The Supermassive Podcast - Returning to the Moon - with ESA Astronaut Matthias Maurer

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Climb aboard The Supermassive Rocket, Izzie and Becky are (talking about) sending humans back to the moon. Joining them on their trip is European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer and Jacki Mahaffey, the Chief Training Officer for NASA’s Artemis II mission. Plus, Dr Robert Massey, the Deputy Director of the Royal Astronomical Society, is there as well to answer your questions and share his top stargazing tips.For more supermassive astronaut episodes, here's our episode with Samantha Cristoforetti and another with Gene Cernan.Keep sending your questions to The Supermassive Podcast at [e-mail] or find us on Instagram, @Supermassive Pod.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.

Personally, I think I would be terrible. Putting my horrendous motion sickness aside, the astronauts have to be able to know how to do all the things. What's the current timeline with Artemis and having a crew return to the moon? Hello and welcome to the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark and astrophysicist Dr. Beggy Smethurst. We are going to the moon. Not literally, unfortunately, the Supermassive podcast isn't suddenly entering the private space sector. Could you imagine if we did? We could make the Supermassive rocket which has a lovely

ring to it, to be honest. We could, we could, but we're not compensating for anything, don't worry. Anyway, let's avoid that rabbit hole. This month, it's all about sending humans back to the moon and ready the astronaut alarm, everybody, because we have European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Mora on the show. We're very excited. We do love astronauts. Anyway, he'll be talking about the latest plans for lunar exploration. Plus, we'll also have a chat with Jackie Mahaffey, the Chief Training Officer for NASA's Artemis 2 mission. I'm so excited. But it's not a show without Dr Robert Massey, the Deputy Director of the Royal Astronomical Society. So Robert, why

are space agencies looking to return to the moon? Yeah, and you have to look at both the science, which we probably tend to think about more and the very straightforward exploration goal was that kind of international competition for going back there because it's been 53 years since we went there. So in 1972, December 1972 was the last mission and that continues to count up. So a very long time and there aren't that many Apollo astronauts left. Specifically, scientific reasons and the stuff that gets touted apart from that rivalry between America and China or all the rest of it is that the Moon has got a fossil record of its own formation, not actual fossils, just a record.

It's a record of the early solar system. It's a surface that unlike the Earth, all that kind of volcanism and so on stopped a very long time ago. So it doesn't get resurfaced and it doesn't get weathered in the same way as the Earth. It gets a different sort of weathering from solar radiation, but that's another matter. And also the Apollo astronauts only went to six sites.

So when you think about it, 12 people walked on the moon, or men actually, 12 men walked on the moon. They went to six sites, that's it, you wouldn't try to explore a surface which is roughly halfway between the size of Africa and Asia, with just 12 people walking around for a couple of days, you know, clearly that's not much going. So you know, it's also in terms of size, because there's also things like it could be a possible future site for radio astronomy, the ambitious idea is there's been around for a long time to put a radio telescope on the far side of the moon shielded from the Earth. And wouldn't that be amazing? And so anyway, right now the plan is to follow

and there's slight question marks over this. But you know, the plan is to follow the Artemis program that was agreed between NASA and ESA and a series of launches using the space launch system. And that includes setting up a lunar space station, the so-called gateway and the base on the surface. And it's also supposed to try out technologies for a Mars shot, maybe a decade after that, although that, you know, obviously is even more uncertain that's been touted, I think, as long as I've been alive pretty much and that that's a fairly long time. So, you know, yeah, we'll see. But you know, at the moment, the prospect is still that astronauts will get there, I guess, go around the moon next year and land on the surface a year or two after that.

So fingers crossed. Oh, I just really want to see that happen. Like, you know, we're that generation of we didn't get to see the moon landing. Like, you hear all about it and the excitement about it. But I'm, I'm excited to experience that, you know, fingers crossed everything, you know, goes to planet and it's all on track. But I just want to see that happen. But would Yeah, I'm so jealous, right? Of the people who got to live through that. Yeah. And got to experience it. Yeah, very jealous.

Even when we started this episode of like, we're going to the moon. I can't hear that without hearing like the JFK speech like we choose to go to the moon. Anyway, but with the two of you, would you like to go to the moon? Is that something that you think you could manage and tolerate? Tolerate? Perhaps reveals my thoughts on it. Yeah, I think I get asked this question a lot. It's like, oh, you're an astronaut, would you rather be an astronaut? Whatever. And I always say, like, I think unless going to the moon became as commonplace as like a flight over the Atlantic kind of thing, I don't think I would ever choose to do it as if it became like a passenger experience rather than a sort of

astronaut military kind of experience instead. It's not something I would choose to do. But having that experience as like a travel experience would be great. You know, the ultimate astro tourism. Yeah. Yeah. How about you Robert? Well, you know, in the unlikely event I become a billionaire, then I'll think about paying for it. But I think yeah, it's sort of like, it just has to be that much easier. I think you want to be able to do it. You know, you want to think, I know what in a couple of months time, let's go to the moon rather than I'm going to sign up for a program. I'm probably a bit off with this anyway, but sign up for a program and train for 10 years and then

get to go there. Maybe, it's not really a trivial thing to do. But if it was easy, if you could go there and just like, I don't know, spend a couple of days going there in relative comfort, walk around the surface, come back fairly easily. Yeah, I think I probably would. It's just that as Becky said, ain't that easy. So really, it's probably never gonna happen. I have to say, by the way, despite our age gap, I'm actually also of the generation that didn't experience it because I was only, if I was I just about three by the time of the last Apollo mission. So needless to say, I have no memory of this either. Not not direct memory anyway. Yeah. I, I would like to be in space. I don't want to get to space. If I could just click my fingers and be in space and have that view. Yeah, count me in. We're basically after teleport,

aren't we? This is basically that will flu powder. Or just like VR, you know, we can put you in a big immersive, like one of those flotation ponds with a VR headset on you. I was going to say if you combine the two. You've done some astronaut training before though, right? Right. So I made this documentary for BBC Five Live years ago and it was, what does it take to go to another planet? And could humans go to Mars and exploring that question. And I got to go in the centrifuge, which was brilliant. It was hilarious.

But oh my goodness, I've never had an experience like it in my life. So centrifuges, these big arms that spin around a room and they simulate different g-forces going through launch. I think I got up to like 4g, which was higher than anyone else who tried it that day. But I hilariously planned my day very badly because I did part of an interview beforehand, went on the centrifuge, tried to finish the interview afterwards and that second interview was like, well, I don't feel well. I can't think of anything. This is all being recorded. Are you not recommending this as a technique then?

No, I would say to any fellow producers, make sure that you do all recorded interviews before you get spun around very, very quickly. On centrifuge. But it's amazing because I had that tunnel vision experience. Oh yeah. And so they say if that happens and you feel like it's like the end of the Looney Tunes and you know, the darkness sort of comes around into your vision and they say just squeeze your legs and just to send the blood rushing up to, you know, important parts of your body basically.

And then it suddenly comes back again. So, um, I'm glad I've experienced it. But so you could be a fighter pilot and go to the moon though. Um, yeah, I don't really like flying. So that might be a challenge. Might be a bit of an issue. All right. Thanks.

Well, let's, let's move this along. Shall we? Uh? Robert, we'll catch up with you later when we take on our listeners' questions. Now, there's no doubt that returning to the moon is a hot topic at the moment. NASA is leading the Artemis program, which has four different stages with the overall aim to send humans back to the moon. As part of this, the European space agency is developing the lunar gateway. So this will be the first international space station around the moon. And as things stands, no European astronaut has been assigned to a lunar mission. However, astronaut Matthias Maurer is heavily involved with the training and has

developed tools for a future trip to the lunar surface, And he's one of six European astronauts available for selection. So, friend of the show, Space Boffin podcast host, Sue Nelson, met up with him recently to chat about all of this. So, what's the difference between training for the Moon and training for the International Space Station? Living and working on the International Space Station means like living in zero gravity. Once we return to the moon, we will have gravity again, not the same like on planet Earth,

but a little bit of gravity. So basically, somebody who weighs 60 kilograms here on planet Earth would weigh only 10 kilograms on the surface of the moon. So in order to train for these conditions you want to reduce the gravity on the astronaut. And so we have on our lunar facility in Cologne we have, well we will have very soon a gravity offloading system that does exactly this. We also have dust because you have a very dusty environment, you have rocks and all that stuff you don't have on the International Space Station. And on the International Space Station,

you bring your experiments, and you know exactly what you have to do. So your daily duties are exactly planned. I would say like even on the minute, or on the five minute exact precision. Once you arrive on the surface of the moon, we will go to a flexicution, a flexible execution. We call it a flexicution operational concept. And that means you have a rough plan what you want to do, like three or four destinations

that you want to visit and check. But if you find something on the way, you're allowed to stop. And then you can say, OK, I spent my time here because this place looks way more interesting than what I'm hoping to find on the other side. What will astronauts be able to accomplish on the moon that robots can't? Because let's face it, there's a sort of dividing line there, isn't there, in terms of even a man's spacecraft, a man's spacecraft, a man's spacecraft, a crewed spacecraft, naughty me. Yes, I think robots actually have or can contribute a lot even to the human spaceflight program and in the future we will see not an either or, we will see a together. And so I think we humans, we can interact much quicker

and we can use our human instinct and our human experience that we accumulated and also working together to explore very quickly. And then probably we could offload some of the time-consuming tasks to machines, to robots. For example, when humans go and scout the surface of the moon, we bring all the expertise that we have from geologists on the ground. If something happens that is not foreseen or not planned and such not programmed into the machine, we humans can act quickly on the changed frame conditions. I believe with all the intelligence that we see now coming with

artificial intelligence embedded in rovers, it will be a combination. It will be a symbiosis of exploration, human and robotic machines. And is there a lot more science that needs to be done when it comes to returning to the moon? Oh definitely. We want to go to the Moon to learn a lot about the Moon's surface, but also to improve our technology. In the Apollo times we had space suits that allowed the astronauts to explore the Moon. Three times during the last mission they were on the surface, but after these three spacewalks, the suits already contained so much dust that most probably it would have failed during a follow-on activity. So we need to improve our equipment, we need to make sure that humans in these systems

are safe and not only safe for three spacewalks, but we want to stay there for a long time. If you look to Antarctica, we have now research stations there and people in the beginning say like, what do you want to do there? It's just like cold and white and there's nothing. Well, we all know you can learn so much about the climate of planet Earth and the understanding how our planet and the climate works. And the moon will be similar. We will establish a small station and we will be astonished

what science we will get, the results that we will get. And we will see more and more stations coming. Obviously Gateway will fit into this plan. In terms of the commuting to and from the moon, how will Gateway fit in? So during the Apollo times we had a very straightforward approach. The astronauts flew with a capsule to the orbit of the moon and landed with a lander that they brought along. Now we would like to explore not only the equator area of the moon, that's where the

Apollo guys went to, but we would like to explore also the polar regions because we expect to find water ice there and in this water ice we might also find some biological traces that contains stuff like organic chemistry that basically also came to planet Earth and was the starting point of life so it's really really interesting from a scientific point of view to go and get this water ice on the Moon and to analyse what's in there to get a better understanding of how life evolved in the universe.

And Gateway is the decisive element that allows us to reach every point on the Moon from the orbit around the Moon. In the Apollo times we could not have reached the polar regions. And in terms of the time spent on the surface compared to say the Apollo missions, will the Artemis astronauts get more time on the Moon as a result of having Gateway there, sort of in sight effectively? Well looking at how Gateway flies around the Moon, we see that one orbit, it's a very, well, it's not a round, a circular orbit, it's a highly elliptical orbit, and it takes six and a half days for one flight around the moon.

So that's longer already than Apollo astronauts spent on the moon. As soon as you undock from the gateway and land on the surface of the moon, you will have to stay on the surface for six and a half days. Or if you miss your window to return, then you have to stay like even twice, 6.5 days. So it's like almost two weeks and so on. So this gives the astronauts who land on the surface of the moon way more time to explore. But it also gives them the need to get better material. In the long time, they also will need to have a habitation down there to be protected against space radiation. So how soon will we see a European astronaut mentioning their names,

maybe the person who's stood in front of me right now, on Gateway and on the Moon? ESA is a very strong partner together with NASA and the international partners in the Gateway Program. And so our contribution is already like it amounts already to three flights to Gateway. So all the European astronauts are crossing their fingers, are dreaming to be the one selected to fly to Gateway and later on hopefully also to the surface of the Moon. So there's no no question that we are all very eager to fly and dreaming to do it.

I think this element is supposed to fly around 28 and that would be with the Artemis 4 mission and I'm very hopeful that we see a European astronaut of to be defined name to be flying to Gateway. And do you see this mission as a sort of understanding of, obviously as a scientist yourself, you know, as more to understand the Moon or more as a step towards Mars? Or both maybe? I would say there's both. Basically on Gateway we will be in the harsh space environment, radiation environment around the Moon that is quite similar to the environment that we expect to find around Mars. So being in deep space and you know when you fly six and a half days around the Moon at the furthest point you are like 43,000 miles away from

the surface of the Moon. So you're out there in dark cold space And that also on the human psyche, it leaves a very good impression, a very first flavour of how it will feel like when you're actually flying away from planet Earth, maybe on a 500-day mission towards Mars and back. You will be out there and you will be probably only two to four persons and you need to manage this. be probably only two to four persons and you need to manage this. Thank you to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. We can turn off the astronaut alarm now. Stand down everyone.

Yes, stand down everyone. I think that's our third astronaut on the show. Really? Three? We've had Samantha Christopheretti. We've had that archive piece on Jean Cernan as well. Then now we've had Matthias. I thought we'd had Chris Hadfield on the show, but I don't think we have had him. I remember that.

Yeah, that's what I think. So that that needs to happen at some point. That does need to happen. And obviously, if you want to check out those previous interviews that we did with Samantha Chris-Freddy and the archive piece with Gene Cernan, they're in the podcast archive somewhere. You should dig out and listen because they're great. They are great. And I should also mention that Sue will have more on Gateway. She went to see the European sections in Turin recently in the March edition of Space Boffins podcast, which is also co-hosted by our editor, Richard. So yeah, go and check that out. So Becky, can you give us an update? What's the current timeline with Artemis and having a crew return to the moon?

Yeah. So I mean, they're doing this in stages just to test everything, check everything is safe, just like they did the Apollo missions as well back in the 60s, right? So we had the first Artemis mission, Artemis 1, back in November 2022, if you remember, and that was just a completely uncrewed test of the new spacecraft Orion and the space launch system, the SLS, you know, rocket that NASA has been developing as well. And Artemis 1 essentially just looped around the moon and came back to Earth safely. Had a few issues with its heat shield, they're kind of figuring all that out. And that was basically the purpose of that mission was to show up any teething problems

essentially. Now Artemis 2 will do the exact same thing, just a loop around the moon and come back, but with a crew on board this time. Now, that was originally planned for September 2025 in the original timeline, but because there was even those little heat shield issues that they were deciding to have a whole new heat shield and we just changed the, you know, the return trajectory, that's been pushed back now until April 2026. So this time next year, we're all going to probably be very excited, I think, for that first crude

Artemis two missions. The big one though, will be Artemis three. So if you remember, it was Apollo 11 that eventually landed on the moon, right? They needed a few more tests because obviously space travel wasn't as big of a thing back then. We know a bit more, so we're doing it in three, not 11. Artemis 3 will be the crewed mission with an actual landing on the moon with the Starship lander that's been developed as well. Now that's scheduled for mid 2027, so two and a bit years away. And that's also assuming that there's no more delays off the back of Artemis 2. Well, exactly.

If that doesn't like throw up some more teething problems as well. Obviously, they've got about a year or so that's something that's probably why they said mid 2027 so they can get away with you know, putting it any point during 2027 probably. But yeah, they're probably delays are going to be higher likely, right? You've got moving parts, you've got humans, both in space, makes things very difficult. But then after that, there are missions planned all the way out to Artemis 6 so far, you know, in the 2030s with the goal, you know, of landing again, but also the development of the Lunar Gateway as well, you know, space station orbit around the moon, which will house the astronauts like the ISS does now.

And I think if you're really cool to think that it's so commonplace, you know, I see the ISS go over now in the sky and you're like, oh, the wave of the astronauts. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of exciting to think that, you know, with a bigger telescope, you might be able to see lunar gateway in orbit and wave at the astronauts around the moon. It is really exciting, isn't it? It feels like that next push when you think about all the stuff that could come out of this.

But we've also got private companies entering the discussions too. We've had Texas based company, Firefly Aerospace recently, they placed their lander Blue Ghost on the moon's surface. So that was on the 2nd of March of this year, 2025. We also have Intuitive Machines latest mission. Less successful. So what are they doing and how involved and necessary are private space companies in this pursuit of, you know, returning to the moon? Yeah, I mean, I think they're going to be integral, you know, to the whole mission,

but especially Lunar Gateway as well. So anything from the launch of the module so that the way that the space station will be built is like the modules will be built on Earth and then launched and then just like pieced together like a big Lego thing in space. Right. But also to like the proportion of, you know, the space station, but also like development of tech as well for both Artemis and Luna Gateway as well. I think NASA are really utilizing like the advancements that have come from private space companies. You know, they're not going to start reinventing the wheel if private space companies already done that or has got, you know, like a program in place to

develop something already, they're going to be like, okay, we'll just hire you out to do this. And that does make it a lot simpler. You're not completely doing it all by yourself just as one government space agency. And as we know, government funding isn't always the biggest either. There's not the backing always behind it. So private space companies have that backing to make stuff happen quickly is the thing. And you know, some of these, you know, demonstrated tech and labs that's going to be needed, you know, decades in the future and stuff already. So it's

really helpful to know that that's that's happening. And I think it's just gonna be really interesting to see how that actually plays out in the next five to 10 years. We kind of seen it in the past couple of years with like, for example, SpaceX launching NASA missions or ESA missions or whatever, it's a private space company that's actually launching like a telescope or a probe or whatever. And that's been really interesting to see that sort of, you know, partnership between space agencies and private companies move forward. But I think it's really interesting when all of a sudden the private space companies get involved with actually like the building of the space station or whatever it is as well. And I do worry a little bit that

there's going to be a lot of like, for want of a better word, moving parts that all have to come together to work together. And there's a lot more chances for failure in terms of human communication, more than anything. You know, like famously, what was it, the Mars mission where an American team used Imperial units and the European team using metric and there was a miscommunication there. So it failed. Like I feel like there's more room for those kind of errors. But I think people will be on top of it with with so many people involved. But you know, you live and you learn at the same time.

I think it's also quite interesting to see what other space agencies might do in this, you know, even if you look at China or India, like they're really doing their own thing in this as well. And they don't necessarily have the legacy of agencies like NASA. So they are perhaps doing, I guess, going against the rulebook slightly just to work it out their own way. And that might throw out some really interesting stuff as well. So, yeah, a lot, a lot to look out for. A lot to think about. Yeah, yeah. But I think we're all excited for Artemis, definitely. I mean,

science-wise, yes, okay, we want to go back to the moon. But I think I'm more excited about the lunar gateway necessarily. Because I always get asked like, since we went to the moon, we've not done anything. And I'm like, hey, we built a house in space. That's still pretty amazing that we built the International Space Station. So the fact that we're going to build a house around the moon is pretty cool. When it comes to astronaut training, personally, I think I would be terrible. Putting my horrendous motion sickness aside, I like to press all the buttons and I don't take orders very well either. I think if I'm looking at a process, and this process is horrendously illogical, I'm just going to ignore it.

You do not want me in a spacecraft near all those buttons or even training to be in a spacecraft next to you. You do not want me in charge of anything. This is why they put people through a very lengthy and tough process to train to be astronauts as well. Astronauts are still among the best of the best in the world and obviously the rewards for making it onto a crew are quite literally out of this world. But what does it take? And where does that even begin? I spoke with Jackie Mahaffey, the chief training officer for NASA's

Artemis II mission. She essentially leads the teams that trains the astronauts for their mission around the moon. We are mostly focused on developing the training for Orion. That's the capsule that they will launch from the Florida coast on and in the Artemis 2 mission case fly around the moon. What we think about is the astronauts have to be able to know how to do all the things. Yep. They have to know how to do it together or they have to be able to do it together. And it actually turns out that it's pretty important they understand why they are doing the things they do.

So we keep all those things in mind and several years before the Artemis II crew is even named, we thought to ourselves, okay, what is everything that the astronauts are going to be able or going to have to do as part of this mission? And then we started divvying that up into, well, how do we group that logically into training? And how do we sort of have what we call a crawl, walk, run approach with it? So introducing them to some concepts or skills in a very much question and answer, just giving

them the background on things, atmosphere, then letting them put it into practice and maybe a little bit more realistic scenario. And then finally, especially towards the end of our flow, really try to make those scenarios as realistic as possible. Yeah. So what does that look like in practice? Because you can't just chuck them off to the moon or try and simulate that too easily. So what does that look like in the real world?

We have facilities of varying degree of fidelity, I guess you would say. So, you know, some things, especially the introductory things, we might be starting in an actual classroom, but the places that really give the training, I guess, in the most meaningful way or the realistic way are things like our simulators and our mockups. You could think of simulators as focusing on the realistic flight software of, say, the Orion spacecraft or maybe the lunar lander. lunar lander and those facilities are really focused on the displays that the crew has in front of them. What is it actually going to look like out the window for them? They've got all the hand controllers that maybe they're flying with and all of those things actually have some realistic flight software behind them driving, hey this is exactly what it's going to feel like

to run my procedures and fly this vehicle. Wow. And then on the mock-up side, I generally think of mock-ups as more the physical interactions. So what is it like going to be in this space? Orion is a small-ish capsule. It's a little bit bigger than the Apollo capsules, but definitely nothing like the space shuttle or certainly not the space station. It's going to be cozy.

It will be cozy. And so even, yeah, just thinking about, hey, the four crew members have these four different things they're supposed to be doing, but how will they coordinate with each other and do all of that in that small space? And so that's a lot of the things that we get out of mockups. As we go into the lunar training landing on the moon and then the walking on the moon, what are the spacesuits like? How is it like to move? We get into some other really interesting training facilities.

Well, that's what I wanted to ask because surely that training will have to adapt. And so how does that differ from those that are going to be orbiting the moon to those that will be stepping foot on the lunar surface? Yeah, the lunar surface training, we're already working on a lot of the facilities, we already are using them to do a lot of testing. So the suits are in development, and so getting chances for the astronauts to go, you know, try on the suits and then feel how they move, evaluate, can they use a particular geologic tool

when they're in the suit? Are all these pieces gonna work together? And so I bet a lot of your listeners are familiar with the training that we do in water. Yes. So with water, we can adjust our buoyancy. And so we adjust that to be like zero gravity for ISS, for a space station space box, we can adjust it to simulate one sixth gravity for the lunar surface. So right now our pool has some, like on the bottom of the pool, we have some simulated planetary surface that they can practice with.

But we also use some dryer facilities that make use of pulleys and counterbalances and different things to also work on those same things. And what tends to be the response from those astronauts in training when they have to go into one of those big pools for the first time in their suits, how do they find it? The first time is really just about what does this even feel like and getting the idea of how is my balance different in this suit, how is my range of motion affected, what kind of steps are going to give me the most balance.

And starting off slowly, how fast is reasonable? How slow do I need to go to keep my balance? All those kinds of things. So the first times it's really just on like that basic motion. And then over time, as crew are comfortable with those things, as they start using the tools and the different pieces of equipment, it'll transform into, hey, here's a task we want to do on a moonwalk. Let's practice this specific thing. Okay, that makes sense. And how important is mental preparation as well?

What are some of the things that those in training need to be mindful of or that you help them to be mindful of for a mission like Artemis? I mentioned understanding why we're doing something can be really important and I think that goes a long way in the mental preparation that you're asking about. Both to kind of give the stamina for I think a long training course and kind of getting through it and understanding like we have these really awesome mission objectives and these really cool things that we're going to go do and it makes all the day to day worth it.

And some of that training is really cool on a day to day basis. And sometimes it's a little bit more of a slog. And so, you know, I think knowing the ultimate goal can be really helpful for the crew. But also understanding the why I've come to learn is really important for things like as they are exploring the lunar surface, they will have a plan and be talking with mission control.

But the cool thing about humans physically being in a space is our brain's abilities to take in a lot of information really quickly and understanding, hey, what I'm really after on this moonwalk is this kind of insight for the geologists or this kind of information or I know that we went out on this with this particular objective in mind or this path that we were going to take, but there is something way cool over here that we should talk about

and switch tactics. Maybe switch up. Yeah, switch our strategy a bit. And let's look at the physiological effects, I suppose. So what is the impact on an astronaut's body of going to the Moon and potentially even staying on the Moon? And how does that compare to that of being on the ISS or, you know, very different for us on Earth as well. Comparing first to astronauts on ISS, a trip out to the Moon is going to be in zero gravity, microgravity. So that loss of the effects of gravity are going to be pretty similar. There's a total rebalancing kind of, you know, how do you find your balance when you don't

have these normal cues that your inner ear and parts of your body use to understand how it's oriented? We see fluid shifting in the body again, because it doesn't have gravity doing the things that normally does. And muscle and bone are affected by not having that constant demand of like holding yourself up on Earth. There'll be astronauts that stay in orbit around the moon. All of that is that same lack of gravity environment. On the moon itself, we have about one sixth of what the Earth's gravity is like. But probably it's pretty similar to no gravity. Maybe it's a little bit better, right? Maybe it's somewhere in between. And actually, that's something that the medical community is really

eager to learn about. We didn't have much data at all during the early Apollo missions and early space missions. And we have tons of data now on what happens on ISS when you just stay in space for a long period of time. Is that the same on the moon or does that once gravity brings you some benefits? And I'd love to know, do you think there are any specific traits that you see in all astronauts? Like what do you think it takes to be an astronaut? That's a good question. I think number one might be that getting excited by that kind of thing. Yeah, okay. that makes sense. It's exciting to be at the house. Yeah, having that sense of adventure and getting excited by the idea of the mission and working

with each other to achieve that. And of course, on a day to day, there's tough moments and things, but in general, finding that really enjoyable and satisfying to work with a team to achieve the mission. This is the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, astrophysicist Dr. Becky Spethurst and science journalist Izzy Clark. This month we're going back to the moon and we've got a bunch of listener questions. So Robert, Becky, get ready. Becky Yalf on Instagram asks, what are the upcoming experiments on the moon that you're excited to see? I think I'm really excited to see what comes out of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services,

as they're calling it, this initiative CLPS. It's kind of going back to what we were talking about before about this sort of like, you know, partnership between the private space companies and NASA. This is essentially this initiative is where companies can bid to send their experiments to space, right? Whether that's, you know, into Earth orbit or on the surface of the moon, right? It's what took the intuitive machines landed to the moon about last year in 2024. So it's gonna like companies and institutions like launch experiments to study like lunar geology and test new technologies for future human missions to the Moon and like gather data on like the Moon's environment and its surface and things like this. But obviously as an

astrophysicist, space exploration is cool right? But even now the physics we're going on is where I really care about. And I think the ones I'm most excited about that are involved in this whole CLPS initiative are two radio telescopes that are involved in this whole CLPS initiative are two radio telescopes that are set to be launched to the far side of the moon. So you've got Rolces, R-O-L-S-E-S, it's an acronym, I can't remember if that's what it's called. And then you've got Lucy Knight as well. And they should both be on the far side of the moon by like mid end 2026. Which is really exciting because like you think about building radio telescope and you think about building these massive, massive structures, which take ages, but they've really thought

about what can we actually do? What can we put on the far side of the moon that's doable now? And so you're like, okay, well, we can start to get data. If you're thinking, well, why do you want to put a telescope on the moon in the first place? And well, specifically, it's for the radio astronomy, right? We communicate so much with radio that there's so much noise in terms of an, you know, an earth background noise, smaller communications from whether that satellites on the ground that it makes doing radio astronomy quite difficult, especially when you're looking

at really faint objects that can get lost in that noise. The moon, however, is very radio quiet, not just from like earth radio noises and like human radio noise, but also like, when we also have the magnetic field around earth as well, we can get a get a radio light coming from the fact that you got like the sun's high energy particles hitting with the magnetic field that produces this radio background too. So going to the far side of the moon is great for radio astronomy, especially when you're trying to see really faint things like in the distant universe. So we're going to be able to do cosmology from the far side of the moon by the end of 2026. So that'll really tie in with JWST as well, the James Webb Space Telescope, just trying

to see like that faint radio light from when the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe. Surely we need like another Pink Floyd album to celebrate that. Radio dark side of the moon. It's also worth mentioning there's efforts to keep the moon radio quiet too, because as you build a network of satellites, you know, you might get some of the same issues. So there is work going on to say, well, we want to

protect that environment for those reasons. Yes, that is a bigger conversation, isn't it? Okay. And so Robert astro K page 1986 asked, Oh, can I just say their Instagram account is amazing. And they post brilliant astro photography for anyone that wants to go and look at that. Check that out.

Check it out, yeah. But they ask, realistically, how long would it take to build a liveable habitat? I mean, is that something that people, when I say people, agencies... There are people in agencies, people in agencies are people too, is it? Yes. I know, but it's not like your friend down the road. He's like, I'm going to build a little bit. It is my friend down the road. Yeah. I take that back. I don't. Yeah, fair enough. I don't live near academics. Nevermind. But yeah, the answer is, first of all, there's quite a lot of

plans for this and there have been for since the 1950s and before because it was a staple of even early science fiction, you know, before the space age proper. And so there are there are lots of different plans and designs. And they can take different forms, you know, you can have something one idea is to have people living in some of the tunnels that are on the moon, which are formed by probably old lava channels when the moon was much more geologically active and it carved these things, you know, that's an idea. That's a quick way of putting yourself underneath a lot of rock to protect you from solar radiation, which is one of the biggest risks of living there. You know,

if you get a solar flare or coronal mass ejection, all that radiation coming towards you, it's bad news. So you need to protect yourself. And then there are concepts like the moon village. And actually ESA asked Norman Foster to draw a design for that. Now, when I say village, it isn't going to have a post office and a pub, I think. It's not a village then, is it? It's not a village. It's not going to have a village green, probably. Maybe build something like that at the South Pole because you've got access to water, ice and almost permanent solar power because there's

places where the sun almost never sets. But whatever it is, you have to be able to breathe, eat, drink water and get that protection from radiation. So you can sort of set up a very simple, arguably landing on the surface is putting a base there for a few days, right? You know, you go in and out, you live by living off the resources you brought with you. But what we're really talking about

is building a proper settlement, and that's gonna take years. And some of the technologies needed need to be at least pushed along. So there have been experiments in making things like lunar Crete, which is lunar concrete made from moon rocks. But you need to be able to do that on a huge scale. What do they call it lunar Crete as if it's like earth Crete? Like in concrete doesn't

mean earth. It's tough. I mean, this is like, you know, what on earth, you know, it's got to go with huge temperature changes and doing it in a vacuum and all that stuff. So not trivial. But the plans are to get something like that established in the Artemis program towards the second half of the 2030s. So we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, it would be fantastic. I guess it would be like an early Antarctic outpost only even tougher, you know, even tougher in terms of what you're going to do to survive. Okay, thank you, Robert. And Becky, Stella Cartography wants to know, does NASA still plan on building a lunar crater radio telescope?

Yeah, as far as we know, plans are still ongoing. So this lunar crater radio telescope, the LCRT was awarded like what's known as phase two planning by NASA a few years back. So essentially, what that means is this funding there for people to work on like design and logistics and how on earth you get a telescope, which is planned to be over a kilometer wide into a crater on the far side of the moon. Again, you want a radio telescope on the far side of the moon because it's radio quiet

so you can detect faint things. Then this is the thing, we were talking before about these radio telescopes that are just like little almost landers in how they look. We're talking about like a proper radio telescope, you know, like Arecibo or FAST in China, right, which is like 305 meters wide. It's talking about even bigger because the bigger you go, the smaller thing that you can see. So on the far side of the moon, you can see small faint things, which again for the distant universe is great. Now the plan, as far as people know, what's been sort of shared is that you would use like probes, robots, essentially to construct this telescope, which also they're very aware

that they can't like construct like you can on earth, right? It's going to be very much kind of like mesh and wires. Yeah. And that'll be how it all sort of like detect the radio light. And so that will be something that probes and robots could actually do in the near future. And so even with all the best of plans, though, you can't predict all the failures that you're going to have when you try and do this. So I imagine that could become a point where it's like mission cryptical for like, maybe if we could get human interference to help us out here, it would be beneficial to like the construction and get it going. So it could also be tied to the success of the Artemis missions as well, or any form of lunar gateway

that we could build. It is definitely more in the sort of probably 2040s rather than the 2030s. I have seen a lot of things reporting 2030s, but I really, really doubt that. You know, everyone always underestimates how long these things will take. And I think, yeah, building even just a mesh telescope a kilometer wide into a crater is going to have all sorts of problems, but it would be incredible. It would, you know, way surpass the things we were talking about before, like Lucy Knight in terms of seeing, you know, out into the distant universe, more of a clear picture than, you know, just sort of like, oh, there's something from roughly that direction over there.

So, I mean, all of this all sounds like stuff from a science fiction film, doesn't it? Why, we're just going to build a telescope into a crater. And again, it's very exciting. Why not? Yeah, but like in the 70s and 80s, it sounded absolutely crazy to have astronauts permanently overseeing the earth, right? Yeah, exactly. And here we are. You never know. Okay. And Robert, Lizzie19 wants to know, how does a moon clear its orbit? Well, Lizzie, that reminds me so much of the demotion

of Pluto 20 years ago now, you know, when I grew up, Pluto was still a planet. And now it isn't. And one of the reasons for that, one of the arguments and the definition was that a planet and now it isn't. One of the reasons for that, one of the arguments and the definition was that a planet was something big enough to clear its orbit that it would knock things out of the way, accrete them, etc. Now, that was one of the most controversial arguments as no planet kind of completely clears its orbit. Even Jupiter has these groups of asteroids called Trojans in resonance and Jupiter, remind everybody, is the biggest planet in the solar system. The Earth doesn't quite either. So but for our moon, specifically, it's an unusual case, it's really big compared with the Earth quarter diamond to

this. So you know, you're talking about something which is the double planet system, arguably, you know, and there are no other natural satellites around the earth. Effectively, there are things that come near the earth and in sort of resonances, but nothing like the Moon. The Moon has sort of done that. Most moons elsewhere in the solar system don't do this. If it happens, then I guess as with the other planets what you're talking about is that either the – so early in the Moon's history, either things smashed into it – accreted, you know, I mean – well, accreted implies something quite gentle. It might not have been gentle at all. They were thrown out of the system by the Moon or they entered some kind of resonance. So yeah, the Moon arguably does that. That's basically the mechanism that happens. They

either smash into it or they're thrown out of the way or they end up in some sort of more complicated resonance. But the Moon, our Moon, yeah, kind of is the best one in the solar system, I guess, for clearing its surroundings. That's possibly because we can see the Earth and Moon as a double planet system. I remember chatting to some colleague about this at a conference once about how we have very specific definitions for objects. And yet at the same time, they're so loose that it's only when you're presented with like, is this a planet or is this a galaxy that like someone can go, yes or no, but not really tell you why. You're like, you know, when it isn't a planet, you know, when it is a planet, you know, when it is a moon, you know, when it isn't a moon, but actually like defining that

into a definition that actually encompasses everything in the universe is so incredibly difficult. The International Astronomical Union has committed, you know, decided this and they had a huge debate about it at the time, I suspect. It's sort of settled, but there's still these gray areas that Becca is talking about. Yeah. I remember Alan Stern, who probably was a bit biased because he was head of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which was decided before this demotion of Pluto happened. I remember him saying it was like, it was the most woolly definition and it wouldn't have passed scientific peer review. But we had, we had Mike Brown, who was on our Planet Nine episode, who was the astronomer, who sort of- Pluto killer, yeah, as he calls himself.

Yeah, who put this, yeah, he still goes by Pluto killer, which I just think is so funny. Great. Okay, well, I think that's it for the questions for today. So if you want to send in any more, please do. We love reading them. You can email podcast at ras.ac.uk or find us on Instagram at supermassivepod. So Robert, let's wrap things up with some stargazing. What can we see in the night sky this month? Yeah, so April is very much the month of kind of spring stars, right? So you've got Leo the lion high in the south and then Virgo lower down and Ursa Major, the constellation, the great bear that contains the plough is really high overhead and that's a nice signpost actually.

You can use the bear's tail or if you prefer the handle of the plough or the big dipper in the US and all these other names to go down to the bright star Arcturus in Boeotis and onto Spica in Virgo itself. At this time of year, that region around Virgo and also higher up above it there's another faint constellation called Coma Berenesis, which I actually like. Berenes's hair, it's got quite an evocative group of stars. Those are places where there's loads of galaxies visible, and the reason they're a lot visible partly is because there aren't as many stars in that part of the sky. They do all need a telescope or a pair of binoculars to be seen, but they're really nice targets for all these people with telescopes like sea stars. You point them there and you find these beautiful, beautiful things. Spring is a really good time for that kind of thing. Now, we've also

enjoyed that long spell of planets in the evening sky for the last month or two. We can either groan or cheer at the definition of planet parade. I was kind of on board with it after doing some video diaries. I thought, you know, I'm just going to go with the flow. People looked at it. Leaning, leaning. I did. As long as it planetary alignment was the word I didn't like. Parade is a bit, yeah. Got a bit of a fanfare.

It was really nice to see so many people looking actually, you know, but all these people in my neighborhood went up and looked. But anyway, so Venus moved between the Earth and the Sun. It's now in the morning sky and actually it is maximum brightness on the 22nd of April. Although it's still quite low down, so it'd be really, really dazzling. And if you look at it with the telescope, it looked like this sort of thickening crescent that's pulling away from the Earth. Do you know, I saw Venus' face through a telescope for the first time. Really? You hadn't seen it?

Three weeks ago. And I was like, as I did it, I went, yeah, how have I gotten so far in my life as an asthmist without seeing Venus' face? But there you go. It was fab. I recommend everyone try. You're like, it's a dot to my eye. And yet I look through these and it's not a dot.

Make it make sense. Well, it's like me trying to, you know, honestly, after our first experience in the early 90s, not seeing the aurora for about 30 years. So yeah, so yeah, it's exactly that. There's obvious things. But Saturn, I'm afraid is out of view as is Mercury, because there are, you know, respectively, they're just too close to the sun in the sky, at least for people in the Northern Hemisphere. Although, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, actually, Mercury is really obvious by the middle of the month. It's just the way that its orbit is tilted with respect to the Earth, or rather the shape of its orbit is with respect to the Earth. And Jupiter

is still really good in the evening sky, as is Mars, although it's getting further away from us, so it's getting smaller. But the final thing I'll mention is this is also the month when the Lyrids meteor showers at its maximum and it doesn't produce a huge number, maybe up to 20 an hour and you might see say 10 of those. And as with all meteor showers it's small particles from space coming into the Earth's atmosphere. They come in this case from comet Thatcher which was discovered in the 19th century I think and they burn up and heat the air in these bright short-lived streaks. But the moon is quite low down, rises quite late, so it won't interfere too much.

It could be potentially a nice view. As often is the case with meteor showers, you need to get up in the early hours of the morning and ideally get away from towns and cities for the best view. But you know, spring, not too cold, maybe a good time to have a look. If the sky is clear, then I think around the 22nd of April is the maximum. So have a look around them. Oh great. So right around Easter. So if people are, you know, days off around Easter. Exactly. It's not a school night. Exactly. Yeah. You know, as much as I love astronomy, I'd really like sleep too. So I'm always like, oh, this is perfect. Well, it's perfect. And you get chocolate

in the morning to offset it. Or maybe it's legitimate to open the Easter eggs before you go out and look at them. Yeah. You need the chocolate to warm you up. Yeah. It's a sustenance to have it. It's good for us. Like a mini egg every time or every time there's a shooting start you get to eat a mini egg. For me, knowing my luck, I'll just be waiting a very long time. Anyway, I think that's it for today. We'll be back next month with a biggie. We asked listeners for some episode suggestions and we got a lot. So thank you so much because I was a little bit shocked by that response. So we're going to go with a suggestion

from listener Hannah and it's going to be about gravity. That is a biggie. Yeah. Plus, we'll also have a bonus episode in a few weeks time when we'll tackle a lot of the questions that you sent in that we didn't get around to in the main episode. So look out for that one coming out. Obviously messages if you have any more questions or episode suggestions as well. You can email podcast at rs.ac.uk or you can find us on Instagram at supermassivepod. Of course we'll try and cover them in a future episode. But until next time, everybody, happy stargazing.

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