Coming Home of Artemis II
Below is a transcript of a new interview I had this morning on Sunday Report of Newsmax in the company of former NASA rocket scientist, Olympia LePoint, and Former NASA astronaut and USAF Colonel (Ret.), Terry Virts, with the anchor Bill Spadea (accessible in video form here). Bill’s questions are marked with WS, while Olympia’s answers are marked OL, Terry’s answers with TV my answers with AL, respectively.
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WS: Mission accomplished. The Artemis II crew of four receiving a hero’s welcome at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. One day after splashing down off the coast of California, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman had this to say to the crowd:
“This was not easy. Being 200,000 plus miles away from home, like before you launch, it feels like it’s the greatest dream on Earth. And when you’re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It’s a special thing to be a human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth. Thank you.”
Powerful. During Artemis II’s nearly 10-day mission, Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, traveled farther from Earth than anyone in human history before hanging a U-turn behind the moon eclipsing Apollo 13’s distance record.
Records are meant to be broken, right? Here to discuss what this means for American dominance, we’ve got former NASA rocket scientist and author of “Answers Unleashed”, Olympia LaPointe. Also with us, former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Terry Virts and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University. Dr. Avi Loeb. Welcome to all of you.
Olympia, we’ll start with you. Talk to us about the historic impact of Artemis II mission. What does this record-breaking fly by? I love it. You turn around the moon. What does it mean for the future of space exploration?
OL: Oh, thank you for having me on your show this morning. This has been a significant scientific trip and mission success for Artemis II. Not only did they successfully verify the space shuttle main engines, now Artemis II engines in successful flight, they were also able to ensure 4K communications. They were able to ensure air supply and life support systems, and they were also able to ensure that a heat shield would stay active and intact when entering the Earth’s environment. Now, when people think about the Moon, we haven’t gone to the moon since 1972, and now this new historic mission allows us to go to the moon to create what we call an international moon hub. Just like airplanes go to a location to refuel, what the moon is going to be is it’s going to serve as a location for international locations to travel to the moon and serve as a moon hub in this area where they refuel to eventually come back to Earth or go into deep space. So, this has been a monumental trip.
WS: Artemis II has been extremely successful, and I’m extremely excited for what is to come within space travel. Very cool stuff. Colonel Vertz, I want to ask you, President Trump’s been pushing to restore American leadership in space since he started his first term. Now, here’s a little of what NASA’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, said about what’s next after Artemis II:
“Artemis III will start being assembled and the next crew will begin preparing to play their part. As we return to the lunar surface, we build the base and we never give up the moon again.”
Colonel, we know that China has also been setting their sights on the moon. How does the U.S. and our partners work to counter Chinese influence in space?
TV: Yeah, I think that’s a hugely important point to make. And actually, this program started in 2004. It’s taken a long time to get here. It’s taken too long. So we really need to up the pace, I think. And I like Jared Isaacman, the new administrator, made that point a couple weeks ago. He kind of lit a fire under NASA, like, all right, we’ve been taking too long in between flights. It’s time to move things up. So, I hope he’s successful in that, because in the 20th century, When we beat the Soviets to the moon, the whole world, literally everybody on this beautiful spaceship Earth, and I love that sentiment, we are on spaceship Earth and we should be a crew, everybody went, hey, the American system’s pretty good, the Soviet one’s not so great. If the Chinese beat us back, I’m afraid that exactly the opposite thing would happen. People would look, America was 20th century, China’s the future. So, I think it’s important that we not dilly-dally and that we get back to the moon.
WS: Right. It’s a great point. Plus, I could give them a military advantage and they’re not exactly our best friends. Dr. Loeb, let me ask you, let’s start with the scientific and technological advances that will come out of this Artemis II mission.
AL: Well, thanks for having me.
First of all, there was laser optical communication that allowed 40 gigabytes to be sent every day. That’s why we see such amazing images. And a lot of other technologies were tested and will be used in the future. Of course, the next step is to get to a phase where we put people on the moon and establish a base. And on that, we might contemplate robots with artificial intelligence (AI). The human body cannot stay for a long period of time there. It has 1.5% per month bone mass loss and other potential risks from energetic particles or cosmic-rays. Also, the surface of the moon is covered with these tiny bits of rock that were sliced by impacting asteroids that could damage the human body if they impact it. And so, I think the future will involve even better technologies.
But altogether, the U.S. should lead the way. The Trump administration is leading the way in rejuvenating space exploration, also artificial intelligence. And potentially, we should find alien intelligence as well.
WS: Well, that’s a whole other subject that we won’t get to today. Maybe they’ll bring back the technology on the next trip that our cell phone calls won’t keep dropping. Olympia, I want to ask you, Let’s talk about that next step, right? Is this going to bring us closer to setting foot on Mars?
OL: Yes. What is exciting is that the scientists were able to find in 2021 what we call moon ice water. This is a potential opportunity for fueling different rockets. Now, the rockets usually contain an oxidizer and propellant, and the rockets in this case for the Artemis include a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxidizer. In this process of finding this ice water on the moon, rocket engines will potentially be refueled and travel back to Earth from that deep space environment, which is 252,000 miles away from Earth, or it can possibly go into further locations such as Mars.
And so, we’re completely excited to find out the technology as well as what is actually on that moon’s surface and underground so it can potentially fuel different areas in the next generation of rocket launches.
WS: Fascinating. Colonel Virtz, let’s just talk personal for a minute, the recovery process for the Artemis II crew members. How long does it take them to get their gravity legs back?
TV: My first flight was 15 days, roughly the same amount of time. The day I landed, I felt incredibly heavy. When I finally went to bed that night, I felt like I was a superhero, like there was some evil villain with a big magnet ray that had me pinned to my bed. I couldn’t move. But the next day, I was better. I was still a little bit dizzy. I dropped a water bottle thinking it would float. And then a couple days later, I was driving. So, these guys are going to recover. You could see them. I could tell the way they were walking and standing. I think they’re all good. They’re all veterans, astronauts. The Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, this was his rookie flight, but just seeing the way they were doing that press conference, you know, roughly a day after their landing, they’re in good shape. They’ll be driving and playing basketball with their kids soon.
WS: Avi, let me just wrap up with you real quick. You mentioned extraterrestrials. Do you think maybe the aliens have already beat us to Mars and they’re already there?
AL: I don’t think they are on Mars, but they could inspire us to do better. There is a room for improvement, as you can tell from reading the news every day.
The way I see it, the Artemis II mission will inspire future generations of scientists and technologists among the young kids that watched it. And I really hope for a much more exciting future. Rather than looking down, we should all look up because the future of our civilization is actually out there where most of the real estate lies.
WS: Dr. Avi Loeb, Colonel Terry Virts, Olympia LaPointe, thank you for joining us this morning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, former director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (2005–2026), and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Professional website:
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/
Social media:
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb
https://open.spotify.com/show/1zhndXkvSY2b8FdjspFpCd
https://x.com/ProfAviLoeb
