The Supermassive Podcast - Our Artemis II Debrief

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

What. A. Mission. The Supermassive Team are in AWE of the Artemis II Crew and the people that helped them to loop around the Moon. From scientific aims to societal impact, Izzie Clarke, Richard Hollingham and Dr Robert Massey reflect on this latest step to returning to the Moon and their experiences of watching it unfold. Richard was at the launch, Robert is pen pals with Reid Wiseman, and Izzie... is extremely jealous of them both!Join The Supermassive Club for ad-free listening, forum access, and extra content from the team. And email your questions to [e-mail] or follow us on Instagram, @SupermassivePod.The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production. The producers are Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark and a slightly different line-up of the deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Robert Massey, and producer and editor Richard Hollingham. We did have a different bonus episode planned, but actually we're so in awe of the Artemis II mission that we've jumped on a recording to just have a bit of a communal debrief. Yeah, we absolutely have. I mean, who, come on, who wasn't blown away about that launch and by splashdown and everything that took place in between all these amazing pictures. You know, the fact the crew were just so excited and sending this stuff back.

It's really compelling. You know, it's been, what, 54 years since the last Apollo missions. It's anyone on anywhere near the moon. And there we are. And we're all excited like a bunch of kids, I guess. I was at the launch and the experience was overwhelming. you'll hear how I struggled to articulate my thoughts because it was just a complete sensory overload

and knowing that on top of this giant rocket were, as Robert said, for remarkable human beings. And Robert, before we go any further, you're now a good chum of Reid Wiseman, the commander, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of playing that down slightly. It's true we've exchanged emails, which is nice. And I sent him a picture of the sun last week knowing he wasn't going to pick it up until he got back

because the sun had very few sunspots on it, which is a good thing because it means it was much less like a solar flare, much less like you'd have to genuinely rather than test the radiation shelter, which apparently involves climbing into cupboards, clearing out all the stuff in the cupboards and hiding in the cupboards while the storm happens. But that said, Richard, you know, I may have emails some Reid Wiseman, but, you know, I feel the Ryan Gosling jealousy really that Izzy was feeling with Becky because, you know, you got to be at the launch. Becky gets to meet Ryan Gosling, you know, Izzy does lots of glamorous stuff. Izzy needs to pick up on the glamour of stuff. I'm sorry, I am absolutely falling behind everyone else. Richard was at the launch. You were on BBC News. I was sat in my pyjamas in my living room like, well, this is fun. And then you pop up on my TV.

Like, oh, okay, well, we've got slightly different plans for the launch of Artemis 2. Yeah, I mean, I was at home, I stress. And I was up till, what, like 2.30 in the morning, our time. So, yeah, hung in there, basically. It was nice to see people like John Amos again, who's covered it so long. You know, he was effectively coming out retirement to do this, and they're pretty much the perfect guest, I think. And astronauts on the live feed from Florida as well.

So Ellen Shaman and Tim Beek, too. Right. So I think let's get into this. So across this episode, we're going to go through the Artemis II mission, our thoughts on it, the science, the crew, just our general musings. And obviously, it all began with the launch. So let's relive that moment. GOLS GOPRALF. Great call out.

The rocket is on its own. Four brave explorers ready to ride the most powerful rocket. NASA has ever launched. Sound suppression water is flowing. And here we go. 10, 9, 8, 7. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So I should say that's my point of view of the launch from Cape Canaveral.

So I was at the press sites, the one you see on TV with a big countdown clock, which is three miles away from the launch itself. And it was just overwhelming. You also heard that gap there. That was the real time of the gap between the rocket lighting and then the sound that we heard across the water of the launch. and then this just absolutely spectacular launch of the rocket then disappearing into this clear blue sky, sort of arching overhead.

And then you can actually see the solid rocket boosters drop from it. I mean, amazing, amazing experience. And I was so lucky because I only turned up the day before, spent the day there, and they were just 10 minutes late in launching. Some people have been there time and time again, and, you know, it hadn't happened. So, yeah. I think that's the thing that was so amazing about it. once the launch window opened, you know, I was sitting with family trying to say,

yes, okay, yeah, we reached 11, I think it was 1126, 1124. This could be two more hours if we're leaving it to the last minute. And then just to see it go 10 minutes later, I couldn't believe it. What was it like being there, Richard? I mean, I think we were all popping off on the WhatsApp group. We were so jealous. Tell us about that experience. Well, the whole day, I was by that time absolutely exhausted.

So I'd flown in the night before. I'd been up at the launch site from 6 o'clock in the morning. What was quite sad, really, was a lot of journalists there, a great deal of journalists there, but they were having to file all the time for their outlets. And they were just stuck in this room, effectively watching the launch unfold on TV. Whereas I could wander around, get a sense of the atmosphere. I'd talk to people. There were quite a few astronauts kicking around, so talked to them as well. It was actually really peaceful, so you could also get away from it. So you had the press centre, which is built on the 1960s, and I don't think has been upgraded since then. Certainly not the facilities and the coffee-making facilities, which was a bone of contention throughout the day.

But actually, you could get away from it all there. They call it the lawn, but it's really a big field. You could go right down sort of near the creek and see the bird life. There were alligators in the water. So actually it was quite peaceful. And then come back and just feel the build-up and the excitement. And we're only just across from the Vehicle Assembly building. And I also saw the Astrovan, so the astronauts going out to the launch pad with that

the hand that goes past and takes them to the launch pad. And that's when it really started to become real. I did record throughout the day. I recorded some reels for Instagram. And maybe if I just play you this one, this was the one I recorded, just my immediate reaction after the launch. I don't get emotional very often. That was extraordinary.

I was in tears, the noise that just everything about it, that cracking, the crackling from the solid rocket boosters and the fire, the light, just, just incredible, just overwhelming to the senses and you still see the smoke behind on the launch pad and people already packing up. And the spacecraft was almost in orbit. Amazing, amazing, amazing. It really was amazing.

I mean, I can't even imagine what it's like to have seen that. It seems textbook perfect. So how did that launch compare to what they were expecting? Any thoughts? I mean, what I noticed, so there were a few holds in it. It was pretty good. You know, it would be extraordinary if there weren't a few things. And, you know, it's also very unusual or something like this.

You don't get delayed. And, of course, they'd been delayed from March and so on. What I noticed, if we want to reference the stuff we've looked at on space debris, they were holding the launch at some points to allow for there not being satellites in the launch path. And I thought that was really insightful, actually, because I thought to myself, if you really did get this horrendous idea of another 50,000, another 100,000, another million satellites, it would start, wouldn't it start to become really hard? You think to yourself, how are they going to manage that? So that was a little detail, but one which stuck with me, and, you know, we need to talk about that stuff a bit more, I think. But beyond that, yeah, absolutely.

It was amazing. It worked so well, you know, frankly, the issues with the plumbing on a space toilet, well, you know, that's just, it's not as hard as it was for the Apollo astronaut. bags and left them behind on the moon surface, and that's in the NASA inventory of things left on the moon surface, if you care to look it up. We sound very British in our humour here, but it's true. The glamorous stuff of being an astronaut. I've actually guessed on that.

I actually did an interview with Walt Cunningham, who was one of the astronauts on the Apollo 7 spacecraft, so the first of the Apollo missions. He gave me a very detailed, unnecessarily detailed, explanation of how the toilet facilities, or lack of toilet facilities on the Apollo capsule, worked. So yes, they were incredibly lucky with the toilet.

But I think we've sort of already forgotten how massively delayed this has been both by years and then in recent months by months and weeks with the problems with the helium, problems with the hydrogen. They're hoping that we're now on a roll. So the next SLS rocket is

rolling out from its facility in Louisiana near New Orleans in the next couple of weeks, I think. So they're already getting ready for the next mission next year, which will be a test of the lander in low Earth orbit. I mean, the only problem with that is they haven't actually got a lander in low Earth orbit. But, you know, that's another bridge to cross.

A small thing to just work on. Okay. Yeah, that is the issue, isn't it, actually? Because you've got, yeah, the test flight plan for low Earth orbit. That was going to be a landing originally, Artemis 3. Now they're saying Artemis 4 in 2028. But there's still a competition between Blue Origin and SpaceX to deliver the landing vehicle. so what it is supposed or it was going to be at least a starship which is the one that he's used to launch satellites but tested it it's also dramatically exploded a few times okay you know that

that happens with these sort of systems but you need that safe that safe demonstration that allows you to be confident you're going to use it to bring astronauts to the moon's surface and back up to lunar orbit again so you know there is some way to go and i'm not surprised it's been opened up for competition and then in the background the americans must be sitting there thinking china you know China is now targeting 2030, 31, it would not take much. But what it takes is a year or two of delay, and suddenly it's the Chinese grabbing the prize for people back on the lunar surface. And just to come back to the mission and its success, and we're looking back at it and

saying, well, yeah, it all went well apart from the toilet. It was really interesting in the post-launch press conference. So Gerard Isaacman, the new head of NASA, was there. He was barely smiling. And it was interesting. You know, someone said, you should all be smiling. And they really weren't. And he said at the press conference, and I'm paraphrasing here,

that this mission is not a success until they are safely back on Earth. And they were very focused on that. So there was no triumphalism immediately following the launch because that was only sort of stage one of this nine, 10 day mission. For sure. I mean, listeners won't be surprised that we have a WhatsApp group that we chat amongst ourselves in. And I think we all reflected on like,

sigh of relief, like as soon as the rocket launched, because it's huge, it is huge. Like, it's such a big mission. I don't think we've seen anything with this much hype around it in such a long time. And that is also lovely. But at the end of the day, yeah, we do have to think about there are four humans in that capsule that we have to look after and, you know, really hope that it goes well. Luckily it did. So let's talk about so many of the successes of this mission.

I think the photos that we've seen from this mission are amazing. And they've also captured everyone's attention and everyone's really excited about the mission as well. I think it makes such a difference that these are pictures of the earth taken by a person pressing a shutter on a camera. Whether that's an iPhone, they've got, you know, shiny new iPhones or, you know, a high-end camera or just the automatic little cameras dotted around the capsule on the outside. That is so, just has so much more impact. I think than satellite images. We've got loads of satellite images. There's constant satellite images coming down of the earth. But the fact that someone has chosen to frame that image in a certain way I think makes such a difference to me. It's got an emotional context to it as well. And those

whole images of the earth and when you're seeing how bright the earth is at night, that's pretty terrifying, I thought. And then the extraordinary earth set images as they come around the moon, a sort of replay, a bookend, if you like, to the Earthrise image from Apollo 8. Yeah, they just have so much more impact that they were taken by people. Yeah, what I like, I mean, the image of the Earth was lit by the full moon. It also tells you something about the improvement in capabilities of digital cameras, compared with, so we had amazing images in the Apollo area, but they were taken on film cameras and you only saw them after the astronauts got back.

So, whereas in this case, it's, oh, wow, this is almost like uploaded to Instagram. You've got social media in space, what, for all. its merits and not. I particularly like those. I like also the images of the lunar surface showing how dark it is because you forget you see the bright moon on earth during the day. You think it's actually this glorious white celestial body. It's not. It's as dark as tarmac mostly. And then the astronauts also referred to, we haven't seen these images so much, but being able to see different colours probably connected with different minerals on the surface. They were talking about greens and browns too, things you don't normally associate it with it. And that's possibly

their human eyes being able to pick that up better than say you do necessarily with a satellite orbiting round. Yeah, and one of the, I mean, you know, we can talk about this, the joke about the email correspondence of Reid Wiseman. This was to help Richard on Space Bofin's podcast. And I just emailed saying, you know, why are you going at the waning, criss, a waning gibbous moon, whereas, are why you there then, whereas the Apollo missions were waxing. And the answer was, I think, because then they got to look at bits of the far side that hadn't been seen by people before, like the Mario Orientalis, which is a huge impact. basin that you can see very, very obliquely from the Earth, but they got a good view of it there,

that they wouldn't have done with the Apollo era because the illumination was on. But Reid Weiseman did actually write back and say, yeah, from our perspective, the illumination's not ideal, because about four-fifths of the far side of the moon was in darkness when they went past it. So they were just not only round the far side of the moon away from contact with the Earth, they couldn't really see much of the moon at that point either. I am just so intensely jealous for many reasons that space boffins snuck in there to speak with Robert.

It was a listener question. A listener question. I thought, I go to the man who knows, asked Robert. He said, oh, I'll ask Reid Wiseman. His new best friend. Next mission for individual Dr. Robert Massey is to get Reid Wiseman on the podcast. Thank you.

I'll leave that with you. On the case. Thank you. There's something about that, though, isn't there? The connection that we've had, this digital era of actually, okay, yes, we weren't. in space with them, but you've, you experience that journey alongside them. We got to see so much more of what it was like for that crew to be going around the moon.

Also, I think there was just like a familiarity between the crew themselves that I think just seems so much more tighter than we've seen in other missions and it felt so human and I think sometimes you see astronauts and they do feel a bit superhuman. And it was just seeing their reactions, especially. when they named the crater after Wiseman's wife as well who passed away in 2020 and seeing that human reaction, we all see ourselves in that. And I think that as well is huge. For me, that was the strength of the whole mission. I mean, that was so poignant naming the crater Carol after Reed Wiseman's wife. I thought that was absolutely extraordinary. And seeing

them kind of wiping tears from their faces when they were doing that. I felt I was there in the capsule. And then the whole, you know, the discussion about the Nutella versus the maple syrup, and whether, you know, the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen was favoring Nutella over maple syrup, which was potentially really damaging for Canada. The teller, of course, marketing themselves now on this. But it was seeing them, the wash, them eat, the discussions about the failures of their Microsoft technology. I particularly jelled when they were talking about the GoPro problems they had, because I have exactly the same problems with my GoPro. So it's, it's, it's, It was that. We felt that we were there, but they also absolutely gelled as a crew.

And beyond just being really close work colleagues, I felt, it felt like they were four friends who totally trusted each other, who were so used to living and working together. That, for me, was extraordinary. Yeah. And I wonder if that's part actually of crew selection and we'll see more of that with missions going forward. because obviously it was an incredibly ambitious mission. You know, we've never been this far into space. Actually, if something doesn't go to plan, you need a crew that trust each other inherently and can really work together. And there's not going to be sort of tension or dynamics. And I don't think we'll ever know, but it is something to consider, isn't it?

It really is. You know, you think about it. And the Americans kept talking about it's no bigger than a mobile home. Well, actually imagine, you know, I was talking my partner about this, I don't think I want to spend 10 days cooped up with her in a camper van. It's a nice camper van. I really don't want to spend 10 days just in a space of that size. Now, you have the slight advantage that you've got a third dimension because you're in, you know, weightless and so on.

You can move around about in microgravity. But yeah, it's still a big ask. And I guess the absence of privacy, you know, apart from the aforementioned toilet, you know, you could close the door on the toilet. Really, apart from that, you're in each other's face is 24-7. And what, 2410, actually, 10 solid days of that. So you have to have a crew. I guess astronauts always seem very level-headed to me. They always seem very, very able to, and they have to be, I guess, able to cope with all these crises without, you know, either sort of sore, too much soaring emotion or too much, you know, too many downsides.

And yeah, that must be a big part of it. And imagine a Mars mission, even if you had a habitat that's much bigger, you're stuck with this crew of a few people for two years. You're going to need to get on. and you're going to need to fix things. Yeah, and let's talk about some of their aims as well as a crew. What were some of the things that they were looking at? What information would they have been sending back to NASA and, I mean, all of the brilliant people that were so tied into this

and so pivotal to making this the success that it was? I think Robert can talk about the observations of the moon in the sec, but I can maybe talk about the spacecraft itself because, you know, they were stressing again and again at launch this is a test mission. So, you know, the initial object was to get the SLS that that giant new rocket, Orion and its European Service Module, European Space Agency Service module, into orbit. And then there was that decision, do we go for this phrase trans lunar injection? Do we head for the moon? Is the spacecraft in a good enough shape? They tested it out. They actually flew it themselves.

In space, it wasn't controlled from the ground. They made that decision to go. as a test mission, as a spacecraft, and we don't quite know yet what the state the heat shield was in on the way back, because there was some concern over that. But, you know, certainly superficially from what we can see, in that respect, it was absolutely perfect. So all these little technical glitches, any little problems, that's what will inform the next missions and future missions as we go further and further from the Earth. Yeah, and if at the lunar science they were doing, that was kind of wider field images of the far side of the moon in particular. Now, we do have those. It's fair to say that satellites and so on, lunar satellites are like the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, going around the moon, taking very detailed images of the surface. There's a bit of a difference, I think, in that they had particular perception of colour and so on. That's something they'd want to follow up. But the real lunar science, I guess, will follow when you get landings, when you get people picking up samples again and doing that kind of work on the ground. They did just some quite exciting things as well, like seeing the solar eclipse immediately after transiting the moon, just happening. That must have been quite extraordinary. Who isn't jealous of that? seeing a solar eclipse some space.

I like also the pictures of them doing the safety first bit. There's certain figures that didn't do that. After all, they have quite a high prominence where you do wear eclipse shades after the sun's visible because it's a really bad idea not to. Probably worse in space, actually, because you haven't got an atmosphere to protect you from some of the ultraviolet and so on. So it's really important to do that too. And I guess there's also the biological data on how they fared.

Now, many, many astronauts have been much longer in space on the International Space Station. The main difference here is that out. outside the Earth's protective magnetic field, the magnetosphere. So you're much more exposed to solar radiation and cosmic rays. And that's why they worried about whether there would be, say, a solar flare event or something like that. But then they didn't have to take shelter from. So there might be some interesting things about, you know, say the way their blood counts have changed over that time. And to see whether there's an effect.

I suspect not a very large one because they weren't in space very long. But, you know, if you had a moon base, if you had astronauts going there, say, for a couple of months or longer, then those are things to consider that you don't get in quite the same way through a stay on the ISS. So, you know, that medical data, I think, is something they'll be really interested in. Yeah, definitely. It will be interesting to see, yeah, if there are any changes. And then I guess that informs future missions and everything from that. I love, though, that, as you say, the eclipse glasses are the ones that we would use in schools as well.

They're so budget and I love it. I always think having Christina croaking that as well as part of the crew, We'll do so much for women in the sector as well. And I think when you see the difference as well of the proportion of mental women as well in mission control, that is such a huge difference to what we've seen in the Apollo era. And I think, again, all of the work that's going on with the teams on the ground versus those in space as well,

it's just like it's such a hopeful message and just like really seeing such brilliant collaboration and seeing something go super well in an interesting time at the moment, I think it's something that we all just needed. And hopefully we'll also resonate with so many younger people and hopefully continue that curiosity, which I think anyone, you know, all of us in this show, or just want young people to continue to stay curious about the world around them.

So that's my big hope from this mission, I think. Yeah, and I think hearing the female voices often from mission control, The Capcoms were often female. I think the lead Capcom was a woman. And hearing that diversity as well, if you look at the images of mission control, of the MIR, which is the mission evaluation room, which is behind mission control,

the diversity there of the engineering teams. And the diversity, you know, of course, in the spacecraft itself with Victor Glover as well. You know, I don't have his email, but I have talked to Victor Glover, and he's really nice as well. I mean, they're all lovely. I'm, no, I also, when you see the one-liners from Victor Glover as well of like his response to things, they're like so poetic.

I just like, I just want to see all of his individuals. They are better than us. I think we just have to accept that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we've talked about the science, the people, the impact. I think they've got, I mean, I don't, I can't swear on this show, but to get through the return to Earth is absolutely insane. And let's talk about that because it's a very short time, isn't it, to get from that moment of entry back into one.

what was it was like 14 minutes or something so they had the preparation i mean i wasn't actually doing any media then but i was up and i watched it and i thought i can't go to bed i'm really tired but i need to watch this through till after one in the morning to make sure they've come down safely and yeah you realize you think it's a very very short period if 14 minutes six minutes of that is a communications blackout because they're traveling so fast you've got the heat around it the discharging electrons blocking radio signals and then they're down safely. You see the parachutes deploy and then you think, okay, they're going to be all right. You know, they land. You know, they're going to be picked up. I didn't stay up for another two

hours to watch them get onto the ship. I thought that was pushing it to go to 3 a.m. But, you know, I was actually quite relieved to see, yeah, they've landed, it's all fine. And I think, you know, if we're going to close any of this, I think as well, what I liked about the mission is they did keep emphasizing, you know, despite some of the messages that might have been coming out, the White House, that it was for humanity, that this is very much an international endeavor, that it's a multinational crew. You know, yes, the first woman to go around the film, the first astronaut of colour to go around the moon. And they were very clear about the fact that there was a European Space Agency's service model. Because there are, when you add

up the Easter nations, Canada and the US and so on, there must be what, at least 27, 28 countries involved in making this happen. So it's not like the Apollo area. It was very much, pretty much an entirely US-led effort. You know, there wasn't much of that in those days. So I think that was an important message as well that, you know, this wouldn't be happening without that international collaboration that we really depend on. I thought it was so nice that they specifically said and thank you to our European friends who have made this possible. I thought that was really nice. And again, it just shows how many people have been working on this.

I loved how they were just after splashing down in the ocean. If you think that, you know, it's going to be pretty torturous coming through the atmosphere. I think that's an understatement. These things are not designed as boats. They're going to be bobbing around. It's going to be quite uncomfortable. They kind of get out, they're all beaming smiles up in the helicopters onto the ship. And then they're just chatting.

And they just looked so calm and so natural. And then, you know, they're flown to Houston. There's a press conference. They're bouncing around the stage in that. You know, it's still, I mean, that's still part of the mission, really. I think finally, you know, after all that, they've got some downtime now. But they were still so on, so full of energy. They didn't look jaded.

They were so enthusiastic. still for the mission and for the future of Artemis as well. And so for those that might not have watched it, fair enough, it was quite late. Can you talk us through what exactly kept the crew kind of, I guess, supported, you know, that they have enough oxygen, that the balance in that capsule is right? Is that in the capsule itself? Is it in their suits? What's going on? So it's all in the capsule, but they have these pressure suits in case there is a leak in the capsule. So that's why they have the orange sort of space suits there. That's in case there's any

depressurization, any problem there. I mean, there is, you know, plenty of, there are plenty of supplies in the capsule. So they've got to survive 14 minutes. There was a big concern over the heat shield because there was a lot of, what they call ablation on the first heat shield for the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission. They had a slightly different profile on this coming down. And then when you saw them come down, there were multiple parachutes. So there were the first lot of parachutes and the second lot of parachute, then finally got the big shoot. I was a little, because I watched it like Robert.

And he said, oh, no, the parachutes are not filled properly. The parachutes not filled properly. Obviously, they filled, as it came closer to the earth, I think it's more air, and they filled up. You saw a little bit, which wasn't entirely explained. You saw a bit of venting of fuel coming out from the sort of jets from the, from the spacecraft itself. But yeah, I mean, they would have tested this.

I know they've tested this because I've been covering this for seems like decades. They've tested and tested and tested in wind tunnels, in simulations. And they had, of course, Artemus 1 to check it all works. So I think they were probably more confident than those watching work because we've not seen this before. But, yeah, I mean, it was, again, flawless. But that shouldn't lull anyone into a false sense of security that this is easy. and that the only thing that will go wrong next time will be the toilet,

because something else could go wrong or something else could go wrong. But yeah, it shows it is all feasible the system works. Yeah, exactly. So what are the next steps? What is the next instalment of Artemis? So the next thing is this test in Earth orbit of the docking system and so on, connecting to lander and all the rest of it, which is like a mission, I think it was Apollo 9 in the Apollo era

where they did those sort of tests in orbit to make sure that it would work, but close enough to the Earth that, you know, you can come back down again. You don't need to be in lunar orbit to try it out. After that, really, it's Artemis 4. And when that happens, when they've chosen a landing vehicle that's safe enough to get people down to the surface and back to lunar orbit, I think I'm right in saying that the landing vehicle will travel to the moon separately and they will pick it up there. So it's not, so Apollo was everything goes to moon, the bit comes back. This is going to be you send your landing vehicle to lunar orbit and then you have to rendezvous with that.

and then the astronauts presumably transfer from the capsule in the command module into that. But that could be 2028, could be later. We've just got to wait and see. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some delay on this. We will see. It really depends on that landing vehicle being tested so rigorously, and they're being confident that it's absolutely safe to go down to the surface and back up again. And you have to be right.

So we'll see what happens with that. Yeah, the pressure is on because they've already got the next SLS. ready. The Orion is ready. I know the service module has already been built by ESA, so that's ready to go. So they need a lander. They need something to dock with in low Earth orbit to test out the system. There's a universal docking system. So whatever lander they end up with will have exactly the same docking system on it. But, you know, the SpaceX one, it seems to be a long way away. And we've only got in theory, we've not seen the Blue Origin lander yet. It could all happen. It is all feasible. I mean, you know, Apollo was a massively accelerated program.

It is possible that we could see the mission in 2027 and then the two landings they're planning for for 2028, all within the Trump presidency. And that's the political pressure in the US is to get all this done within that time frame. No comment. No, but I mean, it's really exciting. And also, I think in that time, just from a public perception view as well, it's a really nice time to be a space fan at the moment. And I think when we see more telescopes coming online later in the year, you know, Nancy Grace Roman, we talk about it a lot. It's lovely to see so many people asking questions. I mean, even on a very personal level, we've seen loads of questions come into our inbox. Like, that's lovely. So, yeah, I just hope this excitement and curiosity

continues. I think that's it for our roundup on Artemis. I mean, it's a bit longer than we were anticipating, but there was a lot to get through. I think I'm going to end this, though, on a very specific question to both of you of based on the Nutella maple syrup debate, if you had to take a condiment into space with you, what would you be taking? Oh, Tabasco sauce, I think. Yeah, definitely be, and I'd want to be able to do something like cheese on toast in space. Is that feasible? I have no idea, but definitely Tabasco, if I could. Richard? It's got to be Marmite.

In fact, I've had a long discussion with people about Marmite. We think it's a safe consistency to take in a spacecraft and you can open the lid and it won't sort of drift away. I 100% agree with you. I would not cope without Marmite for international listeners. It is an interesting, dark brown substance that you have on toast. It is delicious. Some people absolutely despise it.

Australian listeners will be familiar with Veggie mite. It's kind of like that. It's not as good, but also, no, gosh, we're going to get so much hate for that. Okay. So anyway, please do keep sending your questions to us. We love reading them. It's podcast at raf.ac.ac.uk on email. You can send us a message on Instagram.

It's at Supermassive Pod. Or if you are a member of the Supermassive Club, then please keep posting on the forum. I just love reading everyone's updates. Becky will be back with us next time as well. our next episode, which is going to be on space debris. And actually, that's why I'm recording with Robert in person because we've just been walking around an exhibition about it all. And it's wonderful.

So until next time, everyone, happy stargazing. I've never got to say that before. It's fun.