time. It was going to be hotter, but a shorter period of time, less distance traveled to the splashdown site. Those tweaks were made between Artemis-1 and Artemis-2. Will they have to make more tweaks between Artemis-2 and Artemis-3? And there have been so, so many questions around whether or not the heat shield would really stand up to this. So far, it seems like a successful test, but of course, they'll have to dig into it more. And there was a Tiger team put on this case after Artemis-1. It's worth noting, as Pete just mentioned, when Artemis-1 came down and was floating in the ocean, it looked perfect as well, just like this. And it was only when they brought it aboard and looked at the bottom of the heat shield that they saw that big chunks were missing. So I think it's too soon to tell exactly how well the heat shield did, but the important thing, of course, is that the crew is safe and we had a successful entry. We'll learn a little bit more. And they're also, the heat shield on the next, sorry, the next Orion vehicle will be different. They do intend to redesign it. They just didn't have time to do that before this mission, so they had this operational workaround. But they will be improving the heat shield for future missions. What do you see on, I mean, Dr. Roberts, what do you see on reentry? Well, as we were coming back on the Dragon, you're at an angle and you're coming in and you see a light show through the window. I mean, the friction of compressing the atmosphere on the ionized gas around the vehicle, you could see a light show at the windows and you could start feeling the force of gravity on your body. But is there any temperature change inside? No, you don't feel any temperature change on the inside. So you're just coming through, you could hear the noise of just the, it's like a light show. You don't even know how to describe exactly what we see. But you can see everything happening, you can feel it, but it's not. The temperature inside is perfectly comfortable. We do have our visors down. We're buttoned up in our suits and we're in the seats. We're pretty comfortable. This is a dumb question, but are you sweating inside this? Like, I mean, obviously... There's ventilation into the suit and we're an umbilical on the, on our thigh, our right thigh. You feel very comfortable. You could just feel all the forces and you could see through the windows, just sparks coming up and it's just an amazing ride. Space shuttle gets hot inside, but we're also wearing like liquid cooling garment underneath the pressure suit. There's actual liquid in the garment. Yeah, so you wear long johns in case you wind up in the water, but you have a pressure suit. D plus three zero, no joy on... So there's a 30 minute delay on the power down, they're saying. Oh, is that what they just said? And standby, we have the master diver on star radio. There's a commas problem, I guess. So that's, that's... Hey, Lilly, excuse me. Hey Jackie, we just got the master diver on the star. So there's actually a master diver on the site. Yeah, it sounds like on the spacecraft. And they are, initially they check for any cracks or anything outside the space. Well, the big thing is to make sure, and Garrett mentioned this, that there's no hydrazine leak, which is really very toxic. Good to hear, one of the fast boats. integrity, Houston, if you are happy with your comm with master diver, you can go back to the 15 minute power down. So now they're starting to turn things off. And we'll confirm here in a second. We know that the propellant system, the concern about hydrazine, hydrazine has been saved. Meaning it's now safe for all of these crews on these Navy fast boats to approach integrity. Right now they're still working through some post-flight checklists. We knew there would be a bit of a delay here for the recovery team to arrive on site and to begin removing astronauts. So we know communications capability between the crew on board integrity and the recovery team. That will get sorted out here shortly. There's plenty of cooling on board integrity, so there's no rush to begin the power down. It's kind of amazing to me that they're able to communicate in space and they're having trouble with the sat phone out. They're back here on earth. And after splashdown was always going to be a bit of a concern and if they ended up upside down in the water, then that would have led to a comms blackout again. So this has always been a bit of a tricky part of the post-flight procedure is making sure that they establish reliable comms. And Houston have been able to recover that we hear them, but it does not appear so they are hearing us. So they're essentially having to relay comms through Houston to the Navy crews, what it sounds like now. Houston copies and read just to confirm you are pushing the PTT on the radio. Oh, wow. Are you actually pushing the push to talk? That was not a good question. That's something I would say to my mom, which is all right. That is not a good question. So as we continue to sort out the communications between integrity and integrity. Is that a diss? Well, that's the one the CAPCOM should say to the flight director, I am not sending that out. It ain't happening. As you see, the recovery teams are moving towards the side of the council. I mean, it's nice to be able to joke about something. I mean, they are safe. They are here and what an incredible, incredible. It's an incredible raft called the front porch that will be the port of call for the crew as they are being extracted one by one from the vehicle. It's also got to be an extraordinary feeling to, I mean, have been in space for 10 days, have a 20 mile an hour crash into the ocean. This incredible journey through the atmosphere. And then to suddenly find yourself in the sea and the hatch opens and you're smelling sea air and the salt and it's. That's why it's easy for these guys to get a little bit sick here in this environment. The, you know, the spacecraft is, yeah, it's bobbing around in the ocean and their neuro vestibular systems all messed up from being in space for 10 days. It is actually a concern when I was involved with the design as a representative from the crew office for Orion. And that's a, that's actually a big concern. 3030 for power, correct? Yeah, sometimes they wait till the sea state is pretty steady. But even then, once you splash down, you do get some bobbing. You've already got something akin to like vertical. And so it could be made, it can make it worse. So is that, so, you know, people have been on boats and come back and they sort of feel sometimes like they're still in a boat. Dr. Epps, is that what it feels like? Like what is it for the first couple of days? What do you feel like in your head? Well, everything, you feel like you're upright, but then your body is not upright. You will end up falling. Really? So you do feel like you're still on a boat. You mean you're lying down, you feel like you're upright or you're up? Well, if you're laying down, you'll feel like the room is spinning almost. And that's what I felt initially, like the room is spinning. It feels like very good. Yeah, very much so. But these guys, you know, they've been gone for 10 days. They still feel it in their body. For maybe a day or two, they'll have that feeling. Hopefully they won't tip over or anything like that, but it goes away relatively fast. It's important to underscore here, though, everything that went right. Sort of an hour and a half of event after event after event. When it comes to this, when it came to this reentry is what was described by the flight director during one of the press conferences last night. And even the seaswells are pretty low at this point. They said for days, NASA has been saying the weather is go. Everything is good. That's a really quite big high pressure system there off the coast of San Diego. Things are relatively placid out in the Pacific Ocean, which is aiding in this recovery. Although, of course, things like this comms issue crop up and there's not much you can do about it. It seems like they're doing the low tech relay it through Houston to get to the people just outside of the spacecraft. Not convenient, but necessary. NASA and this crew made this mission look very, very easy. This stuff is really hard. It's incredibly complex. And just the engineering that went into the spacecraft and the rocket ship SLS is stuff operating at extremes of temperature and pressure. Navigating all the way to the moon successfully back hitting the atmosphere at 35 times the speed of sound. It's an incredible achievement. And in this case, I mean, they did a great job and things went very, very smoothly. Makes it look easy. Senator Kelly, you posted on social media yesterday something that I want to read to our viewers. You said somewhere out there, a kid is watching this mission who might be inspired to study science and engineering and one day be the first person to walk on another planet. That's one of the reasons why space exploration matters and why Artemis II matters. Yeah, I was a kid in between really for the second half of the Apollo missions. I was in kindergarten when Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon. My brother remembers it. My mom said I fell asleep on the floor, so I missed it. But I do remember the later Apollo missions and it really inspired me and I wanted to do that. I wanted to be the first person to go to Mars. I think that person is alive today. Really? So I think it might be a kid out there. It could be somebody in college right now. I mean, who knows. The establishment of communications between integrity and the recovery team that is basically standing by very close to the spacecraft. We're going to go to the deck of the USS John P. Murtha where Megan Cruz is standing by with Administrator Jared Isaacman. Hey, Rob, yeah, just such an honor to be able to be here on the ship, to be able to share and experience this moment with everyone together. And of course, as you just said, yes, here with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. Administrator, how did you feel getting to witness this and seeing NASA at its best? I mean, I'm honestly, I'm still at a loss for words. I mean, you know, like the childhood Jared right now can't believe what I just saw. I mean, I've almost been waiting my whole lifetime to see this. And then it's NASA Administrator. I just couldn't be more proud of the entire workforce, the years, the effort, the late nights, all the hard work from across the country that contributed to this incredible moment right now. And yeah, incredibly grateful too for our teams here on the John P. Murtha right now. Yeah, look at the behind us here. I mean, we've got everybody. What do you guys think? We just brought some astronauts back from the moon, huh? Unbelievable. Thank you. Yeah, so grateful to the Navy, the sailors that are here, the NASA teams. I mean, this is a joint effort that's on their way right now. These recovery forces are getting out to our Orion spacecraft to integrity, get our astronauts back on the ship safely. Yeah, and this is not just an accomplishment for NASA. This is an accomplishment for humanity again. A historic mission to the moon and back. How does this make you feel? And what do you hope people take away from this? Well, I'll tell you, you know, I think it's a great thing. Well, I'll tell you, you know, I think about, I think about our crew members that we've all had an opportunity to observe over the last 10 days. Right. I mean, they're absolutely professional astronauts. I mean, wonderful communicators, almost poets. But then I think these were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now. And I can't imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now. So yes, it's a huge moment for everybody. Right. We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon, bringing them back safely and to set up for a series more. I mean, this is not a once in a lifetime, which you hear sometimes around here is like, this was a once in a lifetime. No, it's not. This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base. Yeah. Are we going to build on the momentum for Artemis III? I mean, it's just around the corner. Absolutely. So I mean, that's, you know, part of me too. I can't wait to get the crew off of off of integrity right now, but also getting integrity back on this ship so we can start taking a look at it because all that data is so precious to us right now. I mean, we are going to definitely want to take a good look at the thermal protection system. We're going to want to download all the data they couldn't transmit back to us and use that to inform Artemis III. But we're already making progress, right? You had SRB segments already showing up at KSC. Core stage for Artemis III is rolling out on April 20. We're getting mobile launcher one back in vehicle assembly building. So yes, there is a lot to celebrate right now on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II. And at the same time, we got to start getting ready for three. Amazing. And last question, you know, for people who joined us for all 10 days to see what we can accomplish together with our international partners. What do you think about the fact that we're going to keep doing this more and more and more? It's incredibly exciting. I mean, yes, it's the contributions like the best and brightest across the NASA workforce from across the country, our industry partners, our international partners. We had a Canadian Space Agency astronaut on board in Jeremy. We had the European service module. And you think in the days leading up to this launch, I mean, 48 hours prior to launching Artemis II, I was meeting with the Italian Space Agency. We signed a memorandum of understanding to build a habitation module on the moon. I mean, you have countries, all of our allies and partners coming together saying, we are committed to this effort. We are returning to the moon. We're doing it to stay. We are building that enduring presence. We are going to master the skills on the surface of the moon so Sunday we can undertake missions to Mars. It's just an incredibly exciting time. And we're not going at it alone. We're bringing everybody along with us. Absolutely. And speaking of everyone, one more time, we're going to ask the crew here. You guys ready to land on the moon? A lot of excitement there. I want to check in with Randy Kay at the Johnson Space Center in Houston as we continue to watch these incredible images of this capsule and waiting for the first sight, obviously, of these remarkable astronauts. What's the mood like there? Anderson, there's a whole lot of relief here at Johnson Space Center and a whole lot of cheering going on when they established contact here in Mission Control. In Houston, they cheered when you heard integrity say integrity copies and then reporting from Commander Reid Weissman that there were four green crew members saying that they were all good and well. As they went through reentry, there was just incredible feeling of relief. And just to think about this mission, Anderson, nearly 695,000 miles around the moon. I mean, just absolutely remarkable. It's just a great sense of relief because there were a lot of questions about that heat shield, of course. And so there's just a lot of celebration here, Anderson. Yeah, and as we were just hearing from the administrator, they're obviously going to be looking very closely at this version of that heat shield to see how it did, to see any improvements that need to be made. Randy, appreciate it. We'll talk to you throughout the night. I want to go to CNN's Alex Michelson at Naval Base San Diego. Alex, obviously a very successful event tonight. Yeah, and a lot of celebration here as well. We heard some people clapping when this finally came down. And now the work that the folks here at the Naval Base San Diego have been training for and preparing for for over a year. What we're looking at the live picture there right now, you see what has been inflated. They call this the front porch. And essentially there's divers who are doctors who are trained in the Navy who are going to be the first people to greet the astronauts and give them a checkup on board, make sure they're okay. Are they coherent? Are they able to communicate with them? Go through sort of a basic medical checkup to then be able to diagnose that they are safe to get on the helicopter and head back to the USS John P. Murtha, which we've been also seeing those live pictures from. Now all indications so far is that the crew is in excellent health, which is obviously great news. But once they're aboard the Murtha, they're going to go through even more medical checks. Each one of them assigned their own doctor there, their own medical suite to make sure that they're okay after this grueling process of going literally to the moon and back and now going through this re-entry process as well. The folks here have been training for this process for over a year. The Murtha has been out there for days getting ready for this. The Murtha about five miles away from where that capsule came down. They knew the exact spot that the capsule would come down. And eventually, once the astronauts are taken off of that capsule, the Murtha will move towards the capsule and then take the capsule back itself, Anderson. Alex, thanks very much. Back with our team who's monitoring this. Dr. Garrett Reesman, I want to ask you. You flew on three space shuttles. And what was return like for you? What do you think is going through these astronauts' mind right now as they are waiting inside this capsule? Well, it was kind of bittersweet and I'm sure it is for them too. Because, yeah, you're coming back to Earth and you're seeing your family. And I remember when they first opened the hatch and I get that first breath of fresh air coming in. It felt great, but at the same time, space is awesome. And they just had a historic and remarkable mission that is just such a life event for them. And now it's kind of over. I'm sure they're looking forward to the post flight and getting on with it. But the great adventure has now come to a close. And that's what I mean by it being bittersweet. And Garrett, you're friends with the commander. What's Reesman like? He's a great guy. So, as you probably, the whole world kind of has seen that now. But when I was on the board when we selected him to be an astronaut, and we knew that we had a special person there, he's a natural leader. He's the kind of guy that you want to go have a beer with. He's just really friendly. And he was the right pick to be the commander of this mission. I have no doubt. So, Mr. Epps, you were in a splashdown. How long were you in the capsule for? Oh, gosh. So, once we splashed down, it was a matter of about an hour and a half at most. And so, the way the seats are set up, they initially take out the commander and the pilot because they're the easiest to take out. And then seat one where I was, and then seat four come out. And so, inside the capsule, we had been away for so long. Getting used to gravity again was the big thing. And instead of moving too fast, we allowed the PJs that came in to take us out of the capsule, let them do their job and move our bodies. Because, for example, we hadn't held our heads up for over 200 days. And so, in space, your head just floats. So, everything feels incredibly heavy. And what are you wearing on a return like this? Oh, we're wearing the pressure suit from SpaceX, the Dragon suit. And, you know, it's one-piece suit that you wear. But do you have a helmet? You do have a helmet on. You can open your visor once they open the hatch. So, right now, with the hatch not open, their visors are down? No, their visors should be open at this point. Yeah. So, it's a little different for the Orion. Some of the procedures are Dragon versus Orion. You know, they're similar, but different. So, inside the capsule, we had four crew members. One by one, we came out. We were put on the stretcher. And we were actually on board the ship at that point when they took us out. And is, I mean, the air system inside the capsule, I assume it must still be, it's obviously still working, because there's no ventilation otherwise. Well, and plus, once they get the hatch open, you know, they're back here. Yeah, then everything's fine. Yeah. They're pretty comfortable in there. They're probably like Garrett said. They're probably just, you know, it's over. It's a little bittersweet. And they're being pulled out of the capsule at this point. Senator Kelly, how important do you think it is to, I mean, I've just said there is a race between China and the United States to get on the moon. Yeah, the Chinese are trying to put Chinese astronauts on the moon. What we're trying to do is different. We want to land on the moon. We want to build an economy on the moon, have more of a permanent presence. So, it is a different challenge, much harder. I think the American people need to be really proud of our country right now. Russians have never sent anybody around the moon. Chinese haven't done it yet. You know, we're kind of rare in our ability to do really, really hard things and push science and technology forward in a way that other countries can. It's great to have a partner on this mission. You know, I think right now, especially at this time, it's good to have a Canadian astronaut on board. It's an incredible crew, a lot of success. Now we have to build on it. I want to check with Tom Foreman just to talk us through the next crucial steps. Walk us through Tom the immediate moments after they splash down what happens before they're extracted. Yeah, a lot of stuff has been going on, even doesn't look like a whole lot. One of the things is, you know, as soon as they landed, all these chutes had to be cut loose. We've been talking a lot about the upriding system. You see those big orange sort of balloons on the top there. One of the reasons it's there is because there has been the past concerns about the parachutes themselves tipping it over once it's in the water. You've been hearing them run the checklist that's going on with Houston where they're going over the details of what they need to do. And this process of shutting down the capsule. One of the reasons they're shutting down the capsule is so that when the actual extraction happens, everybody is all together and there's nothing that's going to present a threat to the crew or to the people who are approaching there. So all of this is keeping everyone still busy, even though it looks like nothing's happening, so that they can have a safe approach, set up that floating front porch. As soon as they open it up, look in and make sure everyone really is okay, and then start the extraction, Anderson. And then what happens to the crew once the capsule is open? Well, the crew gets transferred to the capsule. The capsule itself is really an interesting part of the story because people sort of forget about it at that point, but that's not the thing to do. Look, what's going to happen is the same thing that happened with Artemis I. They will hook up to the capsule after everyone is gone, and then they're going to haul it very gently back to the Mertha where it will be pulled into this sort of wet deck facility here. There the water can be drained away, and the capsule can be brought back because remember, it is a tremendous thing. It's just a tremendous, just a treasure full of artifacts of the trip, how it operated, what happened to the systems on board. One of the things they were checking back was during all this pressure, did it make any plates within the craft misalign? They had to remove some little parts and put them back to see if it was all lined up properly. Tremendous amount of study to be done here. That's why even as they recover the astronauts, they also have to recover this hardware. And remember, very famously, many years ago, there was a disaster with the Liberty Bell many years ago where it got away from them. The hatch blew off prematurely, and it sank, and it took a very long time until the Liberty Bell was actually recovered. Look at that, when they finally got it up off the ocean floor, all encrusted this way. Huge difference there. So, the capsule matters, and they're going to treat it very carefully too as soon as they secure these astronauts. Tom Foreman, Tom, thanks very much. Back with our team here joining us as well as former astronaut Mike Massimino. Mike, what stands out? We're going to be getting Mike shortly. Pete, just in terms of the race between China and the U.S., where does that stand? Well, we're beating everybody right now. I mean, that's where it stands, and the fact that we just put somebody, crew of four, around the moon, we've now got the official exact splashdown time. 8.07.27. 8.07.27 seconds. PM, Eastern Daylight Time. So, nine days, one hour, 32 minutes, and 15 seconds. You can really see in this shot the divers, the boats going around the capsule. Yeah, and they approach this slowly. You know, this is a methodical process. Before they are able to put out what is called the front porch, the sort of inflatable platform, where the Navy divers will approach integrity in the Orion capsule, open the hatch, and then begin bringing out the crew of four one by one. It is a methodical process. They don't want to rush this. And so we knew from the get-go that this would take a couple hours. There's also not only getting the astronauts out, but then hoisting them up one by one to an MH-60S helicopter, the Navy version of the Black Hawk known as the Seahawk, hoisting them up to the helicopter, flying them to the USS John P. Murtha a few miles away, where they'll be assessed by this medical team. We don't exactly know when the astronauts will speak to the press. That's sort of a time to be determined in NASA Speak. They will be flown by jet after the John P. Murtha sails to San Diego Naval Air Station and then taken to Johnson Space Flight Center. So this is a day's, this is the start of a day's long process on top of what has been a nine-day long mission. This has been so incredible. I'm so excited to just get a look at them. Yeah, right. And it will be a moment for sure. You know, there's been so many milestones here. Not only has this been the first time that an American crew or anybody has gone on a mission to the moon in more than 50 years, but the first woman, the first Canadian, the first person of color. This is really something, a mission for everybody. And we are just at the start of what those possibilities will be in Artemis III continuing to build on this with some docking and then Artemis IV, where we will likely put Americans on the moon once again. Back with our panel. Johnny, this is also a former astronaut, Mike Messamino. Mike, it's good to have you here. There had been obviously a lot of concern before this. I'm concerned. I heard you talking before re-entry. You were confident it would go okay. It seems to have gone incredible. Yeah, as I heard my friends speaking earlier here that we shouldn't take it for granted, but they were able to accomplish was absolutely remarkable. I call it a series of many miracles. I actually got that from Victor Glover. That's what he calls it. So, but they all happened, but we should be in awe of what they did. But also, yeah, very confident that the team was going to make sure the crew is going to be okay. And I'm really happy for everyone involved. It's a great accomplishment. That's what Victor Glover is saying. That's what has to occur in a space like many miracles. A series of them. A series of them. And that's what happened. And that's what NASA has done. And, you know, I think this was a reminder of what we're able to do as a country, as a space program, as people, when we work together for something that's bigger than all of us, we all work together like this Artemis team did. We can accomplish great things. Dr. Epps, do you feel that when you're in space that, you know, you're relying on kind of miracles all the time? Well, I'm relying on many miracles then, definitely. But also, the faith that we have in the engineers putting in the work, making sure that they bring us home safely, that they're doing due diligence, making sure that the heat shield is working, making sure that all systems are go before they actually launch us. And, you know, there's definitely a lot of miracles and great engineers. And you don't go to space alone. You go with everyone who helps prepare you to get there. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it is the ultimate in teamwork. You can't, there's only so much any individual astronaut can do to control events. I mean, it's remarkable all the pieces that have to fall into place and all the people who have to be absolutely right in what they are, you know, arguing for, suggesting. And producing. It builds relationships, friends, friendships. When you're in those situations where you're so reliant on each other for the success and for your life, but also for the success of the mission. And I think we saw a lot of that in this mission of how the crew really cared about each other and how they were so professional and caring and respectful of the folks on the ground. And we kind of were brought inside of their spacecraft to see that. It looks like there's, are those like gas detectors in the hands of the people on the boats? The divers are approaching the Orion capsule here and doing essentially a hazard assessment. You talk about the team effort here, in synchronous, in simpatico. There are 318 crew members on board the USS John P. Murtha. Of course, the Navy divers here are key on these inflatable boats, essentially just circling the capsule to make sure that everything is okay. We have not achieved the big next step, which is putting out the inflatable platform for the astronauts to be removed after the hatches removed. So we are essentially in a bit of a holding pattern here. I can tell you that the comms issue, the communications issue, the hiccup of what has been an otherwise spotless and nearly perfect mission has been worked out. The recovery teams are now in direct communication with the astronauts. They're no longer having to relay comms through the Johnson Space Center in Houston. So things are working out okay. Everybody here stand by. Joining us right now is Nikki Fox, the associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate. Dr. Fox, appreciate your time. First of all, your reaction to how things have gone so far tonight. What can you tell us about what is happening right now inside that capsule? Oh my goodness. It was a spectacular, spectacular evening. I think I share the sort of the sentiments of there was a calmness. There was everything's going really well, but it really is a series of those mini miracles. I am sure inside that capsule right now there's a very mixed emotions with the astronauts either being really happy to be home and relieved. But also, I know Christina said she wasn't ready to come home. She wanted to stay up longer. And so I think they'll all be raising their hands to go on another moon mission. Did reentry go as you expected? It certainly sounds like it did from all of the commentary and all of the comments. I think it was kind of picture perfect. And certainly the sight of those parachutes coming out that beautiful blue sky, amazing ocean beneath. I mean, it just, it literally looked like you were putting a cup of tea down on a table. The mission obviously took these astronauts farther than anyone has ever traveled in space. What are you going to be looking for in terms of the impacts that had on individual crew members? So that's a great question. So we have an amazing science experiment that flew with them. It's called Avatar and it is living cells basically on a chip. There's one for each of the crew. They took part in the experiment. So those have flown with the astronauts on Orion. We have an identical set that stayed here on Earth. And so of course we'll be able to do some really, really great comparisons and look exactly how both radiation, because they were out in deep space. So they were out in a pretty harsh radiation region as well as of course the microgravity. And their bone marrow tissue chips that we have. And so that's a great indicator of just kind of how the body has reacted to that. In addition, they were also wearing... Sorry, they're saying that the crew is an excellent sailor. I just want to listen in quickly to the comms here. The crew is in excellent shape. No issues. They're just currently biding their time waiting for the front porch to be erected. We have no hazardous... We have no hazard gases and no hazardous situation with the vehicle. It performed perfectly all the way down from entry interface to its splashdown in the Pacific at 7.07 and 27 seconds PM central time. And Dr. Fox, it looks like... As you can see... Let's listen. Phalanx of recovery personnel now pulling up alongside of integrity. This includes Navy divers and Navy flight surgeon. And other recovery personnel who have trained for several years for this recovery process. And Dr. Fox, how quickly do you think they will open up the... Will they attach that kind of porch before opening up the... I assume before opening up the hatch? Yes, that's a sort of inflatable... As you say, they call it the front porch. But that will be attached to enable the crew to come out. They'll then get transferred into the boats. They'll move that front porch distance away from the Orion capsule. And then from there the helicopters will lift the astronauts and deliver them to the ship. It's incredible to watch. And then from the vehicle, that's why the first team of recovery personnel has been able to pull alongside integrity. And the reports continue to come in that the four astronauts are in excellent shape. Dr. Fox, thank you so much for being with us. The Artemis astronauts have gone a long way, farther than anyone has in their 10 days in space. Their bodies have been through very high G-forces, long stretches of zero gravity. They've been exposed to considerably more radiation than here on Earth. Joining us to try to help us understand the implications and how NASA deals with MC9's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. So Sanjay, talk a little bit about how the astronauts are likely feeling now that they landed. We've been talking about it with some former astronauts, but just from a medical perspective. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty remarkable. I will tell you, there is, and I think Senator Kelly was talking about this, there is this sensory adaptation syndrome that often occurs. So basically your inner ear has not been getting signals for 10 days. The gravitational force on Earth constantly provides signals to your inner ear, sort of orienting it, and those go away. As one NASA doctor sort of explained it to me years ago, it's kind of like the opposite of seasickness. When you're on a boat and you're sort of on, you know, getting constant sort of a barrage of back and forth. And then you step on land, it's that sort of diminishes. This is the opposite. You haven't had signals to the inner ear, and then all of a sudden you're getting a lot of gravity and then obviously being in the middle of the ocean. So it can be very disorienting and you'll see when the astronauts are coming off, sometimes they're having a hard time, sort of their heads and their bodies seem a little disoriented or a little disconnected. They may be unstable, have a hard time keeping their balance. They can look when they're up in space to be a bit puffy. And that's because fluid is sort of migrating from the lower part of the body to the upper part of the body. That suddenly reverses and that can cause people to feel lightheaded and even have low blood pressure as well. So those are some of the physical things that happen. You know, it's unclear how long that lasts. I think it's different for different people, but tends to get better pretty quickly. And they're going to test. Obviously the basic things, blood pressure, heart rate, just doing cardiovascular profile. I don't know if they do that on the capsule itself. Maybe some of that. They'll be doing biomarker testing, blood testing in short order. And then I think they were just talking about those avatar chips. Those will be examined as well. They have those chips basically carrying their cells in space. They're going to compare those to the cells back here on Earth. Dr. Nicky Fox was just talking about the avatar program, an organ on a chip. What do you know about that? Yeah. So it's basically taking their bone marrow cells and putting it on a chip. And so you're taking those cells and they've been exposed to everything the astronauts were exposed to for the last 10 days. The microgravity, the radiation, all these sorts of things. And the goal, Anderson, then, and there's basically a twin chip that is kept back on Earth. And you then compare these two things. See what was the impact of the microgravity and radiation and other things, but also even the speed of aging of the cells. I mean, Senator Kelly will know about this because he and his brother were part of this famous twin study where they were actually comparing twins. In some ways they're doing a similar thing, but with the cells on a chip. There's lots of unknowns in terms of what all these forces will do to these cells. This is one way to do it. You have the cells going up on the capsule and then you have a control group essentially back on Earth. What do you think of the kind of health risks that NASA most worries about while astronauts are in space? Well, you know, it's interesting. They sort of, because they use acronyms for everything, they use an acronym for sort of the big buckets of things that they think about as well, which is RIDGE, and that's radiation, isolation, distance from Earth, gravity, and the overall environment. So those are sort of the big buckets of things that they're concerned about. Radiation, we just talked about. The isolation, another big one, just in terms of being in that small space with four people for a prolonged period of time. It's a little bit of a harbinger for even longer missions, obviously, as you get further and further away from Earth, just the time that it takes to communicate back and forth. Those are things that they think about. And then, you know, again, the microgravity, it's so fascinating, all the things that happen. I was talking about the fluid that migrates from the lower part of the body to the upper part of the body. When you see the images of the astronauts, their faces look puffy as a result, but they also get congested. Their taste buds are affected. Their smell is affected. Food doesn't taste as good. They send all sorts of hot sauces, for example, up to the capsule. They've just opened a hatchet, it looks like. Mike Massimino, what is that moment like? This is big. They've been waiting there floating around, and now they're going to let some fresh air in that cabin and let whatever the air is inside is going to mix with what's outside. I thought they were going to wait for it to put the porch on, because we were told that might take them in. Maybe they just gave them a little fresh air in there. I think just checking on them and seeing what's going on. And they can talk now to the astronauts? Yeah, certainly. They've been able to communicate as soon as they got through that blackout period. No, but I mean, can the folks on the boat, Dr. Ebsi, think they can actually shout stuff to the astronauts? They definitely can. It's slightly different than what we experienced, but once they open that hatch, they should have direct communications with the commander and the crew. As we wait for them to put on the front porch and get our first look at the astronauts, we're told that's a few minutes away getting that porch on. Joining us now is legendary actor William Shatner, who traveled to space in Blue Origin Mission in 2021. Mr. Shatner, it's great to have you back. How do you feel watching this after this remarkable 10-day journey? Well, I've got an inkling of the relief they must feel for having landed. Although, you know, these guys, these people are explorers. They're Magellan. They relish and love this adventure and the challenge of their life and the possibility of ending their life. There's a certain mentality that NASA searches out for these astronauts that these legendary explorers had as well. Imagine going into the Antarctic to get to the South Pole. Why? And here we have these incredible individuals, educated, trained, and yet the flames coming out of that, the nose of that vehicle, the flames shooting up over their heads. I don't know how anybody doesn't say, oh my lord, what have I got myself into? We mentioned your visit in 2021. You would describe the sort of blackness of space and your shock at that and sort of sadness and almost grief over that. When you saw the images that Artemis II, and we're going to be seeing more of them, that Artemis II has sent of the moon and earth, what did you make of that? Well, if you allow yourself, if you allow your imagination to go through the universe, the incredible forces that are at work, the magic of what happened and the attempt by mankind to solve how did it all begin and how is it going to end, there's such a brilliance of information that we're all seeking and bit by bit, little, shiny chips of information coming to us by a voyage like this. You begin to see that mankind can solve eventually the mystery of existence and this is one small step, if you will, in trying to solve the mystery of how does quantum and Newtonian physics, how do they stay together? What is the unifying theory? We don't know yet how it unifies, but logic tells us it does unify. These are the beginning attempts, the way Magellan and Shackleton, all those explorers who went into the desert, went into nothing, they didn't know what was there and what would befall them, and some of them died on their way. Magellan guide, it's the adventure of mankind of which this journey is the beginning of another journey which is leading to Mars. I think we should send robots in the beginning to Mars to see what's there and how it works, but you'll find people, these astronauts who'll want to go. And we've seen by their observation on the dark side of the moon that the human eyes are so much subtler than the instruments we have that is of value for humans to be in the vehicle. To hear the astronauts descriptions of the images that they are seeing with their naked eyes, even colors that don't get picked up by camera, William Shadner, it is always a pleasure to talk to you. I appreciate it for the intergalactic wisdom. Pleasure is mine. Thank you as always. It is just past 9pm here in New York, 6 o'clock off the coast of San Diego. That is integrity with the four Artemis-2 astronauts inside. They're waiting to be taken by helicopter to a recovery ship from a spacecraft which is now acting as a small boat. It's a vessel with a lot of mileage on it now, certainly nearly 700,000 miles. A textbook splashed down to its name a bit less than an hour ago. Back here with Pete Montine, former astronaut Jeanette Epps, Mike Massimino as well. Jeanette, just walk us through a little bit what that extraction moment is like on the water you've been in a water landing. With the Dragon, what they do is they have a crane actually hoist you up onto the boat and then they open the hatch and they put you on a platform and pull you out of the capsule. They wait until we actually get on board the ship to open the hatch. Interesting. We're waiting and it is provocative, it can be. Yeah, because you do feel wobbly. What did it provoke in you? Well, like I said, everything feels incredibly heavy. Getting back accustomed to gravity is interesting. Your inner air is going crazy, but it was bittersweet like Garrett said earlier, but it was a relief. Everything went according to plan, everything went according to our training. It was amazing to be back after so many days in space. We're also joined by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who I'm very thrilled to be sitting next to again. How you doing, man? How's this year? It's been too long. Your thoughts on this? The incredible images we're watching is we're waiting to get our first glimpse of these brave astronauts and just what we have seen over the last 10 days. Actually, I can't get the image out of my head of a crane coming and collecting the capsule like the arcade machine. Exactly, and waist you right up onto the ship. Yeah, of course, they were gone for 10 days and any typical visit to the space station is much longer than that. How long were you in space? It was a total of 235 days. Yeah, compared to 10. 12 days and 14 days, two missions. Okay, incredible. Yeah, so these are two completely different effects physiologically for sure. You've never had a water landing, right? No, you landed in an airplane. We landed on a runway. I hate to say this, but it's in my eyes, or my commander would say we landed on a runway, not bopping up and down on the ocean. But we were on a runway. Let me ask you about the photographs that we have now all been just a gog over of the moon, of the Earth. Obviously, you stare into space a lot. All the time. But the imagery is just incredible. Does it strike you as well, or is it like, oh, yeah, I've seen that? Well, consider our capacity to obtain high resolution images today is better than at any previous time. So we should not think something unique about this relative to just what our technology allows. And so, I mean, I didn't soon forget Earthrise over the moon from Apollo 8. And that was, when was that, 66 years ago? And 68. 1968. 68, 68 years ago. And so, no, 58. I don't know, it's math in public. Math. I'm just giving you the year-on-year math. You're the engineer. You're the engineer. So the images were stunning, but at any given moment, you don't know how more stunning an image could be until new technology enables it. 58. 50. Thank you. That's the number I was looking for. So, I mean, just look at any old TV screen and a TV show, and you say, did I actually look at that and think that was good? So, yes, we should be impressed with any modern technology delivering imagery. No doubt about it. I just think it, you know, I have a four and a six-year-old, and they were seeing really the moon kind of for the first time in this way. And just like my six-year-olds stunned like the craters, the detail on these incredible craters, which have been blasted by asteroids. Four billions of years. Explain, just explain that. So here's something to think about. I mean, like, it's like the moon is running cover for the Earth. No, no, no. We would look exactly like the moon were it not for our atmosphere. Is that right? Oh, yeah. We're in the same part of the solar system, plowing through the same areas. But doesn't the moon kind of block, give us some cover and take some of the hits for us? Well, no, if it does, it wouldn't be any more than the cover we give the moon for things that would come our way, because the Earth is bigger than the moon. Now, there's gravitational focusing. That can happen, too. So, somebody comes near Earth, and it's pulled in a little bit by its gravity, it could focus it onto the moon if the moon happens to be in that direction. That can happen. But I'm just saying that without our atmosphere and without our weather systems that hide the evidence, Earth's surface would look exactly like the moon. And so, just count your blessings there. In fact, didn't they catch the meteorite flashes on the darkened side of the moon? And so that's happening all the time. That's just another meteorite slamming into a planet, in this case, the moon. Yeah, it's incredible to me. It's wondrous. Yeah, and when you got back from... did your craft get hit by meteorites? And you have evidence of that? Yeah, no. And we went to Hubble, and Hubble certainly had evidence on it. It has an exposed radiator on the Whitefield camera. We took that out and brought it home, and it looked like a BB gun had been through it. Little craters. Yeah, they actually board all those craters out to study them. Would that happen in the space station as well? Anything. Yeah, you'll see little divots on that side. Could you... I mean, did you... this may be a ridiculously stupid question, but when you're inside, do you hear that? Do you feel that? You hear weird sounds, but you don't really know what it is on Earth. Oh, well, that's creepy to me. Yeah, that's... Wait, you're in the space station for 200 days, and you're hearing weird sounds, and you don't know what they are? I think it was when Butch called down that one. I was gonna say, it was probably the people she was with. Yeah. Well, on orbit, you get all kind of things that can hit the station. We were called one night when a satellite kind of broke apart in orbit, and it was coming at the station. You'll get all kind of... Wow. Do you ever call out, be like, in the middle of the night, like, hey, was that you? Was that... what was that? I didn't call that down. I think that was when we had a crewmate call down. Well, they're in orbit around the Earth, and I don't think there's a middle of the night that concept... You know... And also, just I have... I'll flex the PHD on it. So just sleep period. To put some numbers on this, Earth plows through several hundred tons of meteors a day. Really? Yes, and we see bits... so at night, when they come through the atmosphere and they burn up, we say, oh, they're a beautiful shooting star, but again, it's the atmosphere protecting us. Right. At all times. But every day... Every day, even in the daytime, you just can't see it, because the sun is out. But this is going... Now, it's maximum between, for interesting reasons, between midnight and noon, because that's the side of the Earth that's the leading edge of our orbit around the sun. Right? Because if you're in the back, that's midnight, and we keep rotating to sunrise and then noon. Do you get excited by this knowing that... And Senator Kelly was talking about this in the last hour, that an entire new generation of kids is growing up watching this, who are going to be excited maybe about space in a way that they hadn't been before. Perhaps. Most of the kids that I know are really kind of Mars focused. Right. And we think of this as sort of practice sessions for can we pitch tent on the moon? Can we live there? Can we... And does NASA still have an ISRU branch in situ resource utilization? I think so. Yeah, because there's a whole effort of NASA to try to... Imagine bringing a 3D printer to the moon and you put the... The regolith into the moon and you print out tools and things you might need instead of bringing them all to the moon with you. Plus, we're targeting the South Pole. And why? Because the South Pole has craters where the rim is high enough, because at the poles the sun never gets very high in the sky. So if you have a crater rim that's high enough, sunlight never reaches the bottom of the crater and it's permanently dark. It is literally where the sun don't shine. And so any comets that have landed on the moon scattered water molecules about, water molecules that land in sunlight will evaporate and escape. Water molecules that land in this cold trap will stay there forever. And that's at the pole. So you would go there and find some way to sort of mine it out of the soils, out of the lunar surface. And then you can drink it. You could separate the hydrogen in the oxygen and make rocket fuel. So there's a whole operations that are considered for these future activities. It blows my mind. A lot of work. Miles O'Brien is also standing by. Miles, I don't know how many launches you covered and that I covered with you and listened to you. What stands out to you right now? You know, the fact that they were coming from, you know, a little farther than the distance between you and me now, Anderson. I'm in Massachusetts here in New York. That's about as far as the shuttle ever went. And it makes a difference when you're going to a destination, doesn't it? And, you know, the launch in many respects was a lot like a shuttle launch. It has the same basic equipment, little more thrust, but the same visceral feel to the whole experience. But it was different feeling knowing that there were four human beings going to another celestial body. And I can't agree with you more on what this means to young people. I want to live in a world where we have things like this, where humans can come together and do things that transcend the lousy things that humans do to each other on a day-to-day basis. It's an important thing to give young people this hope and also inspire them to study these hard subjects, which are important. I'm on my way to becoming a grandfather, Anderson. And I want my granddaughter to live in a world where she can see these missions. I've often said to my kids, you know, I was blessed to grow up, sprinkle by moon dust, seeing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions watching Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. How lucky was I to have born at that moment? And how inspirational was that to me in making me think about our place in the universe? And I think it's hard to put it in the bottom line of a budget for NASA, but there is a huge payback here. I promise you, just like your kids are appreciating now. Yeah. We should point out the currents are now an issue that they are watching. It's kind of slowing things down a little bit. But four medical divers are actually now on board in with the four astronauts. So they are checking them out as well, Mike. Yeah, they'll make sure they're okay before they move them and get them out at the right time. And the inspiration part of it, I was six years old when they landed on the moon. And I'm very grateful that I can remember that. And it changed my life. It made me want to grow up to be a part of that. I want to grow up to be like Neil Armstrong. He's a little bit too cool. But it made me want to be a part of that program. And I think now I teach at Columbia. I'm an engineering professor at the engineering school there. And the enthusiasm, we have a really active, huge, over 250 students actively participating in our space club, launching rockets, sending satellites to space. I think tomorrow they're launching one of their CubeSats to space. So there's so much interest, there's so much more access to do these things nowadays. And the big things that the CubeSats are about this big, they're very nimble in what you can design on them and your capacity to then... I'm still blown away by Voyager that this little thing that wasn't supposed to last very long that's got like an engine the size of like the light bulb in your refrigerator is still going. It's incredible to me. Yeah, it's still out there. Well, it's just physics. So I'm highly credible. It's physics. I'm not doubting. But I want to add something here that no one is talking about. Okay? I too was eye-witnessed to the entire Apollo era. And I think others may agree who have this memory. We might look forward to the time Artemis 8 where you would not be covering the launch or the journey or the splashdown. It would just be another... Because it would just be routine. Just the same way the later shuttle missions were just routine. And hardly anyone can remember the names of Apollo 15 astronauts. Your name Aldrin and Neil Armstrong? Can you name me... Well, you're an astronaut. You're an astronaut. Wrong person to ask. No, but the fact that if we want to be a space-faring culture, the day will arrive where it is no longer newsworthy to report on going into space. And that's kind of a... It's a bittersweet fact about becoming space-faring as a routine fact of your culture. We want to get all four astronauts are in great condition. We're told four medical divers on board. We're going to take a short break. Our coverage continues just a moment.