NASA to launch its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than half a century

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts. Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. Now, given that we spend almost all of our time on this programme telling you about what's going on around the world, it's quite refreshing to escape planet Earth once in a while. And that's what we're going to do today, at least for a fairly big chunk of this edition of News Hour. Because a little later it's looking likely that NASA will launch its first crewed mission to the moon in more than half a century. That was the era of the Apollo missions that captured the imaginations of an entire generation and gave humans their first glimpse of another body in space, as well as their first glimpse of Earth from space. Well, this mission is called Artemis 2 and the window for launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida opens in just over two hours time. Lots of people are gathered outside and they're certainly excited. I think that people going up to the moon is kind of like cool and stuff because when the booster comes down it makes a big old noise and stuff and it's cool. I love space. It's amazing. It's the greatest unknown out there. I mean, honestly, it's really incredible. I'm pretty excited about it. I came out here to see it and I heard it's going to be a great show. A lot of people are going to be here. Final preparations are underway as evidenced by the background chatter over the airwaves used by the Artemis mission controllers. CDR, OTC, Riner Earth 1. Go ahead. Yes, sir. You are prime for hatch opening. Integrity crew is prime for hatch opening. Well, Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency is one of four astronauts on board. He's been speaking to the BBC's Space Podcast 30 minutes. We'll fly around the moon over 400,000 clowners away and look back at the planet in the background of a lunar foreground, which I think will be an extraordinary human experience. And I hope humanity will stop for a moment when four humans are on the far side of the moon and just look at some of the imagery that we are sharing and just be reminded that we can do a better job as humans of just lifting each other up, not destroying, but creating together. So how exactly are the preparations going? Our science correspondent in Florida is Palop Gosh. They're going brilliantly, James. I mean, let's not jinx it. You can always have a scrub at any stage that we remember there are four human beings on top of that rocket. I'm actually looking at it right now. It's three miles away, but it's so huge. I can see it clearly right in front of me is a countdown clock. It's saying three hours, 15 minutes and 24 seconds now right next to a US flag. But this is an international mission. The astronauts are now on board the crew capsule having arrived to waves and cheers from passersby as they drove in what's called the Astrovan. It sounds more glamorous than it is. It looks quite ugly, if you ask me, but they are on a more sophisticated vehicle. The most powerful rocket ever built, the Space Launch System, which in just over three hours time, fingers crossed, should be headed towards the moon. And once they get out of the Earth's atmosphere into orbit, what happens next? Because they're not actually going to land on the moon, but they are going to go right rounded, aren't they? Well, the equivalent mission back in the 60s was the Apollo 8 mission. That mission did just as this one is, prepare the ground for an eventual lunar landing. And that was a moment that you were alluding to in your introduction. And Jeremy Hansen was talking about this was the first image of Earth from space in full colour that the people of Earth saw. And arguably, just like now, it was a time of great pessimism. There were wars, civil unrest, and just for a moment in time, it stopped. We could see the entire planet as a whole as one big, beautiful planet. And for a moment in time, those warring factions of pessimism stopped to make way for something much greater. And that's what Jeremy Hansen was talking about. It's not an age of optimism right now. It doesn't feel like it. But maybe this mission and succeeding missions going back to the moon will raise people's spirits in a way that it did in the 1960s and 70s. Palab gosh in Florida. Well, Artemis II will lead to further missions. It's hoped to put astronauts on the moon. Twelve men have actually set foot on the moon so far. Only four of them are still alive. One of them is Charlie Duke, who took part in the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. NASA's penultimate mission to the moon. Charlie was the lunar module pilot. He's now 90 years old. I began by asking him how excited he was about today's launch. Yeah, I'm very excited about Artemis II. It's going to be a revival of interest and a return to the moon. And it's about time. Apollo was so successful that they canceled the last three missions. Took the money for space shuttle and space station. And now we've got Artemis going. And I'm very excited about a return to the moon and eventual landing, especially the landings down at the south pole. Given what you say about the final Apollo missions, how successful they were. I mean, it's a good point to ask you this question. I mean, why do we need to go back to the moon? Why should we be going back to the moon? With the technologies that we have developed and the opportunity to eventually, I think, build a space station on the moon and utilize the resources of the moon for the advantage of Earth. For instance, helium three moon is rich in minerals. So it's an opportunity to build a station and utilize the resources for the benefit of mankind here on Earth. And I think that's a worthwhile objective. Can you remember looking back all those years, can you remember how you were feeling before liftoff? I'm just trying to get an insight into how the the Artemis crew might be feeling now in these final, potentially final few hours. We were in the spacecraft for maybe a couple of hours, strapped in, ready to go. There wasn't much conversation between us. My thoughts were, the whole time was keep counting, keep counting. We only had a four hour window, similar to Artemis, to liftoff. And if you missed your window and you didn't lift off, you had to wait. And in that wait, you could break your leg, you could have an automobile accident and you'd miss your chance. So everybody was just saying, keep counting, keep counting, please keep counting. And sure enough, we lifted off right on schedule and we were on our way. And very exciting liftoff. Was it nerve wracking? I mean, I know you were highly trained and you'd undertaken all sorts of dangerous missions, whether it be in aircraft or these kinds of missions. I mean, did you have butterflies in your stomach? I wouldn't call it butterflies. I wasn't keyed up if you put it that way. I found out later, my heartbeat that lift off was about 140. John Youngs was 70. He'd been on a follow before the acceleration. It wasn't very significant at first, but the vibration with the big tall vehicle, the vibration from side to side was very pronounced. And that did get my attention at first. Yeah, I bet. Let's fast forward to landing on the moon. I mean, what was that like and stepping out onto that lunar surface? Can you describe that for us? Once we started our descent, which was seven hours behind schedule, the spacecraft performed flawlessly and we hit 7000 feet and the vehicle pitches forward so that you can see the land, the surface for the first time. And we recognized the major features of our landing site, the mountains to the left, the mountains to the right and the big valley where we were to land. And we didn't recognize the individual craters at first. But as we got closer, we started seeing the craters that we had studied in the photographs. And, man, we were right on target. And John had to maneuver a little bit to pick out a landing spot that was no craters and up here level. And he made an outstanding selection. And when we shut down, we were dead level right in the middle of the valley where we had been targeted into. So we felt right at home. We recognized everything and the shadows were very distinct. And so we could see the undulating terrain and all and we were ready to go. Was it beautiful when you stepped out and saw the surface of the moon? I mean, it looks, you know, to someone like me, I mean, it looks like a desert. I mean, it looks fairly featureless. But I mean, I've heard some describe it as a very beautiful environment, especially with the darkness of space hanging over it. Yeah, it was really exciting. You know, John got almost pushed him out the door. He got out first and and then I stepped down to the ladder and hit the surface. And this big sense of exhilaration and accomplishment hit me. I'm on the moon. Finally, I'm on the moon. And we had to get work right away. But I felt right at home. I was comfortable. So we started to work very busy, of course, getting everything done and Rover prepared. TV camera set up and antenna pointed up the earth. So we had a TV picture for mission control and for the world. Busy time. But we had trained and trained and trained and we knew what to do. And we didn't lose any time getting it all done. Yes, a lot of work. But there was a bit of time for fun, which I think you nearly came a cropper with landing on your backpack. Tell us about that. 1972 was an Olympic year. So John and I were going to do the Moon Olympics. And our first event was going to be the high jump. So down here on our earth with all of my equipment on, I weighed 368 pounds. But up on the moon, one sixth of that. So I began to bounce. And when I bounced, I straightened up and well, the backpack way to the backpack pulled me over backwards. And I was going down on my back, which was a fearful moment. That backpack breaks. I'm dead. And so I roll right to break my fall and bounce on my back. And my heart was pounding, but I'm still alive. Everything looked good and normal. And John came over and he was upset. And he said, I wasn't very smart, Charlie. I said, yeah, I'm OK. So he helped me up and Mission Control had seen that backfall. And he's to that end of the Moon Olympics. No more. No more of that guy to get back inside and and get ready to come home. Yeah. Can I just ask you this final question, Charlie? I mean, people have talked about how those moon missions, you know, they were about discovering space, about discovering the moon. But it was also about discovering the earth and what the earth represented, particularly in that famous picture, the earth rise, that picture of the earth from the moon. What was it like for you seeing our planet from the moon? My first thought was we are a long way from home. I hope this thing holds together and gets me back. But then after that, I just had the beauty of it. That jewel of blue and white just suspended in the blackness of space was very moving to me. And I never got tired of looking at it, especially when we were in orbit on the surface of the moon, was the earth was right overhead. So we didn't see it very much. But that jewel of earth just suspended in the blackness of space was a very moving experience and it's still very vivid in my mind. Charlie Duke astronaut on the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. You're listening to News Out More on Artemis 2 later in the program. Also coming up later, how Denmark plans to use its old oil fields under the North Sea to store carbon dioxide. We think it's one of the best answers to emissions. And Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions. We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe, storing a lot of you too here. More on that in 10 minutes. Our main headlines at the moment from the newsroom as we've been hearing, NASA's making its final preparations for the launch of Artemis 2, the first crewed mission around the moon in more than half a century. Iran's president has made a direct appeal to the American people insisting his country is not their enemy and claiming the US has been manipulated into war by Israel. And US Supreme Court justices have shown skepticism about Mr. Trump's effort to end the automatic right to citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. More on that in 20 minutes. This is James Menendez. We'll use our live from the BBC. Now, the debate over the safety of driverless taxis has been stirred up once again after a serious incident in the Chinese city of Wuhan. On Tuesday, about 100 Apollo Go camps belonging to the firm Baidu suddenly stopped mid-journey, leaving them and their passengers stranded in the middle of the road. Local police said there had been no reports of injuries, although one video on social media appeared to show the malfunction had caused at least one collision. Baidu hasn't yet commented on what caused the problem. I've been talking to Jack Stillgo, Professor of Science and Technology Policy at University College London. What's his take? The first thing to say is that we don't know exactly what's gone on here. And whenever a technology like this goes wrong, there's a real need for these incidents to be investigated and done so in a transparent way. But it looks like what's happened here reveals something quite important about self-driving technology. And we often talk about this technology as an autonomous vehicle. And I think incidents like this show you quite how dependent the technologies are on a sort of behind-the-scenes infrastructure, a sort of support network that keeps the whole thing functioning. And when that goes down, we see moments like this. Is it your best guess that this was some kind of software failure then? I think it's impossible to say. It could have been a connectivity failure. It could have been a software failure, a bug in the system. It could have been a failure of the power system that supports the whole fleet. But what it tells you is that the connectivity between these vehicles and the base back home matters. Can these vehicles be hacked and therefore can they be hacked as a group? One thing we should be worried about is that because these things operate as fleets, that that presents an additional risk, a cybersecurity risk with the potential that somebody might be able to hack into the system, either brick the individual vehicles or maybe worse. And we don't know quite what those risks might be because we don't yet have enough experience with the technology. Yes, and you mentioned the word transparency at the beginning. Will we ever know what went wrong here? We can first of all recognize that there are all sorts of competitive pressures with all of these companies that might lead to them being a bit cagey about what's going on. Right, they want to preserve the magic. They want to give the impression that there's some sort of magical AI driving the cars. There have been lots of examples of where companies haven't been totally forthcoming about how the cars really work. So how much they depend on people behind the scenes able to take control if things go wrong. And I think it's the job of regulators to demand more from those companies, to say, actually, tell us more about how these things work so that we can work out what the risks really are. And then when they go wrong, we need to understand exactly how they went wrong. So we need you, the company, to share the data with us, the regulator. And at the moment, they don't have that information, so they can't regulate, right? There are better and worse examples. America has had lots of teething problems and we've got Congress now pushing back. So Congress people in the United States are starting to raise concerns about a lack of transparency and demand that regulators need to know more. I think there is a temptation to compare the technology of a computer driven car to a conventional human driven car. And I think if we do that, there might be a trap and that we'll miss the new possible risks presented with this technology. This case of a lot of technologies all being bricked at once is part of that. But there might be other either cybersecurity risks or risks that come from these technologies being decked in dozens of cameras. They are sort of CCTV on wheels, which does raise some serious privacy risks as well. Every time there is a problem with either an individual robo-taxi or a group of them, it raises issues about safety. And I suppose raises the question of why we need driverless taxis if they aren't safe or all there is the potential for these sorts of problems. I think that's right. And with any technology, we shouldn't just ask how safe it is. We should also ask how safe is safe enough. So what sort of standards do we expect of this thing? And then people understandably in cities around the world will be asking if this thing does pose new risks, then how do those balance up against the benefits of this technology? Professor Jack Stilgoe there. That's head to South Africa now, where more than 2,000 soldiers are being deployed to support police in an operation against organised crime, illegal mining and gang violence. The government says the deployment will help restore order in high crime areas. But as the BBC's Pumsephilani reports now from Johannesburg, there's skepticism in some communities about how much difference the troops will make. Now, to strengthen our fight against gang violence, I will be deploying the South African National Defence Force to support the police. In a country where many communities feel under siege from violent crime, President Cyril Ramaphosa's move to deploy troops is being seen by some as a sign the government is getting tough on criminal networks. Hey, come on! Hey, hey, hey, come on, don't you like? Hey, hey, hey, hey! Soldiers will be sent to five of South Africa's nine provinces for up to a year. For many, the sight of armoured vehicles and armed troops on the streets is still deeply unfamiliar. One of the last major deployments came during the country's strict COVID-19 lockdown, when soldiers enforced curfews and restrictions. But that operation drew sharp criticism, with reports that soldiers were using excessive force, unlawfully detaining and harassing civilians. Security experts warn the military is trained for combat, not for the kind of community-based policing needed to build trust. And so, some are skeptical about their return. And there's also history to contend with. The apartheid regime used the military to enforce their rule, a legacy that still shapes how some South Africans view soldiers on their streets today. A smaller, localised military operation was trialled recently in some Johannesburg communities affected by gang violence. We visited one of them. When Eldarada Township, south of Johannesburg, one of the main problems in this community is gang-related violence, as well as a huge drug problem. We've come to find out from the community what they think about having the military and armoured vehicles rolling through their streets. This place, Sodom and Gomorrah, has got no say. It's just a hell of a... The babies are here. I don't ever leave them. Because the fear of just something happening when I'm absent, and then what happens to it, like, I know, obviously, automatically, I can't really depend on the police. There's too much going on. So no one is assisting or helping. They're making things worse, you understand? So I don't think it will help. Because when they come, it's going to be my things worse. But more safe. But you see, when they're out of the area, then things start again. Like, maybe the community shall be okay for them to be in the area at all times. Gang violence is not unique to this community. In Cape Town, police admit they are overwhelmed, as shootings linked to gangs continue to claim lives, with bystanders including children often caught in the crossfire. Joint police military operations could become more common, at least until the deep drivers of crime, poverty and unemployment are addressed. Here's defence expert Dr Guy Lam. The worry is, is that there isn't really a dedicated plan to try and address why crime is so violent in these sort of places. So we're likely to see this happening into the foreseeable future because this plan of addressing what are the recourses of crime in these high crime areas is not in place. The government says the troops have received additional training for this mission. And for some residents living with daily gunfire, the calculation is simple. Any sense of safety, however temporary, may be better than none. From Zafilani reporting there from South Africa. You're listening to News Air. Do stay with us. Lots more coming up. Welcome back to News Air, a project to store the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, into pleated oil fields beneath the North Sea will soon get underway off the coast of Denmark. The BBC's Adrian Murray has been given rare access to the site. She travelled from the Danish port of Espar. Our helicopter had flown 250 kilometres from Denmark's West Coast when it circled a solitary oil rig rising up from the choppy waters of the North Sea. And when our coach, Nguyen Ngiddi, will do a right hand circuit. Here, an almost depleted oil field is about to get a second life as the site of a massive carbon storage project called Greensam Future. Where CO2 emissions captured from industry will be buried 1800 metres below the seabed. After landing at the large mother platform nearby, Mert Scala, CEO of INEOS Energy, showed me to the wellhead where huge pipes have been pumping up oil and gas for decades. Set up pulling the oil and gas up the ground, we're going to inject CO2 into the ground and set. When commercial operations get underway in the next few months, this will be the EU's first large-scale offshore storage site. We think it's one of the best answers to CO2 emissions and Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions. We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe, storing a lot of CO2 here. Globally, hundreds of carbon storage initiatives are in development. In Europe, the North Sea is emerging as a hub with several large-scale projects advancing in Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK. And as depleted oil fields reach the end of their lifetime, the existing infrastructure and technical know-how is already in place. That, Gellisays, is why his firm is among the first movers. It's coming to the end of its lifetime. We can actually reuse the facilities, the skills, the competences we have. And at a decade of exploration, the region's geology is also well understood. What we have here is now four pieces of corn. At a large warehouse on the outskirts of Copenhagen, cases of rock samples are stacked floor to ceiling. Neil Scobesbaum, a senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Greenland in Denmark, showed me a grainy green slab drilled from the sea floor. We call it green sand because it is actually green. If you feel it, it's a little rough. He says the North Sea's porous bedrock is well suited for CO2 storage. And where green sand is located, an almost kilometre thick layer of clay or cap rock will help lock away the CO2. However, the technology is not without critics who caution that it's no silver bullet. If we want to go net zero and even net negative, we will need these technologies. Helena Hegel is head of climate and environmental policy at Greenpeace, Denmark. But if our generation used the seabed for storing carbon now, that we shouldn't have emitted in the first place, then the generations coming after us won't be able to use the seabed to store their emissions. That was Helena Hegel of Greenpeace, Denmark. Ending that report by Adrian Murray. You're listening to these out live from the BBC in London. I'm James Menendez. Now, it's no secret that President Trump doesn't like NATO. His antagonism towards the Alliance has been out in the open ever since his first term in office in 2017. Obsolete, he called it then, and nearly walked out a year later. Well, he's threatened to pull out the United States again, this time telling a British newspaper The Daily Telegraph that he was strongly considering the idea. That's almost certainly because of the objections raised by some of America's European allies over its war in Iran and their failure to take a more active role. We will remember, he said ominously. So how serious is this latest threat to NATO? A question I put to the former NATO Secretary General, Japtahalps Rafa. The language isn't helpful, and we all know that President Trump is also facing a legal and political trajectory, if he would pull out of NATO. But this language isn't helpful. My impression is that President Trump wants to end his war in the Middle East. My concern is that he might do that short of reopening the Straits of Hormuz because he wants to reassure the markets. And then the blame game he started basically yesterday is why didn't you come to my assistance, NATO allies? You're weak and you're not with me, you're against me. And does the US, does he have a point in that? Because, I mean, there have been instances before where the US has carried out military action and other NATO members haven't joined in but haven't stood in the US's way. But this time, I mean, there have been instances of that. Spain, for example, saying you can't use air bases on our territory. So, I mean, do you have any sympathy for his argument that America's NATO allies have not just stood aside but have actually actively tried to hamper what the US is trying to do? Well, hamper is too strong a word in my opinion, but I can follow the President's frustration about measures taken by a number of European allies. On the other hand, he has used language before, which again was not helpful to have a positive outcome. As I said, imagine that hostilities end. This language by the President doesn't help Parliament in Europe to support a potential naval mission in the strait. But at the end of the day, and there President Trump, I think, is right, Europe is weak. We are weak. We need the United States of America in Ukraine. Trump and Putin are too close to comfort, in my opinion. Trump is providing waivers to put in on Russian oil for Cuba. So, we are in, as Europeans, European NATO members, and their Trump had a point and has a point. We are weak and we should double our efforts to build up something which looks like an adequate defense of our borders in Europe. But that is going to take a long time as we have discussed it in the past. I mean, it's that part of the problem that actually the US can go it alone. I mean, it is a military superpower with astounding military resources at its disposal. And Europe isn't. There, the President, I repeat, has a point, but we should remember how this was started. No European ally was informed beforehand that the entry strategy wasn't clear, that the exit strategy is unclear, and that in the past, President Trump has not always been, let me put it mildly, friendly to his European allies. Let's not forget, and that's a message we have not been able to get across, that NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is as much an American interest as it is a European interest. Yes, we have been lazy. We have gone on a geopolitical holiday when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Americans have always complained they were right. But at the end of the day, NATO allies and the NATO Treaty Organization, we are the best allies he has. And he doesn't realize and he doesn't want to realize. Can NATO survive without the US? Or is that just an impossibility? They does the US provide so much that in fact, the Alliance would crumble. In pure military terms. You mentioned the very dangerous window of vulnerability we are facing. Military experts talk about seven, eight or nine, ten years a decade, where we have to make up for what we didn't do for 40, 45 years. So NATO without the United States at this moment is inadequate and not capable. I'm afraid of doing what NATO should do. We need the Americans. But President Trump needs us as well and exchanging bombs across the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, one of my successes, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, is about the only buffer we have. He is criticized unjustly, in my opinion. But there have to be a few which have the ear of the President of the United States, who is erratic, who is unpredictable. I mean, we all know that. But if I would have to give advice to Mark Rutte, he doesn't need my advice, by the way. I would advise him to go on. Is he going too far? He's going far, but not too far, in my opinion. And that was Jaap Dahub Schäffer, former NATO Secretary General. President Trump is due to make an address to the nation at 9pm local. That's two GMT, widely expected to be about Iran. We're going to stay with Donald Trump because today he became the first sitting president to listen to oral arguments being made in the US Supreme Court. The case being heard today relates to an executive order he made on his first day back in office, an order ending the right to citizenship for the children of parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. That concept of birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US Constitution. Opponents of the order gathered outside the court. Birthright citizenship has been the law of the land since the late 1800s, and hopefully it continues being the law of the land. Trump is out to gut our Constitution and remake the society and something that he has in his head, which looks very fascist to me. This particular case attacks the very Constitution itself, and it is so completely illegal that if the Supreme Court finds this not part of the Constitution, they're effectively saying that the Constitution is unconstitutional. Well, I've been speaking to our correspondent, Ioni Wells, who was there earlier. She began by telling me what the law is for the administration, what arguments they put forward in court. Well, these were quite familiar arguments by the lawyer of the Trump administration, John Sauer, essentially about how the Constitution is interpreted. The point of the Constitution in question is this line which says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens of the United States. Now, he seemed to be arguing that this doesn't apply to people who have arrived in the US illegally or who are here temporarily. He hinged a lot of his legal argument on the language of a case that took place years and years ago in 1898, in fact, which ruled that a man called Wang Kim-Ark, who was born in the US to parents who were Chinese nationals, was a US citizen. Now, that case for many years had been used as a precedent to show that US citizenship was determined by the place that you were born. He, though, argued that it was more complicated than that because in this case, the parents were, in his words, lawful permanent residents of the United States who were domiciled in the US. Interestingly, though, I did get the impression, listening to the arguments today, that even some of the conservative judges in the room didn't seem particularly sympathetic with that argument that was being used by the Trump administration, particularly when they started using this phrase domiciled, saying that it's important for parents of children to have an allegiance to the United States. A lot of the judges were pushing back on that particular point, saying that undocumented migrants could also have allegiance to the United States. Just briefly, only, I mean, how long did President Trump stay? Am I only thinking that he left as soon as the other side started making their arguments? Well, I wasn't able to actually go inside. It isn't something we have access to visually. There was queues of people waiting to go in, but certainly from people who were in the room, what we're hearing is that he did stay for about an hour, stayed for essentially, yes, his side to make a point, and the start of the opposition, but not very much. So it did seem like he left before the group that is holding this case against him really got to make their arguments. That was the BBC's I Only Wells in Washington, DC. We're also attending the hearing. Professor Amanda Frost, director of the Immigration, Migration and Human Rights program at the University of Virginia. My colleague Layla Nathu called up with her as she was queuing to get into the building. Did she get the feeling the case had prompted a wider debate in the country? Yes, I think it has opened up a question which had thought to be long settled, as would inevitably happen when the President of the United States challenges a long-standing constitutional interpretation through such an executive order. The argument is that before the executive order that everyone born in the United States was automatically a citizen with exceptions only for diplomats. That's the only meaningful exception today. That's been the view for a century and the President's view is no. In fact, that language excludes children of undocumented immigrants and children born to temporary immigrants. One of the arguments for the change is that there is a view that it is incentivizing people to come to the US illegally. Yes, the briefs do argue that they actually have no evidence of that in order they cite anything to support it. That's a policy argument, so it really doesn't speak directly to the legal question before the court because the court's question is what was the intention when this was added to our Constitution in 1868? What's the order retrospective, Amanda? The order stated that the executive branch of the President would apply it only prospectively. However, the interpretation he's adopting would if the court agrees with it, the interpretation that should always have been adopted of this provision and there would be nothing to stop this President from applying it retroactively. If it's only prospective, a quarter million children every year would lose citizenship going forward and all 3.5 million families giving birth to children every year in the United States would have to prove their status. If it's retroactive, millions of people citizenship would be at risk. How central a feature has this right been in the US Constitution? It's not actually that common when you look across the world at other countries who also have this guarantee. It is common in the Western Hemisphere, so Canada, Mexico, many of the countries of South and Central America have a similar rule. It's incredibly consequential for the United States because it was added to our Constitution after the Civil War and it was intended, and they said this at the time, but to ensure the former slaves were treated fully as members and full citizens of the society and they explicitly said the children of immigrants coming from all over the world would be treated as full citizens. That was their intention and that's what they said. So it's very consequential to our nation of immigrants. Why do you think that most other countries, especially not those in the West have chosen not to go down this route? Well, some countries have abandoned birthright citizenship in response to pressures from political pressures resulting from immigration. So England pulled back on its birthright citizenship rule, but it'll also add that countries like France are much more lenient than the United States would be if this executive order became the law. So if you're born in France and remain there, you become automatically a citizen even if your parents aren't documented. That's not what this executive order says. It's much harsher than that. Those children in the United States would never be citizens. And that would create a whole second class essentially off citizens of the children of people who are undocumented. Yes, it would create a permanent cast of individuals living in the United States with no political power, who could be deported at any time and easily exploited. And that's exactly what the Reconstruction Congress didn't want when it added birthright citizenship to the Constitution as part of the 14th Amendment. Professor Amanda Frost there, you're listening to News Hour from the BBC World Service. Stay with us more on Artemis II, that launch in about an hour and a half. Hopefully, do stay with us for that. This is James Menendez. We'll use our live from the BBC. Let's head back to Florida now and preparations for the launch of Artemis II from the Kennedy Space Center in about an hour and a half time potentially. Among those hoping to watch the launch are some people who work in the aerospace industry such as Denise, who works for NASA. Definitely feeling excited at a lot of anticipation, a little bit anxious, I guess, too, in a good way. And a big feeling of accomplishment, the years and years of work that has been put in, I mean, we're making history. So I'm happy to be alive, to be able to witness this, to be part of it. It's just so happy. The plan for NASA is to put astronauts on the moon again by 2028 and the establishment of a permanent outpost there by 2030. But as we've been hearing, the program has been beset by delays and cost overruns. And there's someone else breathing down NASA's neck. China is also hoping to put one of its astronauts or tykenauts as it calls them on the moon by 2030. For some, it's reminiscent of the competition between the US and the Soviet Union to get into space during the Cold War. So it's this space race 2.0. Lincoln Hines is an expert on the politics of space and on Chinese foreign policy at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. It's part of the Georgia Institute of Technology. I would say that the notion of a space race obscures a lot more than it reveals about the nature of US-China competition today. Currently, there is intense competition between China going on militarily, diplomatically, and on the surface, it appears to be the case, at least in these ostensibly civilian efforts, for example, going to the moon, sending lunar craft to the moon, sending humans to the moon. But importantly, the political dynamics are just completely different. China has a very different power than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. It is not trying to export a communist ideology internationally, though it does want to shape the international order in a way that suits its interests. Some call this trying to build a world safe for autocracy. Similarly, it's important to note that a lot of the timeline for Chinese initiatives have been relatively independent of US activities in the space domain. China often announces these initiatives well in advance and has five-year plans, and it's been pretty consistent about meeting these timelines. It's lunar program that dates back all the way until 2004. And so China has longer initiatives in space that haven't totally been dictated by this kind of heated rhetoric about a space race. That said, there are definitely actors within China that would find it politically beneficial to frame it that way, as there are in the United States. I mean, isn't it about prestige for the Chinese Communist Party, showing that they are a superpower on a par with the other superpower of the United States? Absolutely. And I would say, from the perspective of prestige, China sees this as something that it can both gain domestically and internationally. Within China, the Chinese Communist Party can present itself as the savior of the Chinese nation, that it's helped China emerge from the so-called century of humiliation, and to show that it's keeping up with the leading space powers. And internationally, China can show that it's kind of the new major power on the block able to achieve these really enormous feats. I will also say, from a framing perspective, the Chinese Communist Party has an incentive if they beat the United States to the moon to say, yes, we did beat the US. This is evidence that our system, that we actually our own unique approach to governance is more effective than the United States. And is China on track to meet its targets? Because the Artemis program has suffered long delays, hasn't it? Yes, the Artemis program has suffered long delays. I would say, with the Chinese program, currently, everything appears to be on schedule, but it's easy to miss some of the challenges that go on within China's own space ecosystem. And they're not as publicly known as what we might know about with looking at Artemis. One of the things that the Chinese Communist Party does benefit from is that they don't have regular elections. So they can plan these longer term initiatives versus the United States can have shifting priorities between different election cycles. But that said, there's also some real benefits to having a democracy and having these mechanisms of oversight to make sure you're actually sending astronauts up in a sustainable and safe and economically useful way. Because these are incredibly expensive missions, aren't they? I mean, just vastly expensive. Yeah, so from the perspective of prestige, this is in part what makes it prestigious is the idea that only a few countries can do it. It's something that's very exclusive. It's very flashy. It's very expensive. But there's also real questions about the tangible material benefits. Now, some will argue that there are potential economic benefits to going to the moon, and they'll cite things like potential lunar resources that could one day feasibly be utilized. But that said, a lot of this is very far off. So we should be having the question, you know, not all space capabilities are created equally. They don't all serve the same purpose. Should we be doing this in the first place? What is the goal behind doing this? And if we're going to do it, we should be doing it in a sustainable way that builds upon and improves our diplomatic relationships. I say our I'm referring to the United States, as well as practices that would enable us to if we do plan to use it for economic purposes, to sustain a more long term presence, we need to have a longer attention span, then I'm concerned that we do. Lincoln Hines from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Well, we began this program talking to one of the four surviving astronauts who walked on the moon, Charlie Duke. Let's end with the words of the last man to go there. Eugene Cernan was on Apollo 17 at the end of 1972. And as NASA puts it, he was the last human to leave his footprints on the lunar surface. He also wrote his daughter's initials on the moon. Here's Eugene speaking in 2014 courtesy of Purge University in Indiana. I wanted to stop time. I wanted to hit the freeze button. Let me stop and think about where I am and what I'm doing. And I looked down at my footprints and I knew I wasn't coming back this way again. Somebody would. Not me. And what did it all mean? That we, not just Apollo 17, but we Apollo, what did it mean that in our generation, in our time, we left our cradle and called another body in the universe our home? From Neil's first steps to my last. What did that mean? How can I answer the question, what's it like to go to the moon? I knew we were an extension of technology. We were on a scientific mission. We were studying geology. We wanted the curiosity, the existence of human existence. So we wanted to get more answers and ended up with more questions. Eugene Sennin of the last generation of lunar astronauts as a new generation prepares to take off to go around the moon, bringing us to the end of this edition of NISA. Thanks so much for listening. Until tomorrow. Bye-bye.