(dramatic music)
The universe is really, really, really big
and we have only seen a very tiny part of it.
I hope that the future is beyond my wildest dreams
and it's something that I just cannot even imagine.
It's perhaps the biggest,
most ambitious project humanity has attempted
since astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972.
And the final word from the last man on the moon.
I'd like to just let
what I believe history will record,
that America's challenge of today
has forged man's destiny of tomorrow.
(dramatic music)
Plans are being made.
Hardware is being designed, built,
and tested to return humans to the moon and beyond.
And lift off at dawn.
The dawn of Orion in a new era
of American space exploration.
It's not a Disney movie, this is real.
(dramatic music)
This is the Artemis program,
an ambitious, high technology project to allow humans
to live on other worlds for the first time.
(dramatic music)
We're ready to go and go back to stay.
It's not just about getting there first.
We're making sure that it's a sustainable presence.
Artemis is about going back to the moon
to do much more than we were capable of doing
in the 1960s and the early '70s.
We want to go and explore the moon
because we understand now, how much we don't know.
But our experience of living in space
on the International Space Station
has shown that it is fraught with peril.
(dramatic music)
And how do I get back if I cannot see where I'm going?
How much time do I have?
(dramatic music)
At that point, we weren't gonna make it to orbit that day.
Overcoming these challenges,
10 times further from home and beyond,
requires a technological revolution,
a revolution that is already underway.
(dramatic music)
The moon is going to be the place
where humanity learns to live and work off world.
(gentle instrumental music)
Luca Parmitano has been part
of the European Space Agency's astronaut corp for 13 years.
I have a total of six space walks,
30 hours or so outside of the space station,
and about a year spent in orbit.
This is really great.
I can't help but smiling.
This is awesome!
For us humans on the space station,
every day is a little bit like that dream
that you might have had of flying without wings.
In 2019, Luca lived and worked
on the International Space Station
with NASA astronaut, Christina Koch.
I first learned about Luca Parmitano
before I was ever an astronaut,
because he was part of a famous space walk,
where he actually had an experience
of water being in his helmet.
(dramatic music)
It was a very dangerous thing that ended up happening.
So, he was a hero of mine for having done that space walk.
(gentle instrumental music)
But Christina soon became a hero of her own,
breaking the record for the longest ever space flight
by a woman.
She returned to Earth in February, 2020,
after 328 days aboard the International Space Station.
(ethereal music)
I'm glad that it was a milestone
that made people aware of where we're at.
State of the art in human space flight
really means being able to be in space
for up to a year at a time.
So, it was great to be a part of that.
One of the goals of the Artemis program
is for astronauts like Christina and Luca,
to be able to live on the moon
for far longer than Christina's record stay in space,
and 10 times further from Earth than the ISS.
The Artemis missions will potentially span decades,
using the moon as a test bed
for eventual human habitation of Mars.
It is 50 years since the last time humans
had boots on the moon, but within that time,
scientific consensus about the lunar surface
has changed dramatically.
Let's see if I can't crack the corner
and get that contact.
The Apollo missions brought back about a half a ton
of moon rocks and what they showed was that the moon
had been baked dry.
The moon somehow formed.
They got rid of all of its water,
and there won't be any evidence
of any type of volatiles left on the moon at all,
and that's what we lived with since the 1970s.
(dark music)
But then, as the decades passed,
scientists started wondering if the moon
could be hiding secrets, secrets made of H2O.
People started wondering, well, you know,
things go boom in the night on the moon.
The moon has been bombarded by comets, you know,
dirty ice balls for billions of years.
Maybe water could be hiding in the really deep,
cold places at the poles of the moon,
where the sun doesn't shine.
Maybe some of that commentary ice is preserved.
Would immediate freeze and then stay there
for billions of years.
But how could these theories
of ancient water on the moon ever be tested?
And how much of this precious resource could be there?
Well, the only way you can find out is to go there
because the moon had been forgotten.
(spacey electronic music)
In the early 2000s, NASA began work
on its first mission to the moon in a decade.
It would feature the lunar reconnaissance orbiter,
a spacecraft designed to map the surface
with unparalleled precision.
(spacey electronic music) (camera clicks)
And a second mission, called LCross,
a daring attempt to directly detect water
in a crater on the south pole.
The LCross mission was outrageous.
We came up with an idea of using an impactor
to eject material out
of one of the permanently shadowed craters on the moon
and examined the contents.
LCross made clever use of the spent upper stage
of the rocket, called a Centaur,
and tending to crash it into a crater of the moon
that had never seen sunlight,
throwing up a large cloud of whatever was lying inside.
Following behind, LCross would analyze this plume
before itself, crashing on the surface.
I like to make things go boom.
But this was better,
'cause this was going to answer a fundamental question.
Was there water on the surface?
Was there water below the surface and if so, how much?
T minus 15 seconds.
Standing by for terminal count.
T minus 10, nine.
The day of the launch was one of those days
that you had this anticipation.
Things can go wrong.
So, there's a lot of tension.
Is it explode?
Is it not gonna get into orbit?
Is it not gonna get into the altitude that was necessary?
Is there gonna be a flaw
or the instrument's not gonna be working?
There are a lot of moving parts and non-moving parts
that could screw this up big time.
Main engine ignition
and lift off of the Atlas 5 rocket with LRO LCross,
America's first step on a lasting return to the moon.
(gentle instrumental music)
And when it happens
and when you see that rocket takes off,
it's just this tremendous relief.
This is it.
There were still hurdles to overcome,
but that was a big one.
The whole mission had to develop big sweeping orbits
around the Earth, and then come around,
and get very close to the moon.
Then go around and get very close to the moon.
LCross and the Centaur rocket would find this optimum time
to detach and find that best place to hit.
This was a doomed mission, but it was planned.
That's how we designed it.
The Centaur rocket hits.
Sows up the plume, we go through and analyze the data.
So this was a one, two punch, but only one of those punches
would give us enough material to be able to see.
Say just slight mark 60 seconds to Centaur impact.
We were seeing the moon for the first time,
close up with our instruments.
That's when I realized this was real.
So we're on a kamikaze mission.
We can see the moon getting closer and closer and closer.
We can see the place where we're supposed to hit
and looked like we were going right in at the right spot.
We're watching the remaining few seconds
of the LCross mission.
It's a tremendous dance over the last two or three years
and it's all coming down to the half second.
As we approach very rapidly,
the surface of the Cabeus crater.
Images of the moon, smaller and smaller,
closer and closer,
and then it hit.
Once the Centaur rocket hit,
the shepherding spacecraft was coming down
with only four minutes to go.
This is the end of the life.
The key was to be able to see the gas,
the dust, everything getting into sunlight,
to be able to make the measurements that were necessary.
So, we only had those four minutes to gather all the data,
send it back to Earth before it was too late.
10 Seconds to impact,
nine, eight, seven.
Very last seconds of the shepherding spacecraft
trajectory as it approaches the lunar surface,
we are seeing very small craters.
It's going in for the final plunge.
Spacecraft impact.
Stations report LOS.
The shepherding spacecraft
has hit the surface of the moon
and this marks the end of the LCross flight mission.
Cheers go up.
We've impacted, yay!
Meanwhile, all of us payload operators and scientists
are staring at the monitors, at the data.
We had to figure out well, what really happened.
LCross had a science payload
comprising of five cameras, three spectrometers
and a photometer that collected data
from the impact across visible and infrared wavelengths.
We've done everything we can, I'm holding my breath.
Then we began to see things.
We saw a 10 to 20 kilometer wide plume.
Look at these emission lines.
We're seeing these incredible signatures
of various compounds in the data.
(swift instrumental music)
About a month after the impact, people wanted to know,
did you find water or not?
So, then I asked the whole team,
should we go public now and report this?
And it was a unanimous yes.
So, now I can say today that in the 20-30 meter crater
LCross made, we found maybe about a dozen
of these two gallon buckets worth of water
and there's a whole lot more.
We saw water, not just water, but lots of water.
Hundreds of millions to billions
of kilograms of water, potentially.
The result that fundamentally changed the direction
of lunar exploration.
This meant that the surface of the moon
and the subsurface of the moon was holding secrets.
It was a much more interesting story
than I think that anybody really fully believed.
It accelerated a global interest
in the poles of the moon.
You could indeed, utilize this water as a resource
and maintain a extended presence there.
We look at water as the enabling compound
for deep exploration.
That means the ability to live off of our planet
for long term duration,
without having to bring it all with us.
The discovery of water ice
at the lunar south pole opened up vast possibilities.
LCross impacts a lot, our understanding
of how we are going to proceed forward.
We know that at the poles of the moon,
in deeply shadowed craters that never see sunlight,
there is ice and that ice can be excavated
and used to make water.
We can then break that apart and make oxygen to breathe.
Lunar water could also be used
for another crucial purpose.
But by breaking apart, we not only get oxygen,
we get hydrogen as well,
and by recombining the oxygen and hydrogen,
we can make rocket fuel.
To overcome the Earth's strong gravity,
fuel makes up nearly all the weight of a rocket
launching from our planet.
Make that fuel on the moon,
and it can take a spacecraft far further.
You need enormous rockets if you can't refuel.
If you can refuel,
then those enormous rockets become small rockets,
and the cost of transportation dramatically decreases,
which suddenly makes everything
that was impossible possible.
The moon is going to be the place where we learn
how to use the resources of space for the first time
and humanity learns to live and work off world.
So, water is a really fundamental resource
and that's why there's so much focus
on going to the lunar south pole,
where we know that ice is in those craters.
Water is the oil of space.
(dramatic music)
Locating and utilizing lunar water
is motivating the generation of astronauts
tasked with making this vision into a reality.
(gentle instrumental music)
Looking at the moon, recognizing that, yes,
we do have water there as a resource.
It really means that there's not only this desire
to explore, but there are actual like,
engineering goals to do while we're there
that help us keep those programs sustainable.
In 2020, Christina Koch was named
as one of the female Artemis astronauts,
who have a chance to be the first woman to walk on the moon.
Well, I have to say that just the,
even the prospect of that is completely humbling.
Christina Koch.
And when I realized, oh my goodness,
I am a part of the astronaut corp,
something in and of itself,
I never thought I would be able to achieve,
and at this amazing time, when we're going back to the moon,
we're going to stay, we're going with determination,
was just really beyond belief.
Just to be one small part of that is truly, truly awesome.
Launched by a gigantic rocket
still in development, will be a state of the art spacecraft
to transport astronauts like Christina and Luca,
back to the moon.
It is called Orion.
The Orion spacecraft is a next generation spacecraft
for taking people deeper into space,
leaving low Earth orbit in a capsule and exploring the moon.
Our job is to carry the astronauts from Earth to the moon
and then back is one key element
of the whole Artemis program.
(dramatic music)
The Orion multipurpose crew vehicle
has been in development for over 10 years,
with regular astronaut testing taking place
to inform its design.
Well, many years ago for the first time,
I saw this huge spacecraft and like, what is that?
Well, that was the Orion.
And if you're lucky enough, like I was a couple of times,
and you can sit inside and perform some testing.
Astronauts have a great opportunity
to be involved in Orion development,
the life support systems,
the systems that will make a habitable environment
inside Orion, how the hand controllers are gonna work,
how the displays are gonna display
to make sure that the human factors elements
are all there to make the mission safe and efficient
for getting astronauts to and from deep space.
All these years of understanding problems, solving them,
have all converted into creating a spacecraft
that not only needs to be enduring,
but also takes into consideration human interface.
When we get to sit in that seat and look at the displays,
it is definitely a moment where we sit back and realize
how lucky we are
and what we are doing is actually contributing to,
to answer NASA's true mission
of representing people's inherent dreams to explore,
to learn more, to gain knowledge.
And though I spend every single day of my work
as an astronaut being as prepared as I can possibly be
for real mission assignment,
it's just hard to imagine that it will truly be me.
(dramatic music) (whooshing)
For Orion's first flights,
it will launch from earth directly towards the moon,
taking three days to get there.
(sweeping instrumental music)
On board is an avionic system 4,000 times more powerful
than the Apollo spacecraft, able to operate the vehicle
completely autonomously and alert the crew to any dangers,
such as increased levels of cosmic radiation.
(sweeping instrumental music)
There's some areas that we've decide
to be extra protected.
We did the detect high energy particles coming in.
We'll send the crew to that of save haven,
to be able to ride out the storm.
But one of the biggest challenges for Orion
is not getting to the moon,
but surviving the last part of the journey home.
When you get back from the moon,
it'll be going 24,000 miles per hour.
So, the heat that gets generated in spacecraft is insane.
(plucky music)
In order to protect Orion,
NASA designed a state of the art heat shield,
16.5 feet in diameter.
So, there's the heat of reentry
and the size of the heat shield.
So, you need to make sure that that material
is not gonna crack or you're gonna have any deficiencies
because of the different environments
that is gonna see in space.
Status check. -: Go Delta.
Go Orion.
The only way to fully test such a vehicle
is to launch it into space unmanned
and check that it performs as expected.
The purpose of the first test flight is to test
the crew module, especially during the return phase,
including the heat shield and the parachute system,
coming back very fast from outer space,
and then landing on the water.
Carlos Garcia Golan
is coordinating the legion of Orion's engineers
for this test flight.
And we have been working on this design and project
for many years and out of all the problems
and all the challenges that we've worked through,
now, we know that today, everything needs to work perfectly
for the mission to be successful.
Five, four,
three, two, one,
and lift off at dawn.
The dawn of Orion and a new era
of American space exploration.
We placed Orion on top of the delta four heavy
and launched it to basically, had an elliptical orbit
that was coming very far from lower orbit,
so we could achieve that additional velocity
coming back to Earth.
So we can actually test the heat shield
in something close to the environment that we'll see
what we are returning from the moon.
(instrumental music)
And you know, right now,
we can hardly believe that we're actually hitting space.
This is the first time in many years
we're seeing our spacecraft in space,
so that it's kind of exhilarating.
One minute, 22 seconds in.
Max cube, maximum dynamic pressure from the vehicle
passing 124 mach.
The boosters are jettisoned.
We're now transcending the speed of sound.
And this is our first view from cameras
on the Orion spacecraft streaming video.
All of its systems operating in excellent condition
on this first test flight of America's newest spacecraft.
You've done so many simulations with similar pictures,
but this time, you know, it's for real.
Once the spacecraft completes an orbit
of the Earth, the upper stage of the rocket
lifts Orion higher still.
(electronic music)
Now, Orion must pass through a dangerous region of space
called the Van Allen radiation belts.
From a few hundred miles above Earth,
the belts trap electrons and protons from the solar wind
in cosmic rays, creating a radiation environment
that could damage sensitive equipment on spacecraft
traveling to and from the moon.
(electronic music)
We went through the Van Allen radiation belts
to test the systems.
There's more high density protons
that could impact the electronics,
so we wanted to make sure that our systems
were not susceptible to that.
(electronic music)
And basically, we didn't feel a bit from going through that.
(gentle instrumental music)
Orion climbs to an altitude 15 times higher
than the International Space Station.
Getting a more distant view of Earth
than we've seen in a while.
We got as far as around 3,600 miles from Earth.
(gentle instrumental music)
It's the farthest a human-rated spacecraft has been
since the Apollo program.
(dramatic music)
The higher the capsule can be lifted,
the further it will fall on its return to earth,
and therefore, the faster it will strike the atmosphere.
The primary objective of going that far
was that we could achieve the right speed during reentry
so we could test the heat shield.
This is the hardest part.
This is where the most challenging environments
we're gonna see, and really why we're doing this test.
Guidance officer confirms
that Orion has reached entry interface.
The moment of truth for Orion
for the next nine minutes, 45 seconds.
Orion is now hurdling back
at two 20,000 miles an hour.
The air in front of the capsule becomes compressed
and heated until it turns into plasma,
the fourth state of matter.
(dramatic music)
You're gonna have to hold your breath,
'cause that is also the hottest part
and harshest part of reentry.
In this actual footage, it is possible to see
the plasma left behind in the wake of Orion.
(dramatic music)
Christina Koch experienced reentry back to Earth
when returning from the International Space Station.
(dramatic music)
The experience of return to Earth,
coming back to an actual planet from outer space
is otherworldly in every sense of the expression.
(dramatic music) (whooshing)
You look out your window and there is literally a fireball
that you see through.
It's an orange hue over your window
that's only about a foot away from your face,
(dramatic music)
until your window actually blackens from burning up
and you can't see out of it any longer.
Coming in from the moon,
the velocities are gonna be even greater,
and so the requirements on that heat shield
are gonna be even more critical.
(gentle instrumental music)
The sensors on board Orion
indicate the temperature inside the crew capsule
has remained stable, despite the 4,000 degree heat
the spacecraft experienced during reentry.
The heat shield test is an unparalleled success.
(poignant music)
25,000 feet.
Time to splash down less than four minutes.
When you start seeing all the parachutes come out,
as planned, like clockwork.
Droges away, main shoot deployed.
Everything, looking good.
And is just an amazing feeling,
that all this work you've done is paid off
and you kind of see your fingerprints
in what's just happening in front of you.
(gentle instrumental music)
We have splash down.
Splash down confirmed at 10:29 AM central time.
Orion is back on earth.
America has driven a golden spike,
as it crosses a bridge into the future.
Today was a great day for America.
We challenged our best and brightest
to continue to lead in space.
The men and women of America
poured their hearts and souls into this mission,
and along the way they inspired others.
We became part of something greater than ourselves.
And while this was an unmanned mission,
we were all on board Orion.
This is news across the world
and you're in the middle of it.
You just finished the mission, splash down,
and all of a sudden Barack Obama.
I'm sure you were all as proud as I was
to see Orion's first successful flight test.
It's just the mission we were just doing.
So, it's incredible feeling that, hey,
you're doing something that's beyond yourself, so.
(gentle instrumental music)
Orion, the new spacecraft that could carry humans
farther into space than we've ever seen before.
This is why I am in space flight.
You are doing something for not just yourself or NASA,
but humanity, I feel like.
But before there can be any serious thought
of humans traveling on board,
another crucial element of Orion
must be put through its paces, the launch abort system.
If when we're launching and something does go wrong,
the launch abort system needs to be prepared
to eject and take the crew away
from that dangerous environment and save their lives.
The need for such an emergency system
was thrown into focus on the flight of Soyuz MS10,
crewed by astronaut colleagues of Luca and Christina,
Nick Hague, and Alexi Ovchinin.
They were launching on the same spacecraft
that I have flown.
Same rocket, same launch as hundreds of others.
Lift off.
And there is lift off of the Soyuz MS10
to the International Space Station.
It went from normal to something was wrong pretty quick.
(eerie music)
Seven, six, five, four.
(dramatic music) Three, two, one.
So, the first thing I really noticed
was being shaken fairly violently side to side.
One of the booster rockets malfunctions,
colliding with the main vehicle
and sending it into free fall.
(woman speaking in foreign language)
And then there was an alarm inside the capsule
and a light that was up there and, you know,
I knew once I saw that light,
that we had an emergency with the booster.
The Soviet era launch escape system activates,
separating the crew capsule from the burning rocket.
(dramatic music)
Separation.
(dramatic music) (beeping)
Enable power.
At that point, we weren't gonna make it to orbit that day.
(dramatic music)
The launch escape system
saved Nick and Alexi's lives,
pulling their capsule to safety
and enabling them to activate the parachutes.
Space is hard.
Human exploration of space is hard.
There's risk and we do everything we can
to mitigate that risk,
but there's always some risk there.
This was just a great example of those failsafe systems
stepping in and doing their job.
On top of the Orion capsule
is a similar failsafe system,
a small rocket designed
to pull the space capsule away from danger.
In the event of an emergency,
the rocket should fire within milliseconds,
producing about 400,000 pounds of thrust.
We can see what can go wrong
and that's a pivotal role that we play
to test all the components and making sure that it all works
before we bring in the astronauts.
Testing the launch abort system
is another key milestone and to do so requires launching it,
using a solid rocket booster.
This test is critical
because it's gonna come before the mission
that puts the first woman and the next man
on the surface of the moon.
I was very excited.
I was actually out at the Cape Canaveral,
getting ready to experience this.
Five, four, three, two, one, ignition.
(rocket whooshing)
Launch vehicle carrying AA2.
Launch abort system for a full stress test.
The first few seconds of launch
is always very nerve wracking,
'cause you're never really sure
if something's gonna go wrong.
(eerie music)
About 55 seconds in,
we were expecting the abort sequence to start.
It's a lot of anticipation.
Is the abort motor gonna work?
Is it actually going to disconnect from the booster?
(eerie music)
(dramatic music)
Whenever you see that burst of flame, you're like,
did something go wrong?
And then you have that relief that it really did
as it was supposed to.
The abort motor successfully separates
from the booster.
Now, the burning LAS must free itself
from the Orion crew capsule.
If the LAS doesn't jettison quickly enough
in an emergency during a crude launch,
the astronauts inside Orion could blow up with the rocket.
So at this point, this is where it's working
to orient the crew module at the right spot.
(dramatic music)
Then now you're focused on that the crew module
is jettisoned safely away from the LAS
and it's just a countdown at that point
and it's getting real close
(eerie music)
and there it is.
Three and four discharge, both sides.
And then you see that moment of the separation
of the crew module from the LAS.
So there goes the LAS.
That's when you realize
that the LAS really did what it was supposed to you,
and it it's just a moment of relief from that point on.
Recall, there are no parachutes
on this test today.
So, once the data recorders have been deployed
and the vehicle is no longer transmitting data,
TC will call test complete.
There was a lot of work behind it
and so there was a lot of pride in that
when it was completed.
When Orion's gone from the launch pad,
I think there'll be tears in my eyes, seeing that.
Astronauts are not adrenaline junks.
We wouldn't be astronauts if we were.
When you're strapped on the rocket,
the accomplishment is all the training
that you have received in order to feel safe.
The launch abort system is a critical path
to the design of any space mission.
People see that system as every bit as important
as the primary systems that are gonna get you to the moon,
even though their true hope
is we never actually have to use these systems.
Underneath Orion's crew capsule,
fits the European service module,
which provides power, propulsion, water and air.
Delivered by the European Apace Agency.
the ESM has 33 engines, including a main engine
refurbished from the space shuttle
that will power Orion to the moon and aback.
Electricity will be generated
by four 23 foot long solar arrays,
that can produce enough electricity
to power two, three bedroom homes.
Life support, the propulsion, the electrical systems,
and so on are all in the back end of that vehicle.
And so for the first time,
NASA's crew vehicle depends fundamentally,
on ESA technology.
Orion will be integrated
into the most powerful rocket
that has ever been constructed,
NASA's space launch system, RSLS.
(dramatic music)
The next step of the journey to the moon,
will be Artemis 1, the very first flight of the SLS,
containing all three of Orion's modules
on an uncrewed flight around the moon, scheduled for 2022.
The integrated aspect of all the systems working together
for the first time, that's actually the main objective.
(dramatic music)
We're gonna get into the orbit of the moon.
It will go as close as 100 kilometers
from the surface of the moon.
Well, we've tested everything and we're happy.
We'll leave the lunar orbit and get back to Earth,
and it will be in a test of all the Orion entry systems,
but at the action speed, coming back from the moon.
(dramatic music)
(water splashes)
Approximately two years after the first flight,
Artemis 2 will see the first humans board the Orion capsule
for another fly by of the moon.
The first crewed flight to the lunar surface
will be Artemis 3, scheduled for 2025.
(soft instrumental music) (whooshing)
Orion will rendezvous in lunar orbit
with the lunar star ship, a human landing system
built by one of NASA's commercial partners, SpaceX.
This ship will transport astronauts to the moon's surface
and return them to Orion for the journey home.
With HLS, which is the human landing system,
it is going to require all of the modern day innovation
that we can muster out of a space industry
that NASA has really helped to foster.
Now, when you work for NASA, as I did for 20 years,
you are constantly aware
you're dealing with the tax payer's money.
Space entrepreneurs are putting their own money
into developing the rockets and the capsules.
They can take risks that NASA couldn't take.
(booming)
Testing the star ship prototypes
shows the challenges of this technology.
(eerie music)
I like the fact that failure is an option
when we're developing these far out vehicles
and new concepts,
because that's how we get to achieving something new.
When I see something of that, I see innovation.
I see people that aren't afraid to ask the tough questions,
to dream the big dreams.
This dream is to establish a long term,
sustainable presence on the lunar surface.
In order to enable this, within the next 10 years,
NASA and its partners will build the lunar Gateway,
a space station where astronauts will be able to live
and work in lunar orbit.
Gateway will also be a docking point for spacecraft,
traveling to and from Earth and down to the lunar surface,
eventually becoming a launchpad
to the rest of the solar system.
The Gateway becomes a staging post for humans
to go from Earth to the moon and back again,
as well as building an infrastructure
to enable sustained human surface presence.
There are a great number of places we wanna explore.
So, having Gateway facilitates exploration
of the entire moon.
So, you'll dock with the Gateway
and then go from the Gateway down to the surface.
It's very exciting to think that in a few years time,
there will be some of our astronauts
alongside our international partners,
living in orbit around the moon.
Doing science, but also going down to the surface.
(gentle instrumental music)
The lunar gateway is a series of components
that will give us the ability to be there
in the lunar vicinity permanent,
like we have for decades now in the space station.
It's a much smaller,
more compact version of the ISS.
We're really, really good at low Earth orbit missions
and it's exciting to turn that expertise
into the next phase.
The shuttle brought up modules of the space station
and people did space walks to physically put together.
what we now see as rooms, trusses, solar arrays,
massive components of this space station
were put together by people's hands.
It was the ultimate construction project.
And actually to me, assembling Gateway
is one of the things I would be looking forward to the most.
But assembling Gateway
will be an enormous project
that will require years of effort.
It will take countless space walks of the kind
that were used to assemble the ISS.
As Luca Parmitano discovered,
this kind of activity can be extremely hazardous
and will be even more so
when working 250,000 miles away from the Earth.
Space walking is one of the riskiest things
that we do in our business.
(dramatic music)
Luca Parmitano Chris Cassidy
are out on a space walk to lay down new cabling
around the exterior of the International Space Station.
All right, P1 is connected and moving on to P2.
I'm working fast.
Chris is working fast.
I feel great.
But this routine space walk
takes an unexpected turn.
I feel something that should not be there
and it's water right on the back of my head.
FYI, I feel a lot of water on the back of my head,
but I don't think it has leaked from my back.
Something is not right.
I don't know where it's coming from.
And then I feel it crawling across the back.
So now, the ground is getting a little more concerned.
I don't see the water, but maybe Chris, can.
I see beads of sweat.
No, that's not sweat. -: No, it's not sweat.
Hey Luca, can you clarify?
Is it increasing or not increasing?
It's hard to tell, but it feels like a lot of water.
On the ground, they tell me that they're checking for leaks
and there are no leaks.
But wherever is it coming from then?
It's too much.
I don't know, it's a lot.
Now it's in my eyes.
And then finally on the ground, they tell me,
all right Luca, this is the moment I dread.
Based on what we heard with Lucas saying
that water is in his eyes now
and it seems to be increasing.
We think we're in a terminate EVA case for EV-2.
So, Luca will have you head back to the airlock.
In that moment, the sun goes down.
One moment you have light
and the next you are in complete darkness.
I lose sight of Chris because I turn a corner.
So, I just start crawling back.
(eerie music)
In order to navigate my space suit and myself
around a certain area, I need to go upside down,
relative to the Earth.
(dramatic music)
As I flip my body, the water, sloshes over to my eyes,
to my ears and to my nose and completely isolates me.
I can't anything because the water is over my eyes
and I cannot get it out of my eyes.
(tense music)
I call Chris and I tell him hey Chris,
I think I'm lost.
And I get no answer,
but also, I don't know how much time do I have.
So, the water is in my nose already.
How much time do I have before the water keeps flowing
and covers my mouth?
(tense music)
Can I stay here waiting for Chris to come and rescue me?
Chris, Chris.
I decided I don't have enough time.
I need to go back to the airlock on my own.
(dramatic music)
But how do I get back if I cannot see where I'm going?
All I is a little bit of light in front of me.
I make a plan in my head.
I've been underwater in in a space suit,
in the mock up of the space station so many hours,
that I can see it in my head.
I can imagine how I need to move and where I need to go.
So, I slowly starts in the direction
that I think it's where I came from.
I put my safety tether outside the airlock.
So, there is a little bit of tension
that is pulling me in that direction
and it's telling me that I'm going in the right direction.
I'm not getting further away.
So, I follow that tiny pull,
trying to feel my way towards the airlock.
This lasts about six minutes.
They felt like a very long time to me can.
I can barely speak to you.
I'm opening the airlock cover.
I go inside first.
On the ground, they don't know what's going on.
They have no understanding of how much in trouble I am.
Okay, I'm in. Roger that.
Once Chris closes the hatch, I know I'm safe.
And I'm here to help, Luca.
And that's when I feel somebody squeezing my hand.
It was Chris.
Hey, Luca from from Houston,
how you doing?
Give us the status.
Luca, did you hear that?
I can hear no sound whatsoever.
Chris can and so what he does,
he just kind of twists in the space suit to look at me
and he can see that I'm there,
I'm breathing with my eyes closed.
He looks miserable, but okay.
And then he squeezes my hand and I squeeze him back.
Hatch coming open.
Airlock Houston,
if you could have some towels ready, that would be great.
And then when they open the airlock,
I see my crewmates inside the space station.
I was crying.
I never seen anybody so worried about another person
in my life about me.
So they take me out and as soon as they can,
they depressurize my suit and they take my helmet off
(emotional instrumental music)
and they're handing me towels
because I'm completely, completely wet.
We estimate about a liter and a half of water
inside the helmet,
which is a lot of water 'cause the helmet is pretty small.
Chris Cassidy there in the background.
He'll be floated through next,
as they continue to get Luca Parmitano out of his spacesuit.
They ask the crew from the ground,
hey, how is Luca doing?
How is he doing?
And I like, hey guys!
Just so you know, I'm alive.
And I can, I can answer those questions too.
Luca, we are delighted to hear your voice,
delighted to see you and will come to you
with any questions as we get them.
Thank you very much.
An investigation found that a blockage
caused water from the suits cooling system
to leak into the ventilation loop and Lucas's helmet.
We didn't think it was possible for water
to get into my helmet and almost drown me.
There are risks and dangers out there
that we just haven't thought about, but we will solve them.
The fact that NASA put so much importance on something
not going according to plan, it is important.
We get to review plans and equipment
to make sure that that situation doesn't happen again.
Reviewing everything that has been learned
from over five and a half decades of space walking,
NASA have crafted a new space suit
that will enable astronauts to live and work on the moon
for long durations.
I am so excited about the new space suits.
They're gonna really put the space walking in space walking,
because they've got awesome boots for planetary exploration.
A new space suit is fundamental
because it's a tool and a tool needs to be designed
for a specific purpose.
There are a small spaceship that our astronauts are in
and they have to be protected.
You need to be able to walk.
You need to be able to have dexterity.
You need to be able to have a suit that is sturdy enough
that it doesn't get damaged by the rocky environment
of the surface.
They are made to be able to reach down,
pick things up, move around.
The dexterity is incredible.
An integral part of the new space suit
is the portable life support system with water, cooling
and ventilation loops that have been specifically redesigned
to ensure an incident like Lucas leaking helmet,
will never be repeated on the moon.
(dramatic music)
The ultimate goal of the Artemis program
is a crude mission to Mars.
But before this three year return journey can be considered,
astronauts must first prove
that they can live autonomously on the moon.
So, if we want to live and work away from Earth
in the long term, whether that's on the moon or Mars
or even further beyond,
sooner or later, we have to learn how to use the things
that we find at the places that we go.
And so we talk about in situ resource utilization,
the use of things that we find locally.
We want to be able to explore, to understand,
the nature of the south pole
and to use the resources that are there.
'Cause it's really important for us to understand
where water is on the lunar surface,
so we can design systems that can extract it
and use it as that resource.
Prospecting and finding that lunar water
is really the first step of enabling that exploration.
The prime one and viper missions
are being ready to fly in 2022
to drill into the lunar south pole.
They will sample lunar water in different regions,
creating resource maps that will outline the locations
and quantities of this precious commodity.
Rain will be driving on.
We have not seen the light of day
for maybe two billion years.
We're gonna go in there with our rover and illuminate it
for the very first time, is truly exploration.
You know, it's looking into the darkness.
It is a lot of pressure when you realize
how big of an impact this data can have
on the future of exploration.
The mission is the pathfinder in many ways,
for all the future missions that come after it.
These resource maps will be used
to determine the location for Artemis base camp
on the lunar surface.
Construction of base camp can take place
from the orbiting Gateway,
by a combination of robotic and human expertise.
We have been investigating ways
that you could teleoperate robots at the lunar surface
from other locations, like the Gateway.
We have already extracted out of the moon, regolith,
aluminum, titanium, iron
and silicon to build structures, elements, tools.
We'll simply 3D print moon-based structures
around itself.
And if you could put inside a pneumatic tent
that you could then inflate, pressurize,
warm up using electricity,
now you have created the basis for a village.
As a byproduct of the extraction of those materials,
we produced oxygen as a fundamental product,
to make astronauts breathe.
So, this concept of in situ research utilization,
we want to expand it to the maximum,
so to make those missions possible and sustainable.
(poignant music)
Once humanity has proven
that they can extract and utilize lunar water
to live on the moon, future missions to Mars
can be fueled with these very same lunar resources.
The skills, the knowledge,
the technology that we build,
as we do this on the moon will take us onto Mars
and then that will set up the way
that we do this elsewhere in the solar system.
Just the use of lunar propellant
will save on the order of 12 billion dollars
per Mars mission.
The lunar surface offers not only resources,
but it offers us a test bed,
to make sure that we understand how to architect
and how to work on another planetary body.
It's gonna be really important when we go on to Mars,
because the farther we go out obviously,
the more resources and costs are required
to get the mass to those locations.
It inspires me and I hope we inspire
the next generation of explorers.
I think that people that may land on Mars for the first time
are probably already born.
I think it's closer now than it ever has been.
Hurry up.
Come here now.
It's not a Disney movie.
This is real.
Traveling to the moon, staying there
and eventually using that as a stepping stone
for interplanetary travel
and being an interplanetary species,
means that there is a whole new set of things
we're gonna learn about ourselves.
We're gonna learn what's important to us.
We're gonna learn what we love.
We're gonna learn what we need.
And I think most of all,
about what brings us together about our shared humanity.
I hope that the future is beyond my wildest dreams
and it's something that I just cannot even imagine.
(poignant music)