Why Artemis II can see more than Apollo did

23:30closer to the moon, I want to do a quick recap of what the Apollo astronauts saw when they got to the moon and why Artemis is so different compared to what Apollo saw. The Apollo astronauts did not see everything. Okay? They flew very close to the moon. So, over here we we keep hearing about the record that was broken, right? Artemis 2 is going to be the farthest humans ever in the history of ever. >> Yes. >> Okay? The reason for that is that Artemis 2 is really far away from even the moon. On the lower picture there you're seeing where Apollo 13 was, very close to the surface, only about hundreds of miles

24:11away from the moon. >> Yes. >> Apollo Artemis 2 is thousands of miles away from the moon. It's overshooting the moon by quite a bit. >> Okay? And so that's why it's so much farther. Now, that gives us two advantages okay? The first advantage is you get to see big big parts of the moon. >> Right. >> Right? And so, what I mean by that is if you look at what the Apollo astronauts were doing, they didn't actually see everything. This is a map of what the Apollo astronauts saw. If you're close to the moon, you're going to run into a horizon issue. >> Okay. >> Right? Because imagine you're close to a round body. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you can only look so far. Even even

24:52up here, if you go to the beach, right? You can't see >> Right. >> Because the earth is not flat. Like you can't see all the way, right? There's going to be some limit to what you can see. Despite how high you get, if you don't get high enough to really see the entire circle, there's still going to be a horizon issue. So, over here what we're seeing is the the lighter regions >> Yes. >> are what the Apollo astronauts saw. >> Mhm. >> And you can see that the poles >> Yes. >> really see because imagine, you're going around the moon like this. >> Yeah. >> You can't see past the horizon. >> Right. They just saw the middle belt. >> Mhm. >> Right. >> Because you're so close to the to the to the surface of the moon, only hundreds of miles. On the other hand, Artemis is going to be pretty far away.

25:34>> Right. >> So, it's going to be able to see the entire thing. And one of the cool things that that that was happening was, you know, this is going to be their first time these four individuals is going to be the first time going around the moon. It's going to be the first time that humanity is going to be this far away. They're going to have like, you know, uh the course of like 5 hours to observe the whole thing. You got to do dry runs. >> Right. Okay. >> It can't be the first time that you're seeing everything and like trying to plan, "Oh, point the camera here. Point the camera there." So, NASA very astutely had practice runs at their mission control center where on the right you see Reid Wiseman, the commander, and Jeremy Hansen with the Nikon D5 camera and the lenses that they're going to use. And they're

26:14practicing what the moon will look like. They're exactly the right distance away >> Yeah. >> to to have the moon be how big they would see it. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And they're like, "Okay, when we get to this part," the science team is telling them, "I need you to take photos of See that crater there? I need you to take photos of that crater with high fidelity. I need you to when you get to this part, as the moon is turning around, I need you to get over here." So, there's a dry run and a practice run. It's not their first time that they're like seeing this. Obviously, it's different when you're up there, >> Yes. >> but like to have that dry run is super important. >> That's so that's so interesting. I love that they're giving they're going through basically like fo- photography tutorial class. >> Yeah. >> Which again, I think you know, the the functions that

26:56an astronaut needs to be not only competent but exceptional in are so so orthogonal to each other. All right, you have to be under you understand how to a camera, you have to be an engineer, you have to know math, you have to be able to fly. Like I know I'm I'm being a little I know different members of the crew are exceptional in different categories. But this is why a lot of space TV shows and stuff where like society is spacefaring, I'm like not this society in its current state. Because just because the the level of like rigor >> Yeah. >> that you need to actually commit to uh to survive in space >> Yeah.

27:36>> uh long term is non-trivial. >> Exactly. I I think that's a really good point and there's a lot of practice involved. >> Yes. Yes. >> Right? It's not just you're just winging it. >> You don't put >> You can't do that. >> Yeah, right. Right. >> When you've got 5 hours to do one of the greatest things that humanity has done over the past 50 years, right? So I thought that was really cool that they're just straight up practicing. >> I just also want to say that we appreciate and respect this in every other space. When athletes talk about oh I trained hard and people go to the gym like goals like fit goals and all this stuff. Like clearly we know in everyday life that quote unquote what they told us in school practice makes perfect. >> Yeah. >> Right? It's very like understandable.

28:17>> Yeah. >> And yet when we go to space everyone just like forget like there's this weird thing where they're like >> why why aren't we landing? It's like no, we didn't practice.