The computer that guided the Apollo program had less computing power than the iPhone. It wasn't just the computer, they're working with older technology for propulsion systems. Sometimes I go to museums and I'll look at an old capsule and I'll see all the wires and the mechanical switches. And I think I can't believe we sent a person into space in that.
In July of 1969, NASA put astronauts on the lunar surface 50 years later, the missions of space exploration are mostly carried out by robots. What would it take to return to the moon or to go to Mars? This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. At least one generation has missed out on the dream to go to the moon or another planet. Will anyone who is an adult today get the chance? What about the young people who might dream of going to Mars? The staff of the Challenger Learning Center fuels the dreams of youngsters to think about space and the STEM skills required to get there. We went to the Challenger Learning Center for some expert knowledge.
My name is Libby torbreck. And I am a flight director at the Challenger Learning Center at Heartland Community College was a flight director mean, a flight director means I am a licensed educator work with science. The Challenger Learning Center is an educational space simulator. And so what I do is I wear a cool blue NASA flight suit. And I lead to kids and adults on educational missions to outer space.
Speaking of outer space, there's a big anniversary in July of 2019. And that is marking 50 years since the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the lunar surface. But when the Apollo program sent these astronauts to the moon technology was not what it is today. We have obviously more powerful computers, we have advancements, some of which came from developing this space program initiatives. Can you compare the technology of today, some of which you might have in the simulators at the Challenger Learning Center to the technology of 1969?
Oh, so in terms of the technology and things at the time? That's a really fun question. So, you know, in our simulators, we have Apple computers, and we have big flat screen panel TVs and all of these things. The computer that guided the Apollo program had less computing power than the iPhone. And so a lot of people say, Oh, well, my iPhone, so amazing, those Apollo computers were dumpy, but really, those computers were years ahead of their time, because they were crash proof. And they could do all the things they needed. But it wasn't just the computer, they were working with your right older technology for propulsion systems. Sometimes I go to museums, and I'll look at an old capsule, and I'll see all the wires and the mechanical switches. And I think I can't believe we sent a person into space in that, because our technology is safer, we're more confident about how things work. The other thing is they didn't have computers to run simulations over and over and over again. So one of our favorite programs here at Challenger center with the kids is we have them build a rocket on this iPad app and launch it. And if their calculations or choices were bad, the rocket explodes. And in the early days of the American space program, they couldn't just run a simulation on an iPad until they found the right configuration. They had to calculate much of it by hand. I mean, if you've ever seen Hidden Figures and seeing, you know, the women who were called calculators because their job was to do and check the math, and I was with my in laws, this just this last weekend, and my father in law got out a slide rule and was trying to show us how to do multiplication and division with decimals on a slide rule. And I thought, That's right. In the days of Apollo, they weren't just flipping open Microsoft calculator and you know, getting out their ti 89 graphing calculator. I mean, really, it's amazing the brainpower that had to go into getting all these calculations to build these big mechanical machines and these computers that are crash proof and all that. So I'm really impressed by the work they did. But yeah, it was definitely more dated technology.
The Apollo missions ended in the early 70s. And we have not returned to the moon since then. But a lot was learned from those missions. What are some of the things that the Apollo missions really did to advance our knowledge of not just the moon, but Earth and other things that we couldn't have known otherwise?
Oh, this is a great question. So the Apollo program itself actually began before the moon missions. It started with Gemini, which was kind of a technology warmup for Apollo in Gemini was when we would send two astronauts into space at a time and test out different things in Gemini actually gave us the first real American spacecraft. It had propulsion. We had spacewalks we had onboard computers and radar and those things before any of that we couldn't get out into space, know where we were and propel ourselves around and so that alone is a huge thing that came out of the Apollo program, two of the Apollo missions that flew before we even went to the moon, Apollo seven and Apollo nine, they gave us a lot of really interesting technology tests and scientific experiments. And I made a note of one here that I thought was really interesting of something called multispectral terrain photography, which was a technique for photographing the earth that reveals things that would be kind of hidden to the naked eye, like diseased trees or unhealthy crops. Here in Illinois, that's kind of important. And this technology was actually used for the Landsat satellites later on. And there are a host of Landsat satellites now orbiting the Earth, monitoring it helping us track the health and see what's going on with our planet. We got hardware for the first American Space Station out of the Apollo program, the Apollo missions to the moon ended. And then the actual Apollo spacecraft kind of persisted a little longer with this project called the Apollo Soyuz project where they were trying to dock the American capsule and the Russian spacecraft together. And that was kind of an effort to bridge the Cold War tensions and stuff too. And so in addition to the, you know, 850 pounds of rock and soil, we got off the moon and all the things we learned about moon, we got a lot of different technological and social advancements to and I mean, I have a list of things we learned about the moon, too, if you want to know any of those, but there was a lot we got out of Apollo.
There was Apollo Soyuz missions, as you mentioned, were the first collaborations between the Soviet Space Agency and NASA. Many people when they think of the moon mission, they think of President Kennedy's famous speech about sending a man to the moon, and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 60s. And at the time, there weren't plans drawn up to do that, that it was sort of one of those aspirational speeches. And unlike a lot of speeches we hear nowadays, in the public sector, it was something that actually then happened. But that speech was somewhat drawn out of that cold war tension. And the fact that at the time, there was a real concern that the Soviet Union might somehow colonize space or have a military advantage with space technology. And the Apollo missions, I think, ended a bit of a public perception that the Soviets could win a space race. But up until that time, most of the advances actually were made just a step ahead of NASA, by the Russians.
Yeah. The Russians were the first ones to put something into space. And that's kind of what started this unofficial space race. It just, it came out of the Cold War, which was an unofficial war, we got this unofficial race, the space race, and when the Russians put something into space, there was this fear of oh my gosh, what if they can put missiles into space? What if they're spying on us from space, we need to be able to get up there, know what they're doing, maybe look at them protect ourselves. And so the, the space race was not just about showing off and being greater it was also about protecting ourselves and political tension. And those are pretty powerful motivators?
Well. And that's what's interesting about all of that motivation, whether it was easier to get funding from Congress because of that. But the scientific missions of the Space Race era, maybe wouldn't have happened, were it not for that perception. And there was probably from what I understand, not a real chance that the Soviets were going to be able to land on the moon, they scrapped their plans at a certain point. Yeah,
I've heard that as well. And then when the United States reached the moon, and everybody thought, we win, we win. That kind of did and it and so I actually really liked that it then turned into the Apollo Soyuz collaboration project and kind of an effort to say, okay, the space race is over. Hey, let's, let's make peace.
Well, I know looking forward towards future moon missions, I believe that there's no way that we could return to the moon easily without the collaboration and cooperation of other nations now, right, because the International Space Station could be involved.
Yeah, so NASA's plans for returning to the moon now, the President recently announced, you know that we want to have boots on the ground on the Moon by 2024, which is a very ambitious in a very short timeline. And so the plans that NASA had been drawing up involve a rocket, a new capsule, that would lift us off of Earth and take us to the moon. But then they also involve essentially a space station that orbits the moon that was called gateway. And the plans NASA was working with previously were much longer timelines launches by like 2030, a gateway in place in the late 2020s, things like that. So having this new deadline of, oh, five years from now, everything needs to be in place. There definitely would be a benefit in having international partnership on that gateway. I know NASA has been looking at some private contractors as far as the moon lander portion is concerned, but it's definitely going to take Collaboration for that to be done and done well, whether it's in 2024, or later.
So you mentioned earlier that in the building up to the Apollo missions, they had to take that big step from the Mercury missions to essentially orbit the Earth to get to the Gemini missions where they could learn how to and practice docking, which then they would later have to do for the Apollo missions to orbit the moon landing the moon. So what are the big steps that have to be made? Now, before we can return to the moon, you mentioned the idea of a gateway Space Station, what else does NASA have to learn how to do or practice how to do if they're going to return to the moon,
so part of that is going to depend widely on what type of technology they go with, for the lander. And for the gateway. We know some of the major milestones. The rocket is called SLS, the Space Launch System, they've been working on that since 2011. Actually, when the space shuttle program ended, NASA already had their plan for what was next, the SLS. And then Orion is the name of the capsule that's going to take astronauts and those have been under construction. Since then, there have been delays, changes of timeline changes of direction with different administrations that have kind of slowed those down. So we know we're going to need to get a good test launch of the capsule and the SLS, we're going to need to be able to lift people off in those and get them to the moon and bring them back, we know we're going to need to be able to get that capsule safely docked with Gateway. And then to be able to have a lunar lander successfully go down and come back up to the Gateway, I was looking at a tentative launch schedule to see how many of these missions are they planning to launch people on. And from what I've seen right now, actually, there's only one crewed mission planned before the one that's supposed to set people on the moon. So it's a very ambitious and quick timeline. That is
very ambitious. And some of the technology as you say, hasn't been finalized, I know that they put out bids for a number is kind of like if you're putting out bids for building a building or something. And so I believe I saw something like there's five to seven competitive possible bids to design or bid the lunar lander right now, was that the way that they did it the first time around? Or did they just all collaborate on one basic idea?
You know, I'm not 100% Sure the way they did it the first time around. I know that there were several companies in the history of NASA that built things. And so sometimes they would put them out to bid. I just know that when they selected what they wanted, they put all of the energy and focus into that one. And what NASA is looking at right now is having private industry design and potentially do the building of the lander and stuff itself. My favorite one that I've seen so far, the company Blue Origin, recently unveiled a lander concept called Blue Moon. And it has this big orb in the middle that just says Blue Moon, and it looks like a giant full moon and based purely on looks alone, that one's my favorite.
That's got the aesthetic value. So what kind of scientific advances are we looking to gain by returning to the moon, you mentioned earlier, there was a lot we learned about the moon, the first time around, what else is there that we can learn?
A lot of the stuff that we learned about the moon, the first time around was kind of about its formation, how it looks like it's made out of the same parent material as the Earth. And what we learned is that the moon reserves processes that have been happening in common to all of our terrestrial planets, it preserves those in that history really well, when a crater hits the moon, it stays there a lot longer, unless it gets bombarded by another crater. So one of the cases for going back to the moon is we have only sampled a teeny tiny bit of the moon. We've never taken samples from The Dark Side of the Moon. And so part of this upcoming initiative is to try and take samples from there. It getting a better picture of the moon and its formation will tell us more about the formation of our planet about what's been going on with the processes of the terrestrial planets. And some people may be like so what that happened billions of years ago, who cares? But knowing what happened in the past can help us understand what may happen in the future and project things. And I think it's just interesting to know the history of our planet, it's also another reason that we would go to the moon is as a step towards venturing further towards Mars, the gateway would be a place not only for astronauts to land on the moon, but as a kind of refueling and jumping off point to get to Mars and so the moon is a closer place to test out that kind of technology. Mars in the moon, we both think you could look for geological lava tubes, trying to pull the resources we need out of water trapped in ice form and things like that are similar enough between the Moon and Mars. So the moon is a really good proving ground for that
to a lot of the attention prior to this recent presidential initiative to try to return to the moon. had been placed on Mars, there was a lot of discussion of some of the robotic exploration of Mars, which has been very impressive. And also, there were a lot of private companies. You've heard SpaceX talk about somehow going to Mars, we've heard Amazon. It's not the same company. But Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, the founder of Amazon, has talked about some development he wants to put together for a Mars lander, Mars missions, things like that. What would be the status of a return to Mars is a return to the moon, the first step going to Mars for the first time?
Yeah, going to the moon is definitely a step towards Mars, just kind of the priority and the, the amount of time we spend on the moon versus not on the moon. I think it was the Bush administration had said, we're gonna have people living on the moon. And then the next administration had come in and said, well, actually, we want to go to Mars, let the moon be a stepping stone. After moon, we're going to drag an asteroid into lunar orbit and learn how to take samples and resources out of asteroids. And then we're gonna go to Mars. And now, the next administration come in and it says, Mars is cool, we're going to do the moon first moon is our priority again. And so in kind of all of those plans, the moon is still a stepping stone to get to Mars, we wouldn't skip the moon, and go straight to Mars, because the moon is a great close proving ground for all the things we'd want to do on Mars. But just kind of the priority and the amount of time and resources we would spend focused on the moon varies from plan to plan.
Is there any sort of desire to use the moon as a stepping stone for the basis of fuel or the basis of trying to set a staging area for a Mars mission?
Absolutely, yeah. And that's that gateway would be a big part of it. The moon gateway would be a place where you could pick up more fuel or maybe your spacecraft docks with Gateway and you transfer into one that's designed better for that deep space travel. And so like you said, staging the different kinds of spacecraft? Yeah, those kinds of platforms are absolutely a highly desired part of a trip to Mars.
So the prospective mission to return to the moon is called the Artemis program. Can you talk a little bit about what that means? And the name is actually pretty interested in why they chose that?
Yeah. So the Artemis program is the name for this initiative that the President put forth. The initiative is to put the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024. And the first woman that's very exciting, I have a passion for girls being involved in STEM anyway. But the name Artemis comes from the Greek goddess of the hunt and of the moon. So okay, already appropriate. It's a goddess woman on the ground. But Artemis was also the twin of Apollo, who was our first Moon Program. So it was a really neat name tie in. And so the Artemis program is the one that's going to involve the SLS rocket, the Orion capsule, the gateway, the lander, all of these pieces and all of the tests and getting those astronauts onto the ground.
What would it mean for you, you talk about this stuff every day, you're a space geek, what would it mean for you to see people return to the moon and be walking around?
That is a wonderful question. And for me, personally, to see people go back to the moon, the space race, and the Apollo program was what first really hooked me learning about the planets was cool in fifth grade. But then when I got to space race, and Apollo and I learned about how men had walked on another planetary surface, that just blew my mind. And so there's kind of always been, personally a special place in my heart for people walking around in the moon. And I've always told kids, if I could go anywhere in space, I would go to the moon. And when that's kind of coupled with, you know, my passion for seeing girls in STEM and hearing that this would be a woman on the moon, I can relate to that. I'm a woman that's very exciting. It makes it easier for me to envision going to the moon much less you know, the girls that little girls have today. And also, us getting to the moon would be really exciting for me personally, because it would show that when we have a goal like that we can get together, lay differences aside, get the work done, and actually still make something like that happen. There's been, you know, speculation. Well, the moon landing happened because of the cold war and all of the political tension, and everybody was really motivated. But we'll never be able to get our act together and actually do something like that again, and I'd love to see that happen.
Well, Libby, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about these things.
Oh, thanks for having me. I could talk about space all day.
Libby torbreck is a flight director at the educational Challenger Learning Center on the campus of Heartland Community College. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Audioboom or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to random acts of knowledge.
