Why Artemis 2 is not landing yet

7:42So, the the first major question you see in every comment thread on every NASA account is, "Oh, we're going back to the moon, but why aren't we landing?" And this is something we did cover at length in the long form, but I think it'd be helpful just to briefly summarize again. We We did Apollo in the '60s. We have not done anything similar. There I The first point I want to bring up is that low Earth orbit and going to the moon is the the distances Yeah. are are just fundamentally very different. >> Insane. We've got 200,000 mi to the moon, and low Earth orbit is like 100 mi. >> Right. Tops. Right. Right. So, it's just These are just different >> Yeah, like a several orders of

8:23magnitude. Right. You can run If you can be good at a 5K, that doesn't mean you're going to be good at an ultramarathon. >> Yeah. You need different training, you need different diet, body mechanics, all these things. >> And this isn't even a 5K. I would I think it's closer like it's like a 400-m relay >> Right. Versus versus a marathon. Right. So, pretty insane. And part of the part of the reason why again we're not landing is The analogy I brought up when we did the long-form episode is if you're the Dallas Cowboys, the football team, and you won so many Super Bowls decades ago, Yeah. that doesn't mean you're going to win Super Bowls today. No. You have different personnel, different coaching, different financial

9:04incentives, and knowledge is lost when you don't continue You have dynasties because you have the same coach coming back with the same training staff, the same offensive defensive coordinators, and you're able to build that muscle memory. When you have decades that go past, we just don't actually have the tools. Also, with Apollo at the time, we did several of these exact same types of missions. >> Yeah. Figuring making sure we can get into lower Earth orbit, then making sure we can get around it into the orbit of the moon, but always coming back before we ultimately landed the rover. >> Exactly. And this time around we're just doing literally the same process. >> Yeah. It's why it's Artemis 2 because 3 and 4 are ultimately going to get us to

9:46that landing spot while we relearn with newer tools, newer systems, a new gaffer, coach, and new personnel, all these things. >> And just to continue on that point with Apollo, right? Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 went to the moon and never landed. >> Right. >> Because you got to make sure you can get there and also scope out sort of a parking spot. That's what they're doing here. They're they're going towards the back of the moon cuz they want to scope out a parking spot about where to land Maybe for Apollo 3. >> Or sorry, Artemis 3. Maybe also check out what the Chinese are doing on the dark side of the moon, which we can't see Right. from Earth. Yeah. Well, NASA's curious mission. >> just to linger on that point actually with the dark side of the moon, right? One of the big things is that Artemis is going to go around the moon and see that

10:27dark side, which hasn't been seen by astronauts in a very long time. Um right now as of the taping of this episode, so Thursday, April 2nd, one day after the launch the moon has a full moon phase. The moon has a full moon in the sky, right? But what that means is the dark side of the moon is completely dark. Okay? In 3 days it's going to be a a waning gibbous, which means that most uh like, you know, 70% of the moon is going to be light for us. But when they get to the other side of the moon, it's going to be like pretty dark. There's going to be a line though where they're going to see a crescent. Mhm. >> The moon is going to be kind of a crescent because part of it is going to be lit up by the sun, but the rest is

11:08going to be dark. And I had a naive question like, why shouldn't you time it so that it's a new moon, that way the dark side of the moon is lit up? >> yeah. >> Right? I looked it up. It's a pretty uh pretty clever timing that they've done. The reason is if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, have you been to the Grand Canyon? >> Okay, but you definitely should. It's one of the greatest places on Earth, by the way. Um but if you go to the Grand Canyon, the best pictures are taken at sunrise and sunset. Okay? Why? Because there's shadows. And shadows give you a profile of the canyon. >> That's actually okay, that makes sense. Yeah yeah yeah. >> you go when it's fully light, or if you take photos of the Grand Canyon when the sun is overhead, the photos don't look

11:50so good. Because you don't get that contrast between shadows, and you can't really tell topographically the terrain that well. >> That makes sense. >> So, they want to go when they're at a cusp between light and dark, because that's when we can see terrain really, really well. Especially if we're looking for a parking spot. Uh, the being able to understand what the surface looks like matters, and this is a more ideal circumstance to do that. >> Exactly. So, in 3 days when they get there, there's actually going to be a line. They're going to see a crescent on the dark side, and that's when they can really see craters and things like that really, really well. Um, so I thought that was really cool. The final thing that I wanted to talk about was, um, the problems that they've been having. I think their toilet broke,

12:30but I think they fixed it. So, that's good, because that would That would be definitely I want to go home. Right? I don't I like the moon. I I The moon is great, but like, yo, the toilet is broken? Come on. No, I I want to go home.