At Simply Health, we know that workplace healthcare can feel like. We're currently experiencing a high core volume and you're in a queue. But now's the time to untangle it and go from inaccessible health to Simply Health. Support all employees with 24-7 access to GP and mental health support. Plus pay-as-you-go services. We're simplifying access to workplace healthcare. Simply Health. See why we're different at simplyhealth.co.uk. Benefits depending on product, T's and C's apply. In the race to scale with AI, you need data infrastructure that can match your pace. EverPeer's data storage platform brings all your data into one hub. No silos, no scrambling, just instant access to tame your data chaos. And with EverPeer Storage as a service subscription, your storage and security upgrade automatically with zero downtime. Your infrastructure stays current so your business never slows down. Visit everpeerdata.com to learn more today. With EverPeer, you're not just in the race. You're built to win it. Dr. Amber! Good morning! Hey, how are you? Doing great. What an exciting time. It is, right? Like, this is, no, I'm telling you, I'm very, I was very excited and the vouch for me. I got very upset when all the press started talking about the Artemis flight taken off. I've been anticipating for months, Amber. Months I've been waiting for this. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is such a fun time at NASA right now. It's like this huge agency-wide celebration. And as you all know, I'm on the science side, right? I'm an astronomer. I work on space telescopes, so I'm not involved directly in the Artemis mission, but it is just such an agency-wide, like, NASA family celebration right now. And all of us are just so excited to be a little part of this. It's so much fun. Hey, can I ask you this? And I assume the answer is yes, and it'll come off as a stupid question. But has the mission, from NASA's perspective, has the mission been a huge success so far? Absolutely, 100%. The crew is doing great. They're happy. They're healthy. The spacecraft itself is performing really, really well. Everything is gone so, so well so far, yeah. Hey, do you get... So let me go back to the launch, right, when they were counting everything down. And they were getting to that kind of that 10-minute mark where everything starts. Does everybody at NASA get the same butterflies that everybody watching gets? Absolutely, maybe even more so. You know, especially the teams that are working with the astronauts and with the rockets and the vehicles, you know, those teams at NASA have poured their lives into preparing for this mission for years. And of course, everything is much more high stakes when there's humans involved, when we are putting humans on top of a rocket to blast off into space. So, even beyond that, yeah, all of us at NASA, we're nervous, we're excited. You know, we had launch viewing parties all over, all the centers at NASA had launch viewing parties for the employees to come and watch the launch. It is definitely an exciting celebratory time at NASA. And I don't know if you know the answer to this or not, but like you talk about, like there's humans sitting on top of a rocket and going back to the launch and then we'll see it again later today, where they're doing speeds of 25,000 miles an hour, which is, it seems ridiculous, but like that's the speed in which they're going. And I was wondering this at the launch and I'll wonder it again, do they have any sense, like if you're sitting in that rocket, do you have any sense how fast you're going? Well, sadly, I've never been to space myself, so I don't know directly, but absolutely they feel that acceleration. They feel, you know, many times the force of Earth's normal gravity. So, yeah, they definitely feel it. And then one of the other things that we learned kind of through this was the, so I guess a lot of the focus was obviously all on the four that went up. But specifically, I read an interview or an interview that Reed Wiseman did, and he was talking about how he had to have the conversation with his daughters, his two teenage daughters about, hey, dad's going back up into space. Here's if it goes wrong, and then it laid kind of out of, you know, here's the will and then obviously we know that his wife had passed, which by the way, total side note, how about the dedication of the crater? Oh, yeah. Boy, yeah, I was watching that live in my office at work a few days ago and yeah, it was tears all around. I mean, it was such a beautiful human moment with the crew. It was really, really, really sweet. Oh, but what I was going to say is, you know, like from the outside, we look at it and go, or maybe most of us look at it and go, dude, you just, you're going out of space. Like that's awesome. And there's all this excitement. And you try to imagine how great it would be. But then you start reading whether it's Reed Wiseman talking about it or the other astronauts where it's like, from that day, like it's really, really hard on the families and not even just from the, hey, stuff can go wrong, right? We all know that. But it really is so hard on the families. It's not the massive celebration that you think it would be for two years leading up to it. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I, it's hard to even imagine what the astronauts families are going through with that, that consideration that it really is, you know, anytime we put anything into space, it's risky. You know, NASA has become so good at this at putting things into space, including humans that, you know, I feel like the outside world watches it and they're like, oh, look, we put another thing into space. But absolutely, every time we put something into space, it's hard. It's difficult. And it is risky. And with humans that, you know, that factor just goes up by so much. And so, so yeah, it's a very real human part of these missions that the astronauts families, I'm sure are, you know, are very nervous. And I'm sure that they, you know, they trust what NASA has done to do everything it can to protect the astronauts and 100% safety is the first consideration for NASA across the board. And so, you know, we've done everything we can, but humans in space is, you know, it's risky. We've done everything we can to reduce the risk. And, you know, I believe tonight's flashdown will be will be wonderful. As a, as somebody that works there or well, I mean, listen, you always wanted to work at NASA since you were a kid. The like what part to you is, and then we'll get to like the next missions and stuff. But what part to you is more special that they're the first human eyes to see like to see to see things on the moon with human eyes for the first time, or that they went further into space than any other human is gone. I mean, both of those things are remarkable. I think setting the distance record is absolutely incredible. You know, what, what a cool thing to be one of those four humans to say, I've been the furthest away from Earth. You know, that's, that's incredible. But at the same time, you know, I wasn't alive during the Apollo missions. I wasn't born yet. And 75% of the Earth's population was not around. Right. For Apollo, right? Most people on Earth right now did not experience Apollo. So I feel like it's this sort of broad humanity celebrating this awesome thing of seeing with our eyes the far side of the moon and the astronauts in, you know, it is historic. It's historic. So, Amber, can I ask you this then? Why, why is it why? Well, let me back up. Let me back up. So this Artemis expedition sets up the next two. And correctly, if I have this wrong, the next one will, I don't want to say be the same as this, but it's not. It's not the same as this, but it'll be similar in that they'll fly around, but there's no landing. It's the second one from now where we're supposed to land on the moon. That's correct. So the next Artemis mission Artemis three actually won't be crude. There won't be astronauts on that one. So it's going to go up to test some more systems, some of the landing systems, those sorts of things still super exciting and critical for getting us to the moon. But then yeah, Artemis four, the plan is for Artemis four sometime about two years from now in 2028 for them, the astronauts to go and actually land on the moon. And, you know, we're doing preparations now to set up a permanent lunar base on the South Pole of the moon. So all of that is going to be a busy two years prepping for that. If we if all goes to plan a couple years from now, we'll be landing humans on the moon again, which is wild to say it's so exciting, so much fun. So two things. If you set up if you if NASA sets up the the base on the on the South Pole of the moon, does that signal that that will become a regular mission for NASA? Yeah, absolutely. So so the whole goal of the Artemis program is to or of this near term part is to start getting back in the routine of sending sending rockets into space and sending humans back to to the moon regularly, right? Because that's what we did in Apollo. If you look back at the Apollo timeline, we were sending people to the moon, you know, just like one after the other. And so so yeah, that's the goal is to set up a lunar base. And then, of course, the ultimate goal in all of this is to lay the foundation to send people to Mars. So that's that's even looking further into the future. But that's the goal is to send people to Mars. Hey, what is the like, I don't I'm guessing it's not up on a wall somewhere. But let's let's let's fast forward and Artemis for we set up the base. How far and I don't even mean like after that, when is the next trip and the next trip and the next trip. But what does that what is that line up if in turn am I going to be alive when we send somebody to Mars? I think so. Of course, we don't have the detailed schedule out yet because there's so much work to do. Sure. You know, before then. But yeah, if we, you know, continue to be able to do the work that's required to build up the systems and to train the astronauts to build the spacecraft and all the life support that that goes into such a huge, huge undertaking of getting people to Mars. Then yeah, I think I think in our lifetimes, we'll see that for sure. So I was watching something so Artemis lands at at just after eight o'clock tonight. And I was watching something where on the actually, I know it was the announcers on on the NASA YouTube channel. And they were talking about how tonight is the most dangerous part of the mission. Why is it in my head? I go like, oh, OK, so tonight they come back like I treated like, oh, everybody's home. Why is tonight I always look at the launches being the scariest part or the most dangerous part. Why is why is tonight the most dangerous part of the mission? Yeah, because they are traveling so fast when they come back that that reentry into the Earth's atmosphere has to be absolutely perfect at the right speed at the right angle to in order for them to splash down safely. So the spacecraft is traveling at about 25,000 miles an hour when it enters the atmosphere. So just to give you a sense of that speed, it would take a flight from like New York to Tokyo would take less than 20 minutes. Wow. So that is all right. Really fast. And so at those speeds when the when the spacecraft when Orion enters the atmosphere, the temperature outside the spacecraft heats up to about 5000 degrees. So it gets really hot. And of course, Orion has these incredible heat shields that will protect it. But it's very, very hot. And it's actually hot enough that we'll briefly lose communication with the astronauts inside during reentry is this like super hot plasma builds up around the spacecraft. So that's in sort of the final phase right before splashdown. But it's definitely a very, very critical part of the mission. And then they'll go out on the boat and they'll get the astronauts. I did hear somebody talking about like over obviously they'll get they'll get looked at and the doctors will will take over like they always do and rightfully so. But that the we learned this on their on their way up that they're kind of sick for a couple of days and they'll be sick for a couple of days once they once they land. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So space does weird things to the human body being in zero gravity. You know, it messes with you. And this is the case, you know, also for the astronauts that come back from the International Space Station after they spent some time on the space station and come back. So yeah, the doctors that are there to check them out. That's a really, really important part of getting the astronauts sort of ready to essentially to live on Earth again. So yeah, that and the whole recovery process and like getting the doctor getting the crew out and getting the doctors to check them out. That's also, you know, super, super important phase of the mission. So the whole recovery team has, you know, there are boats in the water, there are open water Navy divers, there's four helicopters that'll be, you know, flying around waiting for splashdown. And so, you know, the doctors are there. And so once the doctors sort of get the thumbs up that it's safe to approach the spacecraft, then they'll the doctors will actually go inside Orion and check out the crew and make sure everything's okay. And then, and then once they're good to go, they'll bring the crew out, take them up in the helicopters and then y'all they'll go out to Johnson Space Center to sort of undergo the further medical examination. And sort of get them back into the the swing of living on Earth. What will be the most important thing we learn from this mission? Oh, you know, I think everything about this mission has been, again, looking to the future. So a lot of the work that's gone on during the mission is monitoring the astronauts health as they, you know, go through this this really incredibly physically challenging mission. And so, of course, obviously, technology has has increased so much since the Apollo days. And so there there have been several different sort of medical things that they're using to analyze their body and their health during this mission that again will set up the crew or set up the the the way that astronauts will handle the future missions, both on the moon and again, going to Mars. Because that Mars trip, that's going to be incredibly difficult. You know, it's a six month trip to get to Mars. And so, so getting the setting the stage for learning about how the human body reacts to being in space, super important for our future trip to Mars. You know, you know, what's funny is like we talk about you mentioned how it's six months and like clearly we covered like when the rovers went there and stuff and you're like, oh my God, that thing is still traveling. When you think about a human doing it, man, that changes everything. It changes everything. And, you know, a lot of the studies that have gone on and are continuing to go on at NASA, not only physical health, but, you know, mental health. Think about if you're inside a small vehicle with three other humans for six months. You know, so the psychological factors of that are actually it's a real factor like NASA's done experiments where they, you know, set up a, you know, sort of vehicle or not a vehicle but like a habitat here on Earth and they isolate people inside it to sort of test how they interact over a six month period. So that part that's a huge part of sending astronauts to Mars. Hey, so what is the, well, a couple of other things. So they'll make their way down. You know, hopefully everything goes well and goes safe. Oh, I want to go back to things that we learned, things that we learned. I did hear one of the, somebody was interviewing one of the astronauts and they were talking about the amount of pictures that they took and how they'll be happy to not take pictures for a while. I'm assuming, I'm assuming all of that is to have such high quality pictures of the surface of the moon. Yeah, for sure. And that also a really exciting fun thing that they did. Again, first human's fill a eyes on the far side of the moon and over half a century. But yeah, while they were in that period on the far side of the moon, they were in direct communication with some of our scientists here at NASA, our lunar scientists that were helping to. And struck them on observations to take pictures to take, but also, you know, real time observations of what do you see in this area in this area. And astronauts actually did a lot of training before the flight to sort of prepare for what they would see once they got to the far side of the moon. And so yeah, I think the lunar science that's going to come out of this mission also is going to be incredible. Hey, does anybody get in trouble for the floating Nutella? I hope not because that was such that was such a fun moment. It was a great moment, but then comes all of the oh, it's product placement. How much are they paying? No, no, it was definitely not product placement. I think everybody just loves Nutella, including Ashkel. All right, so last two things. Number one, what are you working on right now? Yeah, so I am still on the science team for the James Webb Space Telescope. And so, oh my gosh, so great. I mean, the telescope to now have been in space. It's been almost five years, which is hard to believe. Has it really? Yeah, Christmas of this year will be our five year launch anniversary. So it's gone by fast, but the telescope is performing so well. We've got so much data. So, so yeah, that part of my work is still a lot of fun. And then at on the astronomy side, because that's where I am at NASA. We're also preparing to launch the next big telescope into space this fall. So the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is being in its final stages of testing at NASA Goddard here in Maryland right now. I actually went over last week to see it. It's sitting up in the big clean room. It's awesome. It's so cool. So we're launching that telescope into space this fall. And that telescope is designed to study the mysterious dark matter and dark energy in the universe. This stuff that's called dark because we have no idea what it is. But so that telescope is going to do that incredible work. It's also going to study planets that are orbiting other stars. So that telescope is going to be super, super incredible. Launching that this fall. Yeah. And just just staying very busy on the astrophysics side of things at NASA. It's a fun time right now. Hey, how great is just focusing back on Artemis for a second. How great is this for just the NASA program in the space program? It's it's historic. I mean, like I said, almost all the world's population wasn't around to see Apollo. And so to be able to draw the public in and show them what we can do. It's fantastic for the agency. And again, even though I don't work directly on Artemis, it's I am personally just so excited about it. And I think I think it shows again that, you know, when we humans come together to do something big and bold and difficult, that we can do it. And we've shown that with Artemis and we're going to continue to show that as we land astronauts on Mars. It's an incredible thing. And NASA does work that I think is really, really important, not just for science and engineering, but for us as a species. But you know, the other thing, like we were talking about after the launch and I was talking about like, I love it. I loved everything about it. I loved how nervous and excited I got in the whole thing. But there's also there's part of it where you watch the TV and you go, well, there's something I'll never do. But Tyler brought up a good point where it was like, but you could still see that and be like, like backup amber. I remember you saying you were just a little girl living out. I can't remember which state you were from, but somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And you would be out outside and you would look up and see the stars and that's what got you interested. And you end up at NASA working working at NASA because you were just a girl out in the field staring up at the stars. So even if you're not going to be an astronaut, the amount of people that it takes, whether it's it's it's one of your one of one of your microscopes or one of or or you're an astronaut or putting those together, the number of people that it takes to be on a team to do that, it really is much bigger than just the four people who are up on the up on the rocket. Absolutely. 100%. And and yeah, you're right. I grew up in Arkansas, so middle of nowhere. And yeah, the dark skies or what got me interested in astronomy. But yeah, I think there are huge teams of people at NASA and, you know, in industry that are working to to support the astronauts and and all these other programs that we do at NASA. And I think the really fun part of it all is it's it's much broader than that, you know, the the public is excited about this because it's an exciting thing for us more broadly than just NASA. And so I think we're all a part of this in in a real way. It's it's it's where NASA does these things, not just for us scientists, but for all of us for all of us, all of all of humanity. And how great is it that they the the the kid on the kid on CNN, who was like, we're going to the Earth and moon. Like how great is it? And then he went to he got invited to the Kennedy Space Center. Yeah, that was so, so great. I loved that clip. He also is from Arkansas. I found out just a few days. Of course he is. Oh, this is a plant like the Nutella. I did not plant that kid. But I love that just a microphone ends up in his face. But that I mean that kid literally could be the next Amber, who was just like, I mean, obviously, he went out there with his family. He was so excited. And then in a very natural moment, they were like, why are you here? And he was like, why? Because we're going to the F and moon. And now he's I mean, he's standing there next to like rockets. I know, I know it's so it's so great. That was such a such a fun, genuine moment. But I think all of us, all of us felt like that, you know, all of us that have even a remote interest in in space. Amber, I've been begging for five years to go to a launch. This kid cusses on TV, which I've done a million times and he gets to go. You know what? We can get you down to Florida for the Roman launch in September, maybe. All right, I'm writing that down. I am writing that down. Well, maybe don't don't let me promise that. Amber, I'm so happy for everybody over there. I know how hard you guys work. I know what it means to you. And it is like you're right. It's such an exciting time where everybody is watching the launch or I just like, you know, like both of my kids are in college. Both of them texted out of nowhere like the launch is sick. We're watching the launch. I just I love I love what it does. I love how much it energizes everybody. Oh, me too. I love it. It's so much fun to be a part of. And again, it's it's not just for us at NASA. Like we're all part of this. This is part of our story. It's it's so much fun. Hey, where are you watching the where will you watch splashdown from? I'm probably going to watch it from my house with my husband because it's been a long week and I'm very tired. So I'm probably not going to go to any parties tonight. Good for you. Amber, as always, I appreciate the I appreciate the inside. I appreciate the time. Of course, great to talk to you. Have a good one.
