Teasel Muir-Harmony on Artemis II and the Air & Space Museum

Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app. O'Connor and company. WMAL. It's 8.36 on this Good Friday 30 minutes from now. It's time for Chris Plant to pick up the baton and run with it. It's Larry O'Connor here with a Washington Times specialist. Alex Sawyer. Good morning. I haven't mentioned your podcast today. Remind everybody of your podcast. It's the Court Watch podcast. And then I also have the sit down with Alex Sawyer all at the Washington Times. I love how you call me the Washington Times specialist. I think I'm going to go to Chris Dolan, the editor-in-chief and be like, Hey, I think this is the new title I want. Well, I know Chris. I'm just poking him a little bit and trying to, you know, get his attention as always. Good guy. He's a good man. And I'm sure this week's Court Watch podcast is going to be all over the arguments with regard to birthright citizenship. That's right. Yes. Really good analysis there. Make sure you check it out. All right. Joining us right now. Honestly, this may be the person who holds the job that is most envied by pretty much everyone in this town, except for, you know, wanting to sit in the Oval Office. Tezo Murraharmony is the curator of the Apollo collection at the National Air and Space Museum. And I hope I didn't mangle your name too badly. Thanks for joining us. It's my pleasure. You got it perfectly. So everybody's back focusing on the moon right now because of the incredible Artemis mission. Are you seeing, listen, the museum's always jam-packed. It's one of the top attractions off the mall, but there's got to be even more renewed interest in the Apollo mission and all of the incredible exhibits you've got there. Yeah, it's so exciting to see the museum jam-packed right now. You're right. But I've been observing just so much enthusiasm in general for this mission and thinking back about the Apollo program and what the country achieved in the 1960s and 70s and trying to understand the significance of this Artemis mission in relationship to, you know, this previous heritage of space exploration. And I love all the deep-dive questions I've been getting about the Apollo program. It's a really exciting time. It's got to blow kids' minds away when they go, and adults for that matter, when they go and see the Apollo mission and recognize that basically the mission that we're seeing right now with Artemis 2, even though it's going a little bit further around the moon, I think this is the same as the Apollo 8, I want to say. I can't remember which number it was, but they did it all without computers or really computers that we know of today, AI, machine learning. They did it with slide rules and they barely had calculators, Tiesel. Yeah, that's true. The technology was at a very different stage, especially computing, but Apollo did really use the contributions of thousands of people working around the clock to make sure things were happening. And so although, yeah, the computer systems today on board Artemis are much more advanced during the Apollo era, you had just incredible amounts of teamwork where you could have lots of different people performing these calculations, doing these checks, working together, and it was a really well-oiled machine. So it is amazing to think back how they got to the moon given the technology of the day, but it was this combination of both technology and teamwork with humans bringing what they could to the mission. So it's always important to remember how it worked and everyone worked together to make it happen. I think you're probably in an interesting position to... Do you ever converse with some of the conspiracy theorists? Like what are some of the most interesting questions you've received? So the funny thing is, I already get asked this question, but I haven't yet to meet a conspiracy theorist in the flesh. So I can tell you a little bit of response. We hear from them all the time. You should come hang out with talk radio hosts more often. I mean, they'll say they know they're concerned about how did the astronauts survive the radiation as they go through the Van Allen radiation belts. And radiation is a big important issue in space, but the exposure is relatively minimal going up the speeds they're going. So they're fine and all the radiation exposures are getting... It's monitored and they have radiation protection built into the spacecraft. But some of the other conspiracy theories just focus on, this is just so hard. This would have been so hard to do. And I think it's sort of a testament to how impressive it was. It said humans to the mood in the 1960s. So I take it maybe as a compliment to the program. Oh, totally. That's a great way to put it. Do you see a lot of young people come in through the museum? Because we were just talking about like some of the kids are the ones that we think gets... I mean, just over the top excited about this sort of thing, which is really cool. It's a great educational opportunity. Yes, tons of kids come to the museum and get really inspired by seeing this... You know, the spacecraft even from the 60s. And then we have exhibits that are focusing on more contemporary spaceflight as well. But one thing I really love about the museum is you walk through the National Air and Space Museum, you will see every single age of person and you will see people from all over the country, all over the world coming through. It really draws every single kind of person that you can imagine. And it really speaks to how aerospace and these stories resonate with people. It's always remarkable to me because it's one of the most visited museums in the world. It's a relatively narrow focus, but it's a topic that really excites people. And you see that excitement in little kids for sure and inspiring them. Actually, quite a few people will talk about how they went to that museum as children and then wanted to go into aerospace or related fields. And I was one of them. I grew up as a kid taking a family vacation to the Air and Space Museum and it really affected my path so I can relate to that as well. Well, and listen, if my kids are like other kids, a lot of times at these museums, you just sort of... you force the kids to go through the museum just so they can get to the gift shop. But they would rather just go to the gift shop right away. Air and Space is a little different because it's a lot of fun, but eventually they're going to end up in the gift shop, which leads me to my question. Do you have Artemis swag now? Are you selling stuff? We do have Artemis swag. So there's plenty of stuff. There are t-shirts and things like that. You can still get the astronaut ice cream, which is always the most popular thing in the gift shop. But we do have quite a bit of Artemis swag. You can get it in person or online. A lot of excitement around this thing when we're going back to the moon. All right. And one other quick question. Are you still on a reservation basis there at the museum? During Cherry Blossom Festival, it's nuts. And I remember I went there just on the fly and we couldn't get in because of all of the various issues there. What's it like right now? Yeah, that's great to point out. We do have a reservation system. And during the summer, especially this season, I highly recommend booking your tickets ahead of time. They're free available online, but we have this reservation system because we've been renovating the museum over the past several years and there's a lot of interest and enthusiasm. And we want to make sure that if you're in the museum, you have a great experience and it's not just too crowded. So we are limiting the number of people coming through the museum. So just plan ahead. It's not so hard to get those tickets, but you often have to plan a few days in advance in the peak season. Thank you so much for joining us. We're very excited. Listen, the museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It opened July 1, 1976, which of course was the bicentennial year. So here we go with the 50th anniversary in our 250th anniversary of the country. Nothing better than a good visit to the Air and Space Museum on our National Mall. Y'all live in Washington, D.C. People travel all over the world to come here. It's right in your backyard. Don't take it for granted. Get out there and check out our Air and Space Museum. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you. It is 844. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.