The Daily - Today’s Mission to the Moon

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Today, NASA is set to send four astronauts on a trip around the moon and back. If the mission succeeds, a return of astronauts to the moon’s surface could follow. Kenneth Chang, who covers science, explains why the United States wants to go back to the moon.  Guest: Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The New York Times who writes about NASA and the solar system. Background reading:  What to know about NASA’s Artemis II moon mission. For a member of the crew, the journey to the moon is “starting to feel real.” Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two, one, zero, all engine running. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bobaro. This is a daily. Nearly six decades after the United States put men on the moon. That's one small step for man, giant leap for mankind. It is returning to that mission. And today, a major step in that process. will begin in Florida.

My colleague, Ken Chang, is there and explains why it is that the United States wants to go back to the moon. It's Wednesday, April 1st. Ken, welcome back to the Daily. Good to be here again. So we always turn to you when something big and meaningful is happening in space and something big and meaningful is happening today, weather permitting. So does the weather permit this big and meaningful thing to happen on Wednesday? Hopefully it looks good. The forecast says 80% chance death is going to go,

but that means there's 20% chance that something doesn't quite clear up. Right. Okay, those are pretty good odds. So start by describing this mission. This is the first time that anyone's going close to the moon in more than 53 years. Wow. Four astronauts are going to be blasting off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And they're going to head out to the moon. They're not going to land.

They're just going to swing around the moon and then head straight back to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean 10 days later. And why? I mean, as you've just hinted at, some 50-so years ago, astronauts from the United States did that very thing. So why are we doing it again? So the goal this time in this program, which is called Artemis, is to get people back to the moon, but also stay there this time.

And so this program is broken up into pieces because it's really hard to land on the moon. You don't want to do all the hard things all at once. You want to break it up into pieces so you do step by step. Right. So Artemis won back in 2022. It sent this spacecraft to the moon and spent several weeks there, without any people aboard. So that's sort of established that the basic machinery works.

Now we're on the next step, which is Artemis II. This time, they're including the four people aboard, and that's critical because the main task of this mission is to test the life support systems. And it's impossible to test it without actual people producing carbon dioxide, producing water and poop and everything else that you need to clean up. Right. So that's this mission.

Step one was, can we get an aircraft around the moon? Step two is, can we get people on this craft to live? Yes. The biggest goal for the astronauts on this mission is to not die. Hmm. And if Artemis 2 succeeds, NASA can move onto next steps, which will lead to attempts to land astronauts on the moon in a couple years. Okay, and at this point I may sound like a broken record, but why?

I mean, what is the rationale for trying to do this thing that we did with great fanfare 50-something years ago? What NASA says is that this time, we're not going to just go there and then forget about it, that this will be the first step to building a moon base, to... A moon base. Yeah. So that they're going to start

putting a power plant, some habitats, to allow people to stay there for days, weeks, months. Hmm. So at first, it will probably be a scientific research station,

much like what we have in Antarctica near the South Pole. Beyond that, people will start thinking about how we can take advantage at the moon's resources. They might even start trying to mine valuable materials that could be found there, such as helium-3.

And what's helium-3, and why do we want to mine it on the moon? So, Healing 3 is a light version of helium, and it's quite rare on Earth. It's a little bit more prevalent on the moon's surface, and this is a version of helium that could be very useful in future fusion reactors. it's also thought to be useful for future quantum computers, which people are very excited about because it could be used for artificial intelligence, among other things. And healing through on Earth costs roughly $3 million a pound.

Wow. So if you can even get a little bit from the moon, you could probably make them profit. Right. So what lies in the future is space research and potentially some serious commercial market. Yes, they're still speculative, but there are companies who are planning to do things along those lines already. Mm-hmm. And then there's scientific dreamers who want to do something like build a big radio telescope on the far side of the moon to listen to the universe.

Listen to the universe. Yes. There's signals from just after the Big Bang billions of years ago. But it's hard to do that from Earth because we basically made things. things very noisy with TV, cell phone calls, podcasts. But on the far side of the moon, you have the entire thickness of the moon blocking all that noise. Wow. So you can hear the rest of the universe.

Wait, just so I understand. We can build a giant listening post on the far side of the moon where it's dead quiet. And we could hear the ancient sounds of really, the dawn of time itself? Pretty much, these would be almost the echoes of the Big Bang. Wow. And the other thing they want to do is use the moon as a testing ground for technologies that they ultimately want to put on Mars.

That would include nuclear power plants, habitats, life support systems, because many of the conditions on the moon are things you ultimately have to face on Mars as well. So basically we would use the moon and its conditions and its gravity to figure out whether something we eventually want to have on Mars can first survive the moon. Yes, and then there's this romantic notion of humanity just spreading out into the solar system, that we are no longer just confined to one planet

where we can live elsewhere as well. Someday on a moon colony. But on top of all that, there's also the geopolitical competition with China. And of course, we want to do all this before they do. Right. If we are to be a multi-planet species, Americans would like to be the first. Yeah. Because the people who are there first are the ones who make the rules of how space commerce is conducted, will have the prime locations on the moon, and control the resources, and so on.

So being first means being the one who's in charge. Ken, what you have just laid out is a tremendous vision for the future, and all of it rests on the shoulders of four astronauts who are going to be blasting off toward the moon in a few hours on Wednesday there in Florida. True, but that's probably not what is going to be on their minds. Remember, their first job is staying alive. If they don't do that, then all these dreams are pushed even farther into the future. We'll be right back.

Ken, can you introduce us to these four astronauts who have all this responsibility on their shoulders and describe the logistics of this 10-day mission they're embarking on from their perspective? Yes, the commander is Reid We just need to go execute this mission and bring a little bit of each of our own personalities in. He's a former fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. He served in the Middle East on two deployments, and he was the head of the astronaut office before he stepped down, which allowed him to be assigned to the moon mission. I was outside last night, and I was looking up at the moon

and thinking the next time I see this site, there's a good chance that we will have been around the far side and back. And there's also a point in detail about him. His wife died a few years ago. him going to moon means leaving his daughters behind for 10 days. Well. And so I hope there's a piece of it that extends beyond human spaceflight as well. Victor Glover, he's also a former naval aviator.

Ten years from now when the next challenging thing happens, maybe we can look back on this and go, hey guys, remember we did that? We had our own windshot, remember? And it was global. It was international. And we did it together. He was the first black man to serve and extend his stay on the space station.

and now he'll be the first black man to go to the moon. Next is Christina Koch. None of us can be as big as what we're asked to do, but we can contribute the part and bring our best selves and come together to do it. She's an electrical engineer by training, and she actually worked on NASA missions on the ground before she was selected by NASA to become a astronaut.

And she now holds the record for the longest single, spaceflight by women of 328 days, so that's almost a full year. All these things that we talk about first are really not about anyone individual's accomplishment, but more about celebrating where we are at. And finally, there's Jeremy Hansen. He's to Canadian on the crew. You can't fix all the problems in the world, but you can influence the little bit around you. It would be the first time that a non-American has gone to deep space. We don't know the ripple effects of what we're about to do,

but we can do it well to the best of our ability and have joy while we're doing it, and hopefully that will make a small contribution. And he has a sense of humor about this. He said, if something goes wrong on this mission, then NASA can blame Canada. Okay, so that is the crew. Talk to us about their next 10 days,

as they're going to experience it, the four of them, together. So they'll have a very long day before launch even. They'll wake up eight hours before launch. They have to get into their space suits. They'll be driven out to the launch pad. They'll go up this huge tower

and enter their spacecraft. It's known as Orion. Then they'll be sitting there for about four hours until the countdown clock gets to zero. And eight minutes later, they'll be in space. Wow. And that first day in space will also be quite busy. They won't immediately go to the moon.

In fact, what they will do is make two looping orbits around Earth. And the reason they're doing that is they want to take this time to check out every little system on the spacecraft to make sure it's working before they make the decision to fire engines to send them off to the moon. Basically, a couple of test flights. Right. So after day two, when they fire the engines to head to the moon, the moon is close to a quarter million miles from Earth.

It takes a while to get there. Basically four days. And they'll be spending all this time in this capsule, which has about as much space as two minivans. Two minivans. And I say this is a father that fills basically a minivan. That's not allowed space. It's actually a little bit more than it be on Earth

because you get to float around. So you can use all the space above you. It's not quite as crowded as it would be if you were driving cross-country. Right. So on day six is the big event. This is when they're closest to the moon. And they're not super close. So the way NASA describes it, the moon will appear about the size of a basketball held at arm's length.

and the moon's gravity will basically pull them around the moon and they'll go behind the moon so that means they'll lose all radio communication with Earth for about 40 minutes and we won't know what's going on until they emerge on the other side and during this time they'll also be making all these observations

of the far side of the moon. Such as? So what's really interesting is that they will be seeing parts of the far side of the moon that no human eyes have seen before. And that's because the last time an astronaut passed over the far side of the moon, it was a different time of day and those areas were in darkness. So that's fascinating. These astronauts, because there will be light,

will cast their eyes on parts of the moon that, no human being has ever seen before in actual daylight? Correct. On the moon, there's no streetlights. So the last time an astronaut passed over these parts, it was completely dark. So Ken, as these astronauts are moving along the far side of the moon, you had said that the moon's gravity was going to be holding them down. How much power will they have to actually direct the craft that they're in during this period? The trajectory that they are, NASA designed it specifically that they actually don't need to use the engines to bring them back to Earth.

It's going along a path that the gravity moon basically is going to sling them around and throw them right back toward Earth without them doing much of anything. So in a sense, they're kind of powerless to do much themselves. they're at the mercy of the moon's gravitational push and pull. Which is a good thing, because it's much easier to be headed back to Earth than into deep space where who knows where you would end up. Right. So assuming this gravitational slingshot system brings these four astronauts safely home, what happens?

So once they complete their lunar flyby, they have to spend another three days just sitting around waiting to get back to Earth. This is probably the boring part of the trip. It's basically over there yet. On the very last day, Earth's gravity is going to be pulling them around Earth, and they'll be on a path to re-enter the atmosphere, and they'll splash down the Pacific Ocean off San Diego. They'll be plucked out of the ocean, taken to a ship,

and then flown back to shore where they'll be checked out by doctors, and then they'll get to fly back to Houston. And that will be the end of Artemis II. And assuming that the astronauts leave this process in tip-top shape, which we, of course, hope they do, my sense is that this is going to be a really proud moment for NASA because from everything I've taken from your reporting in the lead-up to Artemis II, it's really a NASA production through and through

and not what we think of when we think of the modern space system where things kind of get divided up between NASA, and these well-known private companies, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. You're right, Michael. This is old-school NASA, where NASA designed and operated the various spacecraft. And it'll be a triumph for them in that the old ways of doing things succeeded. But on the very next mission, Artemis 3,

the new space companies, SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, and Blue Origin, started by Jeff Bezos, they become involved because SpaceX and Blue Origin are producing the lunar landers that are eventually going to take astronauts to the surface of the moon. Got it. So in these next phases, these big private companies are going to be providing some of the really key equipment that will allow NASA to land on the moon.

So in that sense, Artemis II is kind of the end of an era? In a sense, yes, the expectation is this will be the last big NASA spacecraft and rockets. And in the future, there will be much more work from private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. You know, just to end this conversation, it's pretty hard to ignore the context of when Artemis II is happening right now. We're in the middle of a war. And it's big and it's controversial, and it has had ripple effects across the entire world. And I think of space exploration is, at its best, this big unifying experience for the whole world. And this mission comes at a moment that's not so unifying.

But if you think back to 1960s when we went to the moon for the first time, that was a turbulent era, especially the year 1968. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The country was mired in the Vietnam War. The Democratic Convention in Chicago was beset by riots. It was a very unsettled time in the United States. And at the end of that year, December of...

of 1968. The engines are armed. Four, three, two, one, zero. We have committed. Apollo 8 launch. And that was the equivalent of Artemis II. It's a beautiful takeoff so far. It was the first launch of the mighty Saturn 5 rocket

that NASA used then with people aboard. aboard. And the three astronauts on Apollo 8, they went to the moon, orbited the moon, and on Christmas Eve, as they were in orbit around the moon, the three astronauts took turns reading Genesis from the Bible. And it was such a calming, hopeful moment that some people even talked about how that mission saved 1968. So we don't know what the four astronauts on Artemis II are planning to say as they are coming back from the moon. But still, just the imagery that's going to come back of them seeing Earth from a quarter million

miles away could just provide a moment of calm that makes us realize we are still all part the same planet. And perhaps we'll just offer a note of hope that maybe it won't be as turbulent as it seems right now. Well, Ken, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. I hope it goes off perfectly later today. Me too. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge ordered that President Trump end construction of his proposed massive ballroom off the east wing of the White House until the project is blessed by Congress. The decision delivered the first meaningful setback to the president's increasingly bold efforts to redesign the White House. And for the first time since the start of the war in Iran,

the average price of gasoline across the United States surpassed $4 a gallon, a major milestone for consumers. Not happy about this, and even my customers are coming in this morning and saying, what happened? What happened in 24 hours where we went? In Jacksonville, Florida, Cam Judy, the gas station manager we spoke to for Friday's episode, raised his prices on Tuesday to $4.29 a gallon. That's up more than 50% since the start of the war.

And it just caught everybody off the car, including myself. So it's upsetting. And I hope it doesn't last long. Prices are expected to remain high until oil can flow freely through the Strait of Hormuz. Today's episode was produced by Alex Stern, Jack Dissaduro,

Rochelle Bonja, and Diana Wynne. It was edited by Rachel Quester, and contains music by Mary Lazzano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Timothy Bella.

That's it for the daily. I'm Michael Boboro. See you tomorrow.