Off-Nominal - 237 - Farside Standard Time (with Kelsey Young)

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Kelsey Young, Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead, joins Jake and Anthony to talk about the science of Artemis II, incorporating science into human spaceflight, and obviously, to spread Moon Joy. Topics Off-Nominal - YouTube Episode 237 - Farside Standard Time (with Kelsey Young) - YouTube Artemis Internal Science Team - NASA Science Artemis II Lunar Flyby - NASA The Planets Shine Bright | NASA Image and Video Library Solar Eclipse of the Heart - NASA ESA - Stunning image of Rosetta above Mars taken by the Philae lander camera Follow Kelsey Kelsey Evans Young - Sciences and Exploration Directorate Follow Off-Nominal Subscribe to the show! - Off-Nominal Support the show, join the Discord Off-Nominal (@offnom) / Twitter Off-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Follow Jake WeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to Mars WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | Twitter Jake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | Twitter Jake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Follow Anthony Main Engine Cut Off Main Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | Twitter Main Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Anthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | Twitter Anthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘 Off-Nominal Merchandise Off-Nominal Logo Tee WeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Hello, Jake. We're here. I'm so pumped for this show. So we've got Kelsey Young with us from the Artemis 2 mission. And literally like the moment that we started doing anything science on the live streams. And Kelsey, you appeared on there. Anthony's like, we're getting her on the show immediately because it was exactly the right vibe that we wanted to get for this mission.

It looks like it was so much fun. and we're really excited to talk to you about it. So, yeah. Thanks for having me and the interest in talking about the science. I'm glad we have a full hour to, like, dive deep into the details. Very exciting. Yeah, we don't do, we don't do ephemeral conversations here. Last week, Casey Dyer made us go an hour and a half.

He made us go long. Yes, I heard. He demanded it. So, yeah, if you want to come back for parts two and three and four, we're good with that. Careful what you wish for. Yeah. We haven't talked like Artemis Science, James. since the other Dr. Oz was on the show.

The Good Doctor House. Yeah, Gordon Azzynski on, yeah. Right? Yeah, the Good Doctor House, yeah. Yeah, we haven't dug into it a while, so it's going to be fun to kind of see where it's evolved to from. Because back when we talked to him, it was like... Hold on. Hold on.

We need someone out there to do The Good Doctor and Dr. Oz and make it the good Dr. Oz, but it's him. We need like a full-on combo of all these things. We can do this now with Jake. With the AI... The Internet is for. This is exactly it. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, what was he on to talk about? That was like 15 years ago. Yeah, that was, I mean, he was on to do like, like, as early astronaut training plans for Artemis, like, you know, because that's what he was involved with, right? So it was like early ideas about like what we were going to do when we said people out there. And then that was, yeah, how many or many years ago. But now we're, we did some of it. We're doing it.

Good news. I have some updates. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. That's good. Cool. You have drinks to start with.

Kelsey, did you bring anything fun to share? You know, I have to go parent to beautiful, lovely, but precocious young children after. So I did bring space-themed beverage holder. So tea in a moon mug made by my sister with her own two hands. And then, of course, a space-themed water. Nice. With your name on it, though. Does that also say your name on it?

Did I see that? It does. It was a gift. and it's gotten heavy use since it came into my life. What about you guys? Can't lose it. You can't lose it. Did you make something crazy, Jake?

Not that great. It looks crazier than it is. Not a mead day? Look at this. Wow, that's a goblet. Look at this thing. It's a goblet, yeah. This is just, I'll go to Jamaica, right?

It's just like hibiscus drink. Yeah, obviously. It's just like, I don't know. It's just flower water, basically. But it's very nice. and it's good on a hot day. Wow. Way better than hot tea on a hot day.

I don't know what I was doing. Yeah. It's like 90. I think you're roughly close enough to me that it's probably also 90. Maybe it's hot, you know. That's hot for you. I don't know if you know how hot 90 is.

It's hot. No idea. I brought the very appropriate field study. I thought there was no more appropriate a beer, Jake, to get the field study summer IPA. I thought that would be a good one. Perfect. Can't do a lot of, we don't get a lot of space-themed beer here on these coast, but

Yeah, this one works. Makes the field geologist very happy. Yeah, it's also delicious. Absolutely delicious. Perfect. All right. We're starting with this photo. But this was the exact moment, Kelsey.

This is the moment when I went, yep, she's coming on the show immediately. Like, the fun thing about the science test. right? Is that this mission had such a shape to it where like obviously a lot of a lot of drama for the past 20 years of SLS Orion they board the spaceship and launch immediately no one was expecting that even them reportedly in their best conferences and there was so much excitement or following the live stream getting amped up and then there was like a nice little science interlude amongst all of this other human spaceflight chaos and it was just everyone was so in on it that it

It had to be fun to be sitting at a desk that said science. First of all, that feels like a nice accomplishment. Wow, you're like burrowing into like the deepest part of my emotions about all of this. Right off the jump. Let's get into it. Yeah, so I mean, I honestly have spent my career, you know, ultimately developing in part, you know, that console. So I was just so extremely proud, truly. thankfully I got out all of my like big feelings as again as a mother of two young children big feelings

about it prior to the mission because of course once we have you know our friends and colleagues in spaces you know go mode but the first time I saw the sign on that console so many feelings so the the fact that I got to honestly sit at it at all even as kind of like you know even if it was just as a tourist and instead I got to actually sit at the console and perform the functions that I have spent my entire career, just imagining and hoping we could develop and implement. It's going to stay with me for a very long time. Yeah, yeah. Can you, because this is new, right?

So in Apollo, there was no science desk like this, correct? So can you, like, can you talk about- So, yeah, it's geopolitics on the desk. Yeah, just said geo-ge-ge. Yeah, instead of geophysics. Yeah, that's a console in the other room. Can you explain maybe then, like, you know, the science that did happen in an Apollo mission, how was that managed if there was no desk for it? And then, you know, what benefits does that

get now that you can run something like that? Like, what was the like direct impact of having that desk, you know, as a first class citizen in the operation? Oh, gosh. Well, so in Apollo, they, it evolved, obviously, throughout the Apollo missions, you know, the structure of the science backroom and the geology support. of the mission really evolved mission to mission. But toward the end, it got to the point where there was a backroom of geologists. And of course, this was, you know, during Apollo. So I'm sure the mental picture you have in your mind is accurate. So it was a room in mission control full of amazing geologists and scientists, some of whom are still, you know, in the community. And we've actually

been able to talk to a few of them, which has been a real highlight. And they were getting their input up to the crew around and on the moon through flight controllers in the front room, but that were not specialists in geology and lunar science. Notably, you know, Jim Lovell was really, really committed and excited about bringing, you know, science input through the front room, but we, again, did not have, as you point out, a console in the front room. So being able to achieve that level of integration into flight operations, I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, there are literally no words that I can find to describe the depth of the pride I feel for, you know, that accomplishment. And I'll say the flight operations community,

when I first started kind of like integrating with them many, many years now ago, it took a bit, you know, to sort of, you know, open the door a little smush and then kind of start to like squeeze my way through the door. And it took many years of just trust building, right? And letting them know that, you know, science on these missions will not come at the expense of crew or vehicle safety. And that by, you know, integrating us into the flight control team, it means that we can, you know, really enhance science, the ability of these missions to accomplish scientific objectives while integrating it in the right way to keep ultimately the crew and vehicle safe. And, I mean, honestly, it comes down to trust. and what you saw on fly-by-day of not just us sitting in the front room, but the flight control team being confident enough in our, you know, in, in us to allow us to speak to the crew directly is a testament to both the years of hard work and trust building, but also just to the flight operations community and how welcoming they have been from, you know, for over the last few years. Yeah, because I feel like that was even, you know, forget the science part of this desk. Just the fact that there was almost like a, you know, there was a communication.

handoff from Capcom to you, like that, that felt remarkable just on its own, like, regardless of what you were actually doing that site. Because usually it's like very centralized, right? This felt like it was much more. That just stood out to me as something that was different, right? I'll be honest. Yeah. I mean, we always were going to, you know, from many, many months ago, have these crew conferences

that you may have. It sounds like you watched an awesome amount of the broadcast. I'm assuming you saw them. Anything we were awake for and then also caught up on the two hours. two hours while the crew was still sleeping the next day. So yes. Enough that my marriage was strained. Yeah.

Yeah. We're going to talk about that later because I have some notes from my five-year-old for you. So, yeah. Oh. So the, you know, the crew conference I did with them, you know, an hour before the flyby started. And then the crew conference I did the next morning to, like, kind of talk science with them, um, we're always on the table. But, you know, it was, it was sort of later in the process that, you know,

you know, working with the flight director, Jeff Radigan and the Capcom for the day, Jenny Givens, who is a huge fan of your show. Hi, Jenny. Working with them to sort of like build that chemistry and rapport and trust and how the handoffs between myself and Jenny were going to work. And so again, I just, I'm so grateful to work with this entire team. And Jenny and Jeff were just, you know, really game to, you know, make this work, given the trust that our entire flight control team had built with each other. I would like, over to you, nerds. Go ahead. we don't want to deal with this nothing about valves here

get over there how did that go from the operations perspective too because the the time on the schedule that was left for like all right now we're doing flyby work right we're sort of like making sure the ship's good we'll check in

every hour or something like that or we'll just do a quick health check but otherwise this is just science mode how did you determine what that time snippet was going to be? Was it a distance from the moon when it's like, all right, now we're into the useful distance, or what was the gating element? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I don't know.

This is the longest interview I've been able to do about Artemis II Lear Science and the fact that you can sit here and ask me that question and I have time to answer it. I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is what you're crazy. They don't let us ask questions in the press conferences, which is another topic. But that's why we invite people here where we're allowed to ask questions. I'm just like, wow, and we can actually talk about the details. This is so great. So, I mean, it was, it was months and months of work. You know, as I was, I was our, you know, I was, I was, I wore two hats for this mission. One was the Lunar's land's lead and one was our science flight operations lead and, you know, the lead of this man's officer console. So with that second hat that I wore, you know, in the ops, off side of the house, which is a hat I'll continue to wear for future Artemis missions. You know, my job is to, you know, be in all. of these super glamorous many, many multi-hour meetings where all of these things get talked about

and decided. And frankly, it was just such a challenge and so fun. I mean, like being in a room with other engineers, flight controllers, both from across NASA and also Lockheed to figure out, you know, what is the thermal and power margin that we can make available that day on fly-by-day? And then, of course, we simmed over and over and over again. And we simmed conditions where whoops, you know, there was a failure going into flyby day. So how does that impact the amount of time that we have available for the flyby? And I can't say enough about how committed the rest of the flight control team was and the Lockheed team was in saying, okay, you're telling me that this is a value. Like let's, you know, like let's get into it. Let's do the really integrated and time-consuming

work that is required, analysis work that's required to say, you know, the science team is saying it's really value add to get eyes on this eclipse. So let's figure out how to make it happen. While I was the advocate in the room, I was met with nothing other than exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of engineers and operators at Nisa, which is let's get creative. Let's figure it out.

We do have to talk about the eclipse, Jake. We do. We're going to reserve time for the eclipse haters here. What's up, guys? No, no, no, no. I've been defending. I've been out here standing for it. Okay. Take that up with the man below here.

Okay, well, I hope we have time for that, because if not, I'm going to demand 90 minutes as well. I do. I do want to cover the clips, but I want to just build off Anthony's question real quick here. Because I'm always interested in the human constraints of the science part of this, because, like, on one hand, you know, most planetary scientists are not really used to factoring, like, human limitations into their observations, right? They got a robot flying around Mars. It's just constantly taking photos. There's just a stream of ones and zeros coming back to you and you just ingest that and distribute it. And out it goes, right? But in this, it was more, you have to factor in something like, okay, well, this is how long they can be awake and working for because there's a limit to that. And then you have, you know, there's like the handoff where it's like, well, we need different people doing this.

We got to have these little breaks. And then you switch cameras to being on the comm and, and, you know, who's doing what? And then factoring all that. And then they got to eat at some point. And, you know, like just. Maybe it was your team that sabotage the vent line. Darn, they have to go to the mags. Stay at the window.

How'd you know? So there's that side of it. But on the other hand, though, like I also remember that like geologists are pretty accustomed to like flying out the middle of nowhere and camping and human limitations are a big part of that constantly. And so I guess my question is, did it feel good and normal or weird and hard? Like, you know, how did that play into your planning and how you operate? that. It felt normal. I think because of what you said about, you know, I do do a lot of field work

and I do a lot of field work in remote areas and I, you know, have been remote camping with these four humans before as well. And we're able to like build that common language, trust, etc. that you, I think saw, you know, bear out on flyby day there. But also, again, it's, you know, while this was my first human space flight mission that I supported operations for, everybody I was working with within the flight operations community, you know, like they have, they have so much experience to give and to share with me. And they never,

they never balked at my probably very silly, stupid questions. Again, it was a team effort from start to finish. Were there challenges? Absolutely. For example, there were certain things that could have happened, you know, on route from, you know, the

between launch and getting to the moon that would have pushed our arrival a few hours later than initially planned. No big deal, right? You're just like getting to your destination a few hours earlier shouldn't be a big deal. Crew day. They have to sleep. They have to sleep not at crazy, you know, not too, at two short intervals and not at two long intervals from sleep period to sleep period.

And just massive implications on trying to just like, you know, plan for all. all of those different possible outcomes, while also staying true to our science objectives, with first and foremost, you know, crew safety and vehicle safety and mission safety being the top priority. I love it. I mean, I just think that this is so fun. Is it challenging? Absolutely. And I just, I feel so lucky that this is the challenge that I get to work on at work every day. This is awesome. I had such a like stupid idiot moment when I was watching it because like in the first in the first couple of days I you know I was it's like you're getting used to the schedule like okay wake up you turn the live stream on but at some point I was like man why do they sleep in so late like this is so weird it's like 11 o'clock and they're getting out like with such a strange like who picked this time it's not like it's not Texas time it's not Zooloo what is going on and then like it took me like probably like two three days where I went oh yeah it's obviously time for the stupid can fly by it's Like, that's why they're... It's moon time.

Okay. It's far side time. Far side standard time. If you're going to ask me what one of the most, like, just like absolute frustrating bang my head against a wall for multiple years, things about this was, was schedules and timeline. Because, yes, that, like, every single minute within a launch window actually drives the rest of the schedule. We care about that because we are just.

generating a list of targets for the crew that we have to generate after they launch, because it's not until they launch that we actually know when they're going to be getting to the moon. And if we don't know that, we don't know which 180 degrees of the moon are actually illuminated and therefore we can't give them a target that wouldn't actually be visible to them. And so those minutes turn into hours and hours for us matter. And then every launch period, like February, March, April, May, way different constraints on when within the 24-hour day those things would have occurred. So count your lucky stars that we went when we did because the fact that the flyby was actually during the day for most of North America was like big win, big win.

Man, I didn't even think about that. Like I thought about that for the eclipse, but not, yeah, not the attention that it generated. That's, yeah, that's crazy. And then the eclipse was only possible if we launched on specific days. So we were then now tracking multiple timelines for us for the purposes of all. things moon, tracking multiple timelines, even just across one six-day launch window. And then you have the Sims, because the Sims used different, they had to pick, you have to pick a mission profile to Sim, right? And there's a ton of work that the amazing Sim team does to, like,

make these Sims possible and high fidelity enough that the flight controllers who are like certifying and getting ready to fly and the crew, like have realistic conditions to Sim. So the sim loads are really, really complex, really challenging to put together. And you can't really just change them any time you want. Right. So you're simming to a specific date, a specific launch date and a specific flyby date that's just off enough that for us where that like real specificity matters, it's a massive challenge. And we had, we had seven flyby sims and a number of crew training sessions which also used a simulated lunar targeting package. So the number of timelines that our team was managing. And it mattered because it was like if Earth Rise is like six minutes off

for what the crew is saying and what the ground is seeing. And then the crew has this beautiful lunar targeting plan. Like I mean, it is enough to just, it's the little things. So I'm glad to just The timeline was the timeline. It's done. And now it's, you know, being concerned about our- What you're telling me is I should stop complaining that they were sleeping into 11 o'clock. I'm just saying I actually, that was my like, just way too long-winded way of saying, I feel this deeply.

And it was more of those struggles in the past. What was your, of all those permutations, what illumination percentage of the far side were you hoping to get? Because I think there's a lot, like, you know, I would say the vast majority of the audience that listen to this knows that the Terminator is where it's at. Like, if they ever look through a telescope, it's like, you don't really, like, looking at the telescope, looking at the full moon and a telescope, not that fun. Looking at any other illumination state, super fun. What was your, did you have like a line that you were hoping they would hit?

Or are you just like, whatever? I have to say I'm happy with how it launched. You and Victor, Terminator, swooning over the Terminator. Oh, it's the best. The Terminator's the goat, and Victor's the best. So, yeah, obviously, he's right. No. Heading into the April window, I was asked a lot, including by the crew on several occasions, like, which launch date do you want? Which launch date do you want? And my answer for April,

like for that window was truly any moon we got was going to be great. Because the first and the second had, as you guys know, a low percentage of far side illumination, but they had the eclipse. And then as they get closer, oh my gosh. What's happening here? I don't know what's happening here. We got us. I hit a button on my stream. Sorry, go ahead.

It's going great. Later in the window, there was no eclipse, but there would have been a lot of far side illumination, which means more sections of the far side that had never before been seen by human eyes would have been accessible to our crew, as well as big portions of the South Polar region, which, as you know, is very exciting for us looking to the future.

So I truly felt that there was no bad moon for April. You know, I will be candid, especially now that we have launched and successfully, that the farther we moved into 2026 would have been very sad. So I was just, the mission happened. They did great. They saw a moon. They saw an eclipse. Like, super happy. Would it have been dark?

It was getting pretty close to. Well, it's not usually the dark side. But right now it's the dark side. We would have been stuck in that for months. Oh my gosh. I didn't even think of that, honestly. That would have been terrible. It would be a horrible thing.

That would be so terrible. Yeah. It is currently the dark side, but it's not usually the dark side. Yeah. Thank goodness we didn't do this prior to the mission because I had not connected those thoughts. And that would have been in my nightmares. I would have become a launch constraint. Yeah.

Oh, jeez. Yeah. We kind of end up having like the, the Venn diagram of good launching them because the deeper you got into 2026, the launch times were better because it started it like late in the dark and then it got closer to closer to prime time, right?

So there we go. The launch times were getting better and the flyby was getting worse and you met in the middle. You need a third access in that, which is landing time. Right. I think it was like the main driver

of launch window timing. Right? I've talked to a couple people on the trajectory side. Yeah, because it's like landing in the dark obviously adds its own complexities. And so it was those, the EGS teams and the recovery. I mean, wow, like they have a really hard job and they were really going through it, like getting that vehicle off the ground safely. And also the recovery team, I mean, they were, you know, they were staying ready. I do not envy the job that they did.

But I am very grateful and proud to even be in their orbit. It's a lot. There was a fourth constraint, which was the ability to fly confetti from the Eagle Super Bowl victory around the moon. That was a unknown fourth constraint. I don't know if anyone was realizing that. Goberts. I've heard that. I've heard that.

I can't say Gobirds. That's like it's just against everything I stand for. It's okay. But I am a fan of Pristina, so I can be on board with that. Big times out here, Jake. People are thrilled. Listen, you got a Super Bowl like yesterday, basically. So I just have very little sympathy.

Yeah. It's great. Things are great, you know. She went viral multiple times in the mission, and the Philadelphia area was just obsessed with her picture from the ISS where she was like Philly's jersey, Eagles hat. It was great times. Everyone was pumped.

So. Sunday, we'll get an aspect of space wearing a commander's jersey. No. You know? Jeez. Daniels might be too tall to send his face, but he's pretty tall. He wouldn't fit. He wouldn't fit.

Although, how tall is Jeremy? He looks pretty tall. He's pretty tall. Yeah. He's definitely over six feet, but I'm not sure his exact height. Yeah. The targeting plan you're talking about, were there targets that would depend, like, apparently you're not as much of Terminator lover as me and Victor, but are there targets

that change based on the? lighting scenarios. Like this one is a target if it's side lit and not vertical lit and like, okay, big eyes. Let's hear. Let's hear about it. Oh my gosh. I should have figured out, not just for this podcast, but in general, how much, how many LTPs when our targeting plans are team built from start to finish. It was so many, so so many. Like we evolved them based on, just the formatting of them based on crew feedback, but also for every sim, we built a new one. We built new ones for like the different launch windows in 2020. We built so many LTPs.

And so what we did was build out an almanac of 360 degrees of lunar surface, right? So we just, we wouldn't know what moon we were going to get. So we built targets out for the whole, whole entirety of the moon. There was something like, I think, 150, so maybe slightly over 150 targets in the Almanac overall. It wasn't necessarily the case that we would rule out other features that weren't in the Almanac, but it was like a really great place for our team to start when we knew we would only have a couple days, right, to turn around in the final targeting plan. The lighting conditions matter obviously for what targets you can see and what you cannot, but specifically our photometry

objectives and our color and albedo observation objectives. You know, illumination is a really big part that. And so the date we got was not the best example of this. But for some of the later dates in April, had we launched like four or five days later than we did, we obviously would have had much more far side to play with and therefore like more illumination to play with as well. So for that LTP, we would have had many more targets that the crew imaged and looked at more than one time. For this mission, we had one, one target that one pair viewed more than one time. And that was just a function of the moon we got. So the lighting really drives, yes, target is visible or no, it's not, but also these are the ideal lighting conditions to view it in for what our science

objectives are, as well as the gap in time between observations for the targets that we had them hit more than one. Should we do eclipse first, Jake? Should we do eclipse first or skepticism about how much value human eyes brought to this? Which one should we do first? Let's do let's do a clip. Let's do eclipse. Let's do a clips. Okay. Okay. To restay where we're at, I was in a clip stand. Jake was saying, it's not really, how's this different? And then he saw the picture, and I think he's a little bit of a convert. Where are we at now, Jake, post-flight? Well, it's been a, it's been a pendulum. I'm not going to lie. Okay. So, okay, so first of all, I want to be clear that I think what they saw was probably awesome, okay? That's not the part that's in question. No, it doesn't count. It doesn't

Okay, no, I was confused at first because... Gatekeeping, the four people that flew around the fucking moon. Last week. They didn't really soon quit. Listen, listen, I'll explain myself. And we'll get a ruling. I think Kelsey is well positioned to deliver the final. Listen, Jake, we're going to fight our way through the entire Artemis II mission.

Kelsey's on now. Apparently, Jenny's coming on at some point. Jeremy's definitely coming on. on because you got a CSA hookup. We're going to fight our way through the whole team that was working on this. Yeah, yeah, I imagine. Okay. Okay. So my initial confusion was that to me the word eclipse is very specific because it was, you know, if you have, if you have bodies in, you know, astronomical space passing in front of each other, if the one in front is like smaller, we would call that a transit. And if it's bigger, we would call that an occultation. And then eclipse is like a very specific,

magical thing that we get on Earth because the apparent difference between the size of the moon and the sun when they're in that direction is like almost the same. And so you can block the sun, but still see the corona. So to me, eclipse was like a very specific thing. And I didn't think this met the criteria of that because totally different distances. Moon was like enormous in their viewpoint. And so I was like, well, this just sounds like a sunrise and a sunset to me. I couldn't understand what was different about it. So that was my first reaction. I'm going to put that on the record first. You're shaking and not in your head.

So I'm wondering, like, by this definition, you know, from Earth, is a partial eclipse, not an eclipse? Because you don't have the complete blockage that you're describing. It's a great question. Great question. I don't know. I'm asking kind of here. And I think on the human element. I don't know.

Yeah. Like from the human element, not the, like, lunar science lead. this mission, like, element. Like, I mean, sorry to, like, wax a little poetic here, but, like, an eclipse is in the eye of the beholder, too, right? Like, you can have your own definition. I can disagree with it. And I can't wait to see if you could Jenny and Jeremy on here

and see what they have. But technically, the moon was eclipsing the sun. Excellent, excellent. So then that photo came out. Do you have that photo handy there? Yeah, this one? This guy? Did you have it pop? Yeah.

So when this came out and this one came out, I said, I think in our chat, my quote was, I yield. This is beautiful. Because this is like, this to me does feel very eclipsy. You can see the corona on all sides of it. Like then I was like fully on board. Yes, it's an eclipse team. But then you found out it was in all corona?

Yeah. It's all like zodiacal. He's a corona elitist. Oh, it's just the Zodiacal light. Yeah. Also not the fucking coolest thing to see. Like, what are we doing here, man? Also, just because it's mostly Zodiacal light does not rule it out as an eclipse.

That's what I mean. Image coolness does not equanim. And they still did see the corona for a long time because the other thing that was fun for people experience is how slow they were moving when they were near the moon. It was so, so slow. It's like a plane can fly that fast, you know? And so they did see the corona for a while, even if this particular photo was not the corona. Yes.

I will say, and all of this, we're working as fast as we can, I promise, to make all of these images and data public. But another data set the crew was collecting at the time was annotations, sketches. And just like a field geologist in the field, like, loses their field notebook in different ways, like that it resonates with them to capture what they're seeing in the field. These four people use them different ways as well. Someone who used it a lot when I can't wait for the, for you guys to see these annotations was Jeremy. Jeremy had some really spectacular annotations, including some of the corona.

So stay tuned. He will be able to see the streamer sketches he made. And there are also images that show those streamers that you heard him describing real time as well. So while this image is mostly zodiacal light, while this image of the eclipse is mostly zodiacal light, I promise you're going to get some of what you're craving in terms of. of Corona before too long. There's even like Mars in this photo, Jake? Come on, man.

This is like they went. It's a beautiful photo. Like, oh, for all I know Jeremy took this. A Canadian took this photo. Do we know who took this photo? Are we ever going to know who took these photos? Yes, we will know. Do we know this one?

Is it, I would love it to be Jeremy. So I can hold it even higher over Jake said. There were three cameras they were using during this time period. Y'all were trying to have them swap SD cards on these things. their preference. Okay. We want the pictures.

Yeah, I was like, screw that. Just like pass me the camera. We'll sort it out in post, you know? Like, whatever, we'll figure it out. I also think last week you might have showed the picture from the Orion Solar Array wing cameras. That one really blew me away as well. Honestly, it felt like, you know, again, not even with my science hat on, but just like, like, like my human, you know, being a human being on this planet and hearing the awe and wonder

in their voice perspective, I just felt like, I don't know, that that one got me a little bit when I saw it for the first. Like, look at that. Yeah. Come on. It's a stunning. Amazing. Absolutely.

I'm on record being a big sucker for, for spacecraft and foreground and planetary body and background photos. Like that's like a big win for me. One of my favorites is when Rosetta went by. Mars and so you got like there's like all that like the solar arrays and then Mars path well just want to ask the favorite photos so that one's a that one's a winner for me too yeah was it uh you can dig it up yeah I got it the the ESA website now as good as NASA website to be honest um it's like they have less

budget what is going on here geez this one are talking this yeah yeah that's killer That's great. That's great. Look at those crazy. Hell yeah. Good one. It took me like a few seconds, which is like a few seconds too long to be like, planetary body, not moon, because that is where my, like I have been living, breathing, sleeping, dreaming. But when I was just like, what am I looking at? Oh, yeah. You can't, what, your human eyes can't pick up this color, Kelsey? What's going on here? I hear. I hear there challenges with that. I was very specific when I

said planetary body and as you can see I'm very interested in taxonomy. Yeah. Definitions, huge, huge in your world, Jake. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. All right. If you, if you knew that we showed

pictures in the show last week, maybe you listened to doubter Casey Dreyer. I did. And I will say there's, you know, there's Jen pocked out about this too, right? People just non-space nerds are like, really, though? Like, what's going on? So give us general stance.

And I also kind of want to figure out when you look at this mission overall from the science perspective, right? There's the scientific returns, but there's also what you did talk about a lot during the course of the mission was like how to do science on human spaceflight missions. Like, where were we out on the spectrum going in and where were we at coming out? We're like, did you get less results than you were hoping, but more experience on how to do science or vice versa or what? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I take those things in separate bins in my mind because that's just how my brain works.

So first of all, on the, like, lunar science part, the, you know, the color and, you know, albedo nuance discussion. Man, where do I even begin? Cameras are incredible. Humans cannot see an infrared or ultraviolet. That is absolutely true. Human beings also have the advantage of, you know, training and a well-trained brain and working with each other as field scientists as a team to build off of what they're seeing, just as field geologists have done on Earth for many, many decades. You actually heard them say that real time. They said that they were actually having a scientific discussion while they were doing their field work, because that's in essence what this was. And it was enabling them to ask smarter questions in the moment and influence the type of of science that they were able to perform. You heard them ask me questions about like stratigraphic age of major far side features that they were using to inform what they were doing. That was my favorite. That was a highlight actually because she didn't get the answer she wanted

at first too when she asked that. How old is this? And then I was like, oh, it's younger than this. And she's like, give me a year. You're like, pull chat, GPC out of your pocket real quick and run this through if you're not going to give me the answer. But also then, also you're like, oh, they care. Oh my gosh. I'll give you the answer. I was. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was great. And it also proved that they were doing like exactly what we asked of them, which is to be field explorers. And again, as I've spent, you know, my entire career doing field geology and, you know, they, while they weren't, you know, swinging a rock hammer at an outcrop, they were doing field science, absolutely. And they were using each other to, to better their scientific observations. But cameras are. wonderful, and I don't think I ever said that they, that human eyes are a replacement or the amazing rovers, landed missions, orbiting spacecraft that provide absolutely fundamental critical data about the moon and, and, you know, the entire solar system. The human eye can do things

that cameras cannot do. Specifically, you know, I, we take all the new astronaut candidates out to New Mexico every year. It's actually we're coming up on that trip here in a few weeks. And on one visit, we were super fortunate to be able to spend time with Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmidt, Jack Schmidt, who I know if your listeners listened to the show last week, you heard, he heard references to his orange soil moment. And he was saying, he actually like just coincidentally time to our visit, he had just spent some time with an image analyst to help him pull out the orange color from his Hasselblad images he took on the surface because he had never seen an image that really showed the color, the striking color that he was able to see on the surface.

And so he worked with an image analyst and was able to pull it out, right, because he knew it was there. So they were actually able to like, you know, work with the data and stretch it, you know, properly to, you know, still retain like the actual data within the image, but ultimately to stretch it so that they could see that color that was so impactful for collecting samples that ultimately taught us something new and different about the lunar surface, right? So it's a tool in the toolbox of a field scientist to be able to make those observations. I think I heard you guys asking a question last week about, huh, these pictures like almost look a little bit browner than the ones that you were used to seeing from LRO and from Apollo. And that is because these camera units,

use a Bayer filter, which kind of creates this sort of stretching in an attempt to, for these Nikon cameras, make the images for the average user of these Nikon cameras, like, more similar to what the human eye experience is. So fortunately, we know all of that. We know what filters the cameras have. For the 2D5 Nikon cameras, we were able to do ground testing with them. The Z9 was added too late to do the same equivalent calibration testing on the ground. But we were able to kind of work to understand what that would tell us about the images. And those images represent something that a human being told it to take. They were taking pictures based around our science objectives and the angle of those pictures

that they took were chosen in order to address what we were asking them to do. And so when paired with the description, When paired with the annotations and when paired with the solar array, wing camera, video, and images, we are really able to tell a more integrated story. The world has only seen a tiny, tiny piece of that story because there is a lot of data to go through and it will all be made public. And frankly, I cannot wait until that happens because I'm so excited for the community to just like, I mean, we got a lot of pictures, guys. We got a lot of audio. And there is going to be plenty to keep you guys busy as soon as we can, you know, work as fast as we can to get this out to you. Could we get like the full on audio of their observation session?

Like I can just throw it on and listen for several hours as they, that's going to be killer. It's spliced up into chunks, but yes. Okay, killer. So it's, you know, I think the important thing to know is that these observations that the crew were able to provide both their verbal observations and the images are a compliment to, not instead of. of the amazing work that, that just, let's just take LRO as one example, was able to provide. It's a cliche for a reason that science enables exploration and exploration enables science. And in this case, it's not either or. It's building, it's using all of these amazing missions, both crude and unfrood, to tell the story of lunar science and to address our high priority science questions.

I'll also say it was never the intent of Artemis II to, to, you know, nail, flat all of our 10 lunar science objectives, right? Artemis 2 is the second Artemis mission and the first crude Artemis mission, right? We have more to come. It's not on the Decaturals surveys, what you're saying. Right. This is a stepping stone, not the ultimate end-all be-all answer. And I can tell you from just spending the last 10 days with a 50-person lunar science team who has spent their careers, you know, studying these types of data, studying these features, we absolutely learned scientific information about the moon and we absolutely addressed what we set out to do, which is our 10 lunar science objectives, one of which being using human observation of color to learn something

about the lunar surface. Yeah. Yeah. Eat that, Casey. Yeah. I think that's an important thing to say, right? Because sort of, this is almost what you said, Anthony, which is like you're a humans are in space inevitableist, right? And so learning how to operate there is learning how human health works is just we should just do it because we're going to get there and that information is useful one way or another, even if you don't have like a

discrete concrete, like, you know, completely itemized objective list right in front of you on a piece of paper. I think it's the same for this. I think learning how to be people who are out in the universe doing science is like that is worthwhile objective unto itself.

Right? Like just practicing being ourselves in new environments is useful and fun and good. That's why I asked the other question of like, this is the first time we had the science desk and we need to figure out how that actually functions. So like good thing we're doing that now and not when they are running around seeing also an orange rock. Like so how much of it going in did you think was let's try to figure out like were there stuff that went differently than you planned and you were like, oh shit, we should do that differently on Arna's three?

Absolutely. I just need to say one more thing before I move on from color. You know, I think another interesting part of your eyes this conversation last week was this idea that... God, you did your homework so much more than most people did their homework. I'm nervous. Now I'm nervous. The most, if not the only valuable thing that came out of Apollo was the rocks.

Like, I am a geologist. I am a field geologist who studies actual physical rocks. for a living as evidence by like I'm like literally like looking around I'm like there's rocks everywhere all around my office my kids have started collecting them like they're my dryers full of rocks like I love rocks um and how did those rocks get selected and brought back it's because a human used their observations and their field geology skill to collect them they were collected with intent by a human being who was using you know the color filters in their own eyeballs to make those educated decisions. And so, you know, I think it speaks to this larger skill set of using a human

for field geology that can help us answer questions that it would be harder to answer with another type of mission. And, you know, Steve Squires, the PI of, you know, the spirit and opportunity rovers, I mean, he himself said that all of the amazing groundbreaking, like, transcendent science that those missions provided could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks by. an astronaut explorer if we had them on the surface with, you know, a mobile space suit and maybe a mobility asset, right? So it's not either or, right? It's and all of these things work together in harmony. And I am surrounded every day at work by the, as one example, Lunar reconnaissance orbiter team who inspires me every single day with the science that is able to come out of that.

That doesn't take away from what we're doing with Artemis II lunar science or vice versa. It's all part of the science story that, you know, NASA, you know, has been the forefront for Artemis too, but that the global science community is able to work together to unravel. And so, first of all, I completely understand where Casey is coming from, you know, the robotic and lander missions and the orbiting spacecraft have been so vital. And they absolutely are so critical to understanding our solar system, it's not an either-or. And we're able to use amazing crew members of which you just saw four of them, but there will be more to enhance science return from NASA's missions. Now I'm ready to talk about the science council. I just add to that too. I suspect that

there are, like depending on what kind of science you're doing and I don't know if levels are the right term for it. But like when you're exploring a new place, there are like big, fast, chunky, like, initial questions. And then like, it gets more refined and more thorough and longer as you go deeper in it. Right. And so a good example would be that most listeners will know is like, okay, we did the first flyby of Pluto like 10 years ago, right? And like that was, that was like a blitz. It was like, just get in and out in like a, you know, a few hours. It's like, grab all this data. We have no idea. We're just looking at everything and taking every piece of data we can get. And then we'll figure out what to do later. But like a flyby like that would not be that useful at Mars today because we've got so much data on Mars. We've got global data on Mars. We've got huge like temporal axes.

We have so much more data at Mars that a blitz flyby like that would not be as useful. And I think almost in the same sense where a person's probably better at that initial stuff, you know, to like first boots on the ground, get a layer of land. This is big, that's small. That's dark. dark, that's light. This is interesting. That's not go, go, go, go, go. And like, you know, just a triage was happening. And then you refine those questions. And then over time, you can use that to kind of guide yourself to go, okay, now I need a 10-year data set looking at this rock every day, every hour. And then we'll study that in a big computer simulation or something, right? Like, there's, you know, there's different kinds of science to do that way. I think there's also, like, right? You said it right in there yourself, right? Like, we, we did better than the fly-by blitz of Pluto because we had all of the missions that came before. And so we knew,

how to ask for more informed and targeted observations, right? And I think it'll work the same way feeding forward, right? Because you heard, especially Jeremy describing Aristarchus Plateau, which is an area that is of huge scientific interest to the broader lunar science community. And we knew to direct him there because of the importance it plays in lunar science. And he made observations, including color observations, greens and aristarchus, hooray, that could just help when those science missions are getting formulated to go to the surface, provide that additional justification for site selection and for mission selection, and ultimately potentially inform the types of science questions that those really amazing payloads and sensors and rovers that go to

the surface to Aristarchus without crew are able to tackle. So it's a big, big web that by design is interrelated. And I think it's really powerful that Artemis missions are coming at a time where we are on the heels of this ridiculous new understanding of the moon, thanks to the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, that we're so able to capitalize on that and ask amazing questions of our crew members. And you saw from these four people, they are able to deliver. Now that. I'm looking at the clock, I'm like, oh, God damn, we have 10 minutes left.

I'm sorry. I'll talk about the science council. It's my favorite. We didn't even mention the lunar impacts that were. I think the reason that you were standing like this in Mission Control was when they were like, hey, we're seeing a shitload of impacts. Rolling in. How many did you expect them to see?

And was it zero? Zero. Okay. I thought, thank God. Because I was like, there's no way they planned on seeing like, bing, bing. Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff going on up here. Yeah. Like, I think if you had asked, I actually, we should have done this, asked our lunar science

team beforehand, like how many we thought we'd see. I mean, 100% I was a zero. Like, didn't. But our impact flash investigation lead, Dr. Jen Helden, who works at Ames Research Center, she did not think it would be zero. Really, truly, she did not think it would be zero. And I think I might have said this in the press conference after the flyby, but I heard.

I had video of the server live, but there's no audio. And I did see her jump up. But I did not hear what apparently was quite a lengthy and enthusiastic scream. Fortunately, I did not have that, like, audible reaction because, you know, we're in the front room. We have to be, of course, very, very serious. But I managed to keep it together. You guys, the whole mission, despite the fact that, like, these are all my dreams coming true, like, personally and professionally. This is, like, everything I've worked for my whole career. Oh, my gosh, we're sending people to the moon. Oh, my gosh. Like, I get to be in mission control,

which is what I've been dreaming about forever at a console that, you know, I developed, like, it was like literally everything coming true. And I kept it together. I kept it together and then they saw multiple impact flashes and I have always been told I have an expressive face. And you smiled adorably? Like what is your problem with this moment? Well, I was just, you know, I want to. Like, what is the problem here? I understand. Science lady is a moniker I will wear with pride. That's a great one. I did have an emotive reaction a few days later that thankfully was not.

widely publicized because it was not a live broadcast when I was leaving console for the final time in the mission where I got I got pretty emotional. But anyway, it was a bunch of very excited scientists and I don't know if you've caught this, but okay, so astronauts see like kind of flashes on their eyelids sometimes from galactic cosmic rays, right? We know this from International Space Station. We know this from Apollo. And we had always said going into the mission, if they see impact flashes, we got to make sure that they are known cosmic race, right? And so, you know, I was, my excitement was tempered overnight to be like, we got, let's not, like, we don't want to just get ahead of ourselves here. Like, let's really try to, like, nail us down. So we had that

post-fly-by crew conference the next morning, and you heard question number one was, um, so, it was like my, like, controller speak of like, like, sure, like, really. You seen you last night or what? I was like, are you, like, I was like, you know, have you been seeing any cosmic rays in this mission? Like, you heard me like trying to like dance around it. And then you heard read being like, are you kidding me? Like it was like commander speak for like. And what he said was I don't know, I'll have to go pull the exact line. But it was something to the effect of he described it in more detail what he saw. And then he said, I'm happy to go into more detail on the cosmic rays that we've been seeing this entire mission if you'd like. And I was like, no. No, we're good. Next question. So good.

We also had confirmation bias because we did see in a couple of the cases, multiple crews saw them at the same time in the same place. So that was really helpful. They drew another awesome annotation, which I promise you're going to see. It's stupendous. That is where all of them saw the different flashes and different colors that they were all annotating

on their crew tablets. That gave us a lot more confidence of multiple people seeing the same thing. So are we, like, do we have any sense for sizing of these things? Like, is this a concerning result that this is happening so constantly all the time? Because it does sound concerning to us out here.

It's a great question. Oh, we're doing a moon base. It's getting bombed constantly? That doesn't sound good. What does the moon base program office at Johnson think of this? Yeah. Yeah. Have you told it, Carlos, by the way?

LRO is looking for the craters in the vicinity of obviously the areas where the crew saw them. So we're just, we're looking over at our friends over at LRO. Say, please, can you find those for us? They're obviously needle haystack, et cetera. But they're working hard as they will continue to do so. We actually had members of the LRO team, leadership team, on our science team. So it was great to actually have them in the room and then literally like pick up the red phone as I imagine it was. Oh, yeah.

That would be cool if you got one of those. But I'm sure they have a red phone. That would be cool. You should put one of those in for sure. The answer is pretty small. So something that will make a flash like they described, you know, could have even been almost like a centimeter in size as it impacted the surface. We've known that there are active impacts at the lunar surface, of course, multiple Apollo astronauts saw them, LRO images the same place over and over again and sees evidence of new craters showing up. We also know about it from ISS, right?

We want to keep through safe and alive in ISS, which is also, you know, relatively close to Earth, but, still outside some of the protection that the atmosphere affords us here on the surface of Earth. So it's a well-constrained problem. We are fully aware of the process, and the crew observations can help us constrain rates, which obviously help us further, you know, constrain risk there. But it's, you know, it's not something that took us by surprise that they're happening, although it took me by surprise that they saw four or five real time in like 40 minutes. just like immediately. You were like, have you seen any yet? And you're like, yeah, tons. We've been like documenting them left and right.

Probably the best part was when I forget who it was on comms. I think it might have been Victor where he was like, yeah, God, we just haven't seen one in forever, which in reality was like, I don't, five minutes or something. And he goes, oh, nope, we just saw one. I was like, I went from so excited to like, this is concerning me. This is a problem. We need to figure this out. We need a total and complete shutdown until we feel. figure out what's going on. It's how I felt No, no, no. No, we're in good shape. Also, I do not

have a hard cut off, although I'm sure you guys might and your viewers might as well. But I know we have children yelling on both sides of our microphones. Oh, I do want to tell you this. This is, I do want, this is for you personally, because everyone, you know, we just had this press conference with the astronauts, everyone's saying my kids were so inspired.

A couple of days into the mission, I have a five-year-old and an 18-month-old. My 18-month-old is, I think, probably close to yours that they just yell moon when they see the moon. So now he makes a rocket noise and then yells moon. My five-year-old, very interested in all this, learned about space sickness a couple of days in the mission, because we were just talking about, you know, what does it feel like up there? And he went from, yeah, I would like to go to space to like the next day. He said, Dad, I think I would rather

be a scientist that talks to the astronauts. And I was like, perfect, here's one on TV right now. So you have become Will's inspiration to just be a scientist who talks to. to astronauts because he does not want to be space sick. So now I feel like I need to bring him down to Goddard and take him on a tour to let him know. I would love to take Will on a tour of Godd. I'm bringing Will down. Jake, are you breaking the embargo for this? Can you come up to the U.S.?

I don't do kids. Fine, fine, okay, fine. I'll just bring Will, be in Will. Oh my gosh, so much to unpack there. And I'm going to be thinking about that moment that you just described to me for so, so long. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I am just going to overlook the fact that it was not wanting to get sick

that pushed him into this potential career path and focus on a positive of life Yeah Listen he had I was an eight inch Easy job I want that one I have an eight inch dobsonian just off screen here That he had his first moment a couple months ago Where he looked at the moon he was like I feel like I'm there

And I'm like oh we got him now he can Now I know that he's seeing through the eyepiece Rather than just putting his face roughly in the position of the I piece So he's into it like on a more serious note, I mean, it's like, I just want to say two things. I know you have to go probably talk to Will and parent him. But two things there. I mean, one is like the fact that I, you know, was a kid who collected rocks, then ultimately went to college and figure out I could be a kid who collects rocks like and get paid. And then ultimately figuring out, oh, wait, people go to the moon and collect rocks. And I could do, I could help like with that. Um, you know, I am a PhD in geology. Like I did not grow up, you know, in an engineering discipline. I did not grow up as a baby flight controller through the Johnson Space Center as so many amazing, wonderful, super capable flight controllers do.

I learned the science first and then was so fortunate to have so many mentors in flight operations along the way, including, you know, the Jenny and Jeff, who I referenced earlier, but so many other mentors who got me into that room. and got me capable of, you know, being in a human spaceflight environment as a scientist and as a geologist. I just, I hope that I'm the first of so many. Like, I hope that, you know, and there were two other science officers, of course, on the mission, but I hope that we are the first three of so many more to come and that the level of integration that we will able to bring into this very first step in integrating science into human spaceflight and the Artemis generation is just the first step and I think it will be like I really think it will be. And then the other part of that is just I have been shot like I mean you you heard the crew members of course speak way more eloquently

than I ever could about the not understanding the reaction that they were getting until they got back and now it's like oh my gosh like the outwelling of support in my own corner of the universe like I'm just this tiny tiny piece of this mission and the number of emails I have gotten from random strangers all around the world and what they have said Mod cats, weird stuff to us. To your credit, you're right back pretty quick. It's just like, and literally what they're saying is, is we support you. You, like, you have inspired all of us watching at home to, like, pursue something you're

passionate about. Like, that is going to be the biggest takeaway of this. You know, and I think you hear all these stories from Apollo of kids watching Apollo and ultimately going into not necessarily like a STEM field, but something that they feel passionate about because they saw others reach for what they wanted. The whole internet was born out of that, right? Like all the people that made computers and the internet were like, yeah, the space race happened. I got super into tech. And then I made computers and the internet. And then that revolutionized the next 35 years of life. So,

which enables more exploration, which enables more science, which enables more exploration. And they made a shitload of money. And then they made a bunch of companies that are going to space. It's a very cyclical thing. Yeah. But like, I mean, how cool is it for that this one period of time? Like, I would getting messages from all over the world and that people all over the world we're sitting here watching four people talk about rocks on the moon and how excited with some exceptions as we recently heard about um we're sitting there being excited about the moon right like he's he's fine he's i know it was a rough week um so i i i understand yeah you do uh so i just it's such a unifying

thing and i feel like it's going to to create so much positive energy at a time when I, you know, as parents of young kids, we want our kids to do something that they're passionate about and reach out and try to take it. And I just think it's so beautiful what this mission was able to do. And I'm excited to see, as you say, like, what is it going to inspire in terms of technological innovation and what to back to Casey's point? Because he's right. Like what, how can we maximize this and ultimately turn this into more missions to do more amazing science that are science first, that are science focused and science driven? And this is one step on the journey. It's not the only step. And I'm so inspired by stories like your son Will, who I just hope, I see him at the science council. Listen, I'll bring him down if there's a area that kids can tour have got it. I'll bring him down. I've been in that hallway with the LRO and the Hubble teams.

I've been in that hallway once, but they never let me in the room. Come on down. Okay, cool. It's a very short drive. We'll show him a bunch of rocks. We'll talk to him about science console and we'll just just just. Jake. Get into the details.

Jake. Come on. He's a good hang. They won't even let me in there, man. I'll be like, I tar this. Yeah, it's true.

He's a foreign net. We just have to have an advance warning. We can make it happen. He's Canadian. He's Canadian. I was just speaking behind Jeremy when he comes up. Yeah, I was just saying, you're fine now.

We're good. I'm part of the delegation. He's good. He's a good neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

I want to thank you to Kelsey just because it It was, you know, it's being in the world in this day and age is sometimes hard watching stuff on TV, reading stuff in the news. And this was like just like such a beacon of joy. I was joking that, you know, like NASA employees are sometimes, you know, for better for worse. They're a little buttoned up. They can be a little, you know, kind of conservative in the way they talk and stuff. And your team was just that full moon joy was spilling on your eyes. And it was such a joy to watch for us. You know, I was laughing because they were. there would be like a call up where, you know,

Victor would be like, oh, I see a rock and it's, uh, it's gray and it's, uh, it's bigger than the one I told you about earlier. And, you know, you were all like, oh my God, thank you so much. This is the most incredible gift you've ever given me. And, you know, you, you couldn't contain how like absolutely incredible the whole experience was. And that, that carried through to everyone watching. So I want to just thank you for that.

It was good. Yeah. Thank you. A couple of things there. Like, one, um, what you guys didn't see is. is how hard they worked to be able to give those descriptions. Like, I will be honest, like, they were not bought in at first. They were like, are you sure?

Like, are what we say, like, really contributing science value? And we worked with them for months and months and months to prove that yes. And they, I just, oh, my gosh, we are so fortunate that these four people flew to the movement. I'm so, so grateful for each and every one of them. And especially, like, hearing their voices when we spent hours and hours and hours, like, refining, you know, that tool set with them. Yeah, I mean, what you heard was genuine because I was just so proud to be just even a tiny part of that listening to how well they were just crushing it.

But I don't know. It's just it's really, and I think it's also, I have it easy when I get on those press conferences, right? Because everybody sitting up there knows their discipline just, you know, the same amount, which is exhaustively. but the discipline that I represent is, you know, it's science, it's discovery, it's the moon, and not the toilet, right? So like, and not like critical systems that are keeping people alive, right? And so I have the easiest job up there, right? And it's, you know, the easiest job in terms of communicating with excitement, right? And so those other people up there are like, they're just, they're like, we're getting our friends home safely. And the system that I am responsible for is critical path to doing that.

And I'm like, did you see the moon out there? Yeah, yeah. There's rocks. Wow. So in this call that just happened this afternoon, I don't know that you listened to the crew talking, but they were very, like, like Reed was like, man, if there was a lander attached,

we would have taken it down to the surface. Like, we were ready to roll. We did not care anymore. We were, it was so close. This was not as hard as it looked. So I think the, there's been this like kind of, maybe not, maybe woe as me is unfair, but there's been a woe as me attitude for the last like 30 years of spaceflight that there's not as much public support and people don't get

that excited and nobody knows that we have the space station. Everyone thought NASA was closed down. And it turns out we do stuff like this and everyone's in. Everyone's like, let's go. We're excited about this thing. It's a happy part of the world. We're excited about it. Turns out if we do this stuff, people are super into it. And I hope NASA leans into what Jake's saying there that like, communicating like this like humans like holy shit guys i'm sorry i know i need to get some stuff but i'm looking out the window and i can't stop looking out the window because the moon's right there that comes off to everybody on the outside and it's probably different back in the day when there was like three press conferences a day from the space capsule and you know but this we were

truman showing the whole time where we were just riding along the spaceship and we could feel like we're part of that literally and that does come through it's like watching the meat breakfast yeah yeah at the time when victor took a shirt off and reid was like we were fine with that going out. And we're like, yeah, of course you were. This is like a, this dude's like a specimen of all humans. Look at this guy. But, but I think that actually, in this day and age where like, in the internet era, taste and authenticity are the only two things that really break through. And this was 100% authenticity, right? And I feel like we need, we need to lean into that harder in this era and not be so right stuffy. Like, I think, which is the kind of comparison you were making,

Jake, that everything in the past was like, we're doing the thing, we're following the objectives, or working the, work in the playbook. But it's like, no, just you're, you're flying to the fucking moon. Act like it, you know? More group hugs. Yeah, so many groups we got to see. Totally. The freaking best. Hell yeah. And, you know, on the same token, like that's, that guy went viral, right? Because of that, he definitely said freaking, by the way. He's getting, he's getting raked through the internet for dropping the up bomb on live TV. He said freaking. For sure. Yeah, and of course it's, you know, building on the momentum and, you know, Casey and the entire rest of the planetary science community is so much a critical part of that. So I am grateful for his words last week as well because it, you know, it's we all need to, you know, push harder to get as much as we possibly can out of these missions for both Artemis and for the non-crued mission. So very grateful for Casey and very grateful for the outpouring of support and feedback. We've gotten. from the science community at large,

let alone like the public who is just, as you said, like, when's the next one? When's a sequel coming out? Yeah, you're like, well, it's a whole thing, you know? Soon, we're working on it. In fact, I've already been in many meetings this week about it. So like, we're doing it, guys. I swear.

Artemis 3, it's coming. Well, Jake. This is the best. Kelsey, you're so good. This is the best. Please come back. I'm going to come down to Goddard. It's going to be a great time.

I hope I get a repeat invite. Oh, hell yeah. We can dive more into the science ops pieces and the follow up on the training that I promised you that we never got to. Yes, please. Yes, please. When the data dump happens and we have to go, we have to go painstakingly through every little like sketch that they did in their notebook. That's right. What does that mean?

Yeah. I will say there were literal tears shed in our backrooms when, because we were seeing these images, you know, for the first time. literal tearshed. What a powerful, powerful moment. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands. So get excited. We got a lot of work to do. We sure do.

Yes. Which is why it's taking a little bit of time, but I promise they're coming. All right, y'all. Thank you so much, Kelsey. I'm happy to come back anytime. Absolutely. Thanks so much. Thanks.

Thanks.