Artemis II crew answers question during journey back to Earth
Mission Control Houston please call Integrity for a voice check
Integrity Jared Isaacman Com check
Administrator Isaacman we've got you loud and clear up here
I've got you loud and clear and uh let's see
if we can top that last uh PO event
That was pretty special
So we are going to spend the next 20 minutes
doing Q&A from a number of questions that have been
submitted and we're going to start with one from me
You all have spent years preparing for this moment and
imagining what it must be like when you look down
at the moon at the lunar surface
What has surprised you all that you did not anticipate
Go ahead it's on
Administrator great to chat with you
Uh just something that just shocked me because Really using
imagery and just the three dimensionality of it you know
from your experience of seeing the Earth from space how
it just seems different and you look out and Depth
of things and when we were on the far side
of the moon looking back at Earth it was just
so obvious you had this sphere out in front of
you of the moon in this three dimensional
You really felt like you weren't in a capsule
You'd been transported to the far side of the moon
and it it it really just bent your mind
It was an extraordinary human experience
I'm so grateful for it
Integrity uh Jared anyone else want to answer that one
You know we had an amazing launch
The SLS is quite a powerful rocket
Got us into a 1200 by you know eventually a
100 mile orbit and Clearly power and speed and then
we did our transluminar injection and we were going quite
fast and so with all of that speed though it
still took us days to get here and so the
scope of all of the things up to a 321
ft tall rocket was amazing
It just puts the you know the power required to
do this in perspective
But then even with all that power and to get
to those velocities it still took us days
and the breadth of the distance we had to cover
watching the distance from Earth count up and the distance
from the moon count down was one of the most
surprising things I've enjoyed
Well as I was trying to formulate an answer at
first I anything because there are so many things to
choose from
I'll try to just narrow it down but I'm going
to go with something we did yesterday Emmanuel
Flight test objective where we just basically got to sit
at the vehicle
It was Jeremy and I this time and just drive
around using the rotational hand controller basically just drive it
with the stick and how well it handled how tight
the control algorithms were and Watching it respond when we
actually degraded it on purpose by going into 3 degrees
of freedom control by actually inhibiting some of the jets
which even though we have jet redundancy of course for
each other in these complicated algorithms so it was just
amazing to be in a deep space spacecraft and just
be flying it around by hand
The one other thing I'll say
How fast it has gone by
I'm not ready to go home
I can't believe that something this cramped of quarters can
fly by and still be fun every single minute
And I'll just close out with I think just scale
Jared is the thing that is just blowing my mind
You know you flew Polaris on to some amazing apogee
numbers and on the International Space Station we're 250 nautical
miles up and that's the most beautiful view I think
a human could ever experience
And we are dealing with numbers that are 250,000 miles
and every time Mission Control points this vehicle either at
the moon or at Earth
And it reminds me every day that humans have to
go
We've got to explore we've got to go further to
expand our knowledge expand our horizons and every time we
take another step forward it makes the world seem a
little bit smaller and a little bit more manageable
And just putting these numbers in perspective it is impossible
as a human to look at these displays and comprehend
them and and but here we are and NASA is
doing this
An international team is doing this and they're doing it
very well
Excellent words integrity
So certainly a very wild insertion orbit
I can imagine the contrast between Perigee and Apogee the
scale scale of it all the 3D seeing the moon
come alive and then certainly manual control while every Dragon
crew for the last 5 years is very jealous on
that
OK so we're going to uh we're going to questions
here
Um this one you you uh the Artemis 2 crew
inspire all of us but what inspires you I think
I think as you get older your answer to that
question changes a lot
Certainly when I was a young boy and a young
man just And seeing an airplane flying overhead to me
that really lit a fire in me
And then I think when you you reach your middle
age it's just it is interesting to watch leadership throughout
the world kind of change the course of humans
You can watch that unfold and now now that I'm
I'm just a little bit over 50 you'll be there
soon
Um now that I'm just a little bit over 50
I mean it all ties back to just family and
you you understand just how much
You the people that you surround yourself with and that
is really every every night when you go to bed
that's really what you end up thinking at least that's
what I end up thinking
Uh thank you
All right so uh here's a question
It's a good one
So for the Artemis 3 crew what is the first
uh what is the advice you would pass along for
the next astronauts that will go in Orion That's a
great question Jared
We've actually been thinking about the Artemis 2 sorry the
Artemis 3 crew since we were assigned as the Artemis
2 crew
It was the beginning of how we came up with
how we wanted to fly this mission how we wanted
to buy down risk for the program and
Values as a crew and so you know over the
course of these three years we've taken a lot of
notes so we've almost got a book to hand them
but I think a few practical things just sitting
We've been living for the past 6 days
How you pack is a huge impact on how you
will live on the journey
And so things like food and your hygiene products and
then you know you know what's going on with our
waste management system the technology that we have practicing that
and being familiar with that and being prepared mentally
I used it on the space station
I used it at home in training but I'll be
honest I wasn't really prepared to have to use it
for over half the mission and uh but you know
we adapt and overcome and so I can't wait to
talk to that crew
I'm glad you said it or else I was
We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing
OK this question is from Merriam-Webster
It's a wordy one here
So you are going to be well you've already surpassed
more than 250,000 miles from Earth farther than any human
has gone before
So what are some words that come to mind when
you try to wrap your mind around this very unique
experience I'll be honest with you the main word because
superlatives just don't do it justice is humility
We would never be here if it weren't for so
many people that came before us starting with Neil Armstrong
Katherine Johnson Dorothy Vaughan civil rights movement leaders
Everyone who worked on this spacecraft before we got here
in our 3 years of training we went all over
the country and even to our European and Canadian partners
to see the people who have put their hands on
this hardware the millions of parts from every valve
Every valve to this entire thing the people that put
on harnesses every day to rig it up in the
VAB there is they all passed the record
We definitely didn't pass the record up here alone
So this is actually very similar to the question the
President of the United States asked just a brief bit
ago but during the quiet moments on your journey when
you were out of contact with everyone here on Earth
what were some of the thoughts that tended to occupy
your mind most Yeah as Victor said earlier when we
were on the far side of the moon and and
out of contact with planet Earth we all knew it
and it was a milestone
We saw Earth disappear the Earth set um but we
were so busy with the science and we have such
faith in our our vehicle integrity such faith in mission
control that we were just at complete peace and just
doing our job um
And just trying to do a good job to collect
as much science data as we could while we were
on the far side of the moon and we were
just giddy in here like
Of our lives
He's being a bit humble but as soon as we
went out of calm with Planet Earth we did have
maple cookies as we just gathered together for about 30
seconds
Each one of us had a maple cream cookie and
then right back into the science but we had to
take a moment to honor to honor that time going
behind Earth and it was a very I'm sorry going
behind the moon and out of touch with Earth and
that was a very surreal moment for this crew
Copy that copy maple cookies on the far side
And how has this journey changed How is this journey
already changed the way you see our home planet and
humanity's future among the stars There there's so many directions
I think we could go with that and I just
you know I
I think that there's You know But I think real
impact is local and I I to see the earth
as an entire thing and look at it this system
and to see it all at once but I My
daughters and just the you know the things that we
can impact directly the people that I can touch that
I can speak to hug and and show love and
gratitude toward
Is the the thing that I think is going to
change and last but you also talked about the the
future that we're going to have in the stars and
you know this mission I think we swung for the
fence and launched on our first try after learning a
lot earlier this year but I think it set the
stage for us to go out and continue to swing
for the fence
in our Orion SLS and ground systems programs to go
and get the next one teed up so that that
crew can knock it off out of the park and
so I I I have huge expectations for what's coming
next
Uh good words
Uh are you feeling homesick for Earth I will tell
you last
In my eyes I just I did start thinking about
getting home
It's not a homesickness at all but I just it
the first time probably in 3 years I let my
mind get past the moon and back towards home and
I had to catch myself right there
You're an operator just like we are and you know
that
Place to be when you're up here we got to
look one step one step ahead
What's next What's our next burn How are we setting
up our trajectory to get home And we are going
to do that
We are locked in and we are definitely excited for
the second half of this mission and we we are
on guard
We are the first crew to fly this vehicle
We are ready for any contingency in any scenario and
we are going to stay locked in every second until
we are back on that navy ship and then home
reunited with our families
And copy that astronauts like being in space
That checks out
OK there's a lot of questions from the uh space
photography community
How are the pictures going so far Well we all
love getting our hands on cameras and our eyes behind
the lens here because we're just trying to share the
incredible things that we're seeing and that's obviously the best
way we can try to do that
I've been into night sky photography for a long time
and so
A dream come true for me
I have thought specifically to that community
The time lapses I've been trying to get those are
a little tougher because we have a very dynamic vehicle
It's not like being on ISS where you can get
the city lights below and the auroras and the spinning
stars around the North Star
There's a lot going on so but what we got
Matter is out of this world
When we viewed that eclipse that was the one time
we all said we literally cannot capture this with a
camera
Everything else I think we've been able to we've really
put our hearts and minds into making sure we understand
so that we can bring that home to everyone
But having to set the low light features for earth
shine on the moon while it's an eclipse
That was a new one
I had to dig deep in my book for that
one
And thanks for the iPhones
They've been working great
Very glad to hear that and there are a couple
2 billion people back here on Earth that are extremely
excited to look at the imagery you've captured up there
OK well uh I wanna I wanna thank you all
integrity uh so Reed Victor Christina Jeremy on behalf of
NASA and space loving people across the world thank you
for taking us with you to the moon
Thank you for uh thank you for your courage all
of your beautiful words that we've heard
Uh you represent the absolute best of us
We are proud of you and we look forward to
welcoming you welcoming you back safely to the good earth
very soon
God speed and go Artemis too
Thank you so much Administrator
We are just proud to be a part of this
team doing our work every day and we are supported
by a huge world of humans and we are just
honored to be a part of that
Thank you
We'll see you soon
Integrity this is Houston ACR
That concludes the event
Thank you
Thank you to all participants
Integrity we are now resuming operational Audiocom