“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.
John Gruener and Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, planetary scientist and historian, respectively, team up to discuss both the science and history of the Apollo program, the Moon, and the Johnson Space Center. This episode was recorded on October 16, 2018.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center. Episode 71: Apollo and the Moon. I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be your host today. So if you’re familiar with us, this is where we bring in scientists, engineers, astronauts, all the coolest people to tell you all the cool stuff about NASA. We explore a lot about human space flight and dive deep into so many topics. So we’re celebrating 50 years since the era of the Apollo missions to the moon. And there was a lot of political drive behind this initiative. But there was also some fascinating science. And it may not look like much, but the moon is full of stories. Stories about how the earth formed. Stories of fire and energy. And there’s a very interesting perspective on exploring the moon. We haven’t been since 1972, but there’s still so much that we’re learning about this celestial body. And there’s plenty of reason to go back. To give different perspectives on the moon, we have Jennifer Ross-Nazzal and John Gruener. Jennifer is the resident historian here are the Johnson Space Center. And can explain in-depth the history of the Apollo program and the first journey to the moon. Much of it of how and why.
John Gruener is a planetary scientist. Has been on the podcast before to talk about in situ resource utilization or Living of the Land. Basically using the environment to create things you need like fuel, water, or building materials. So today we’re going to go back in time and explore the Apollo program and what it took for humans to land on the moon. And then we’ll discover what we learned about our planet—about our nearest celestial body to our planet from John Gruener. History can be a great way to learn how to do things better in the future. So we’ll use some of this knowledge to explore the missions ahead. So with no further delay, let’s jump right ahead to our talk with Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal and Mr. John Gruener. Enjoy.
[ Music ]
Host: Jennifer and John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
John Gruener: Sure, my pleasure.
Host: This is an interesting topic because I usually we stick with one, and John, you’re familiar because you came on the podcast before. You, when you came on here, we talked about living off the land, in situ resource utilization. Using what you got on the land to create stuff that you need. But this one is a little bit of a mix because with all the Apollo anniversaries coming up. I kind of wanted to explore not only the history and really get into that. And Jennifer, I’m so excited to have you here. Because the JSC historian? Oh my gosh! I have so many questions. But also the science. You know? Not only did we go there, but there’s so much that we learned and we’re still learning with the moon rocks. Even with our conversation with Ryan Ziegler not too far, not too long ago. I forget which podcast episode that was. But yeah, we, there’s still so much to learn. So this is going to be interesting. I wanted to start with the history first. So Jennifer, if you want to kind of, kind of launch it off. We’re going to the moon, right? And this is, there’s a lot of reasons why we’re going to the moon. Back in the Apollo era in the ’60s, we have, you know, John F Kennedy. After 15 minutes of spaceflight experience on the Mercury program. John F Kennedy stands up there and says, “Cool! We’re going to the moon now.” And it’s this kind of political drive. Was that the main reason why we decided, you know, the moon. Was, was it mainly the politics?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well I think when you’re talking about Apollo, you really need to think about like you’ve said, the circumstances of the time period. And it was more than just politics. Really, you need to think at the broader picture. The Cold War that was happening at that time. The Soviet Union was well ahead of the United States in terms of space at that point. Yes, we had just sent Alan Shepherd to space. We had 15 minutes of space, like you said. But the Soviets had launched several successful satellites well before we did. We had a lot of very public problematic launches. And a lot of people questioned whether or not we were capable of doing what we said we were going to do. The Soviets, of course every launch was very secret. We were a very public agency. So people got to see all of our failures on the public stage. And so you know Kennedy is trying to think of how we might best the Soviet Union. You know, what’s the best way? How can we catch up? We’re, we’re always seemingly behind.
And so this is the best way. By coming up with a new plan. You know, NASA had been studying how we might get to the moon. But this is an accelerated plan. He wants to get there by the end of the decade. And Bob Gilruth who ends up becoming Center Director here at the Manned Spacecraft Center. Remembers listening to the president. He was actually flying to Tulsa for a meeting. And he remembers hearing the President. And saying he was aghast at these ides– this idea that we were actually going to go to the moon by the end of the decade. Because he was going to be responsible for achieving that goal. And so far, all we had was 15 minutes in space.
Host: Right. I’m sure he had a sort of a course in mind, based on the progress that it would take. To I don’t know, continue to evolve human space flight. But this definitely accelerated the plans.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Absolutely. Yeah, there was a, there was a lot that had to be achieved by the end of the decade. You know, they, they had been studying how to get to the moon. They weren’t really sure how to do it. We’ve, we’ve done a lot of interviews with engineers who were working on that. And, and they, they asked Bob Gilruth, “Well, how are we going to do that?” “I don’t know, but that’s your job. Go out and figure out how we’re going to get to the moon.” And now suddenly here we are. We’ve got, we’ve got a deadline.
Host: Yeah. So before, so before we start looping in the science. Let’s continue with some of the history. So now we have this proclamation. We’re going to the moon. What are the next steps? How did it accelerate to, to, to make sure we were going to make that, that deadline?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Yeah, well, you know, there were a lot of things that we had to figure out. We had to determine, what was the mode that we were going to take to the moon? We weren’t really sure how we were going to get there. The original idea was something that was called direct ascent. And that was taking this huge rocket known as Nova. And just flying directly to the moon, and then flying back to earth. And you know people thought that was a great idea. But the problem was it was too heavy. It was going to be way too expensive. And it was going to take way too long. But that idea was being discussed for, for you know, many months. And then there were also two other ideas that were bounced around. One was Earth Orbit Rendezvous which was taking up two vehicles. They were going to launch separately. And they were going to rendezvous and dock in space. And then they were going to go to the moon. A lot of people at Marshall really liked that idea. And then there was another idea that was put forth by people at Langley. And that’s the mode that we ended up using which was Lunar Orbit Rendezvous.
And that actually, that idea was not very popular at first. The advocates of that actually tried to appeal to headquarters. Quite often people at the Manned Spacecraft Center initially were not big fans of it. Eventually they did end up adopting that idea. Because it was much easier. It didn’t require as much technological work. It only required one launch. It enabled the agency to come up with spacecraft specific for earth orbit. Lunar orbit, and then we had a lunar lander that we could build specifically just for landing on the moon. And we also didn’t need to bring it back. So it wasn’t as much weight as the Direct Ascent rocket that we would have sent. So we had to come up with that. That was one of the things that we had to come up with.
Host: Wow.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: You know, we had to train astronauts. We had to hire more astronauts. There were a lot of things that had to be done. Human spaceflight. Also when NASA was formed, a lot of people thought it was a fad. Someone, Hugh Dryden, for instance likened it to shooting a lady out of a cannon. A lot of people who worked for the space task group were very young. We’ve interviewed a lot of people who talked about how they were discouraged by their mentors at Langley from taking positions with the space task group because they said. When human spaceflight is done, you’re not going to have a job back here. So they really tried to discourage them from taking those jobs.
Host: Oh, wow.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: But they were of course very excited about this new opportunity. This new field. And so of course we need a new center. As soon as Kennedy announced that we were going to the moon. We need a human spaceflight center. Where we’re going to train these astronauts. Where we’re going to house the operations. So we start looking for a new facility in which we can do all of these things. Which eventually becomes the Manned Spacecraft Center here in Houston. What’s known as the Johnson Space Center today.
Host: Yeah, and it’s because Lyndon B Johnson had a great deal to do with getting it here, right?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well, you know, interestingly enough. A lot of people like to say that. And it’s great because we’re here in the Johnson Room here in Houston.
Host: Yeah, I thought it was appropriate.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Yeah, it’s totally appropriate. But there’s, there’s a name that most people don’t often associate with human spaceflight. And that’s Albert Thomas. You may recognize the name from the post office on El Camino here in Houston?
Host: Okay.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: And at the time he was head of the House Appropriations Committee. And he had been for years actually trying to get the Atomic Energy Commission to build a center on this site. And they were interested. So when NASA was established. He started appealing to the first administrator. And there weren’t any plans to build a center here in Houston. They were building one out in D.C. in Greenbelt. And he actually threatened the administrator. He said he wasn’t going to give him any money to build that center unless he moved it to Houston. And eventually, there’s a lot of politicking going on. Once they make the decision that they’re going to build a center somewhere in the United States dedicated to human spaceflight. There’s a lot of politicking going on between Albert Thomas because he holds the purse strings for NASA. We have a lot of Houston boosters like George R Brown. You recognize his name. He’s got a company, he’s a big supporter of Lyndon B Johnson. Lyndon Johnson, as you pointed out, is the Vice President at the time. And there’s a lot of other people, folks at Rice in particular who were very interested in having a NASA center come to Houston.
So there’s a lot of behind the scenes politicking going on. Trying to bring a center here. And they actually do visit about 23 sites all over the United States. Places like Boston and Tampa. Tampa is actually the number-one choice of NASA. At MacDill Air Force Base.
Host: Really?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Yeah, originally it was the number-one choice. Houston was number two. So we end up coming here primarily I think because of Albert Thomas. Not necessarily Johnson. Johnson, I think, played a role. But not as big of a roll are Thomas because he had those purse strings.
Host: Interesting. Where’s the Thomas Room?
John Gruener: Congressman from Houston, Texas. And Sam Rayburn also from Texas was Speaker of the House. So there was a strong Texas connection to why this place wound up where it is.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Absolutely. And Olin Teague. I mean there’s, there’s. We, we tend not to have a very strong Texas delegation these days. But in the ’60s, Texas had a lot of sway in Congress. And if you have a lot of power in Congress, you can bring home the bacon to your constituents. And so you know it was a really exciting time for the folks here in Houston. You know, they got that space fever bug. But you know we, we had to build new facilities and you know. A lot, a lot of things were going on.
Host: Because the Clear Lake area wasn’t really built up yet, right? And so they kind of picked this plot of land. And then all of a sudden create jobs. Things start growing, right?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Absolutely, yeah. It met all the requirements that NASA was looking for. They needed at 1000 acres of land. And if you look at photos from that time period. There really wasn’t anything on it. A lot of people joked that they were told well you know, there are alligators on the property. And when they came out– because they, they actually invited people from Langley to come out and take what they call look-and-see trips. They actually flew them out here to decide whether or not they were going to move here. Because a lot of people were like Houston? They didn’t want to move to Houston.
Host: It’s hot.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: They thought Houston was a bad place to live. A hurricane had just hit.
Host: Oh yeah. That won’t sell it.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: No. Absolutely not. So they weren’t really thrilled about it. But you know people came out and took trips. And in no way was Clear Lake developed at that time. It was really a rural area. Webster had like a one-light stoplight. And you know a general store, and that was kind of it. There was a lot of fishing going on, a lot of shrimping, and not much else. So you know Houston was about 20 miles up. And even when people did move here, they had to go into Houston to go shopping. To go out to eat. There just wasn’t a lot of development going on. But once NASA says we’re going to build here. The company actually that, that donated the land which was donated to Rice. It’s sort of this big Texas deal. You see the areas start to develop. You see Clear Lake City develop. You see Nassau Bay across the street start to develop. So there’s a lot of changes that happened as a result of NASA coming down here.
Host: Lot of growth. And the reason that they wanted this center was primarily astronaut training. Was it, was it Mission Control? What were the primary reasons? Primary, I guess, functions.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: The space task group was attached to the Langley Research Center. And they wanted a separate center for human spaceflight. It just really wasn’t—
Host: Human spaceflight?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Human spaceflight, absolutely. And so they needed a new center. There were discussion about where to put Mission Control. They weren’t sure Mission Control was actually going to come here to JSC initially. But they convinced the administrator to bring it here. But yes, they needed a place to train astronauts. They needed a place to put our engineers. And they wanted the astronauts and engineers to work closely together on things like interfaces. We also needed things like you realize we’re close to the water. So they wanted to bring in spacecraft by barge. Houston was a great place to do that. They also needed a convenient airport. We have an airport just up the road. They also wanted universities. They wanted to live in a, in a place that was full of a, a vibrant cultural community. Houston definitely was. So you know Houston had a lot of perks.
Host: Alright. At what point did, in the program, maybe it was when we decided we were going to the moon. That the Lunar Curations facility started coming into play. That this was going to be the place where moon rocks would be.
John Gruener: Right, because it was all focused on the humans, right?
Host: Yeah.
John Gruener: Kennedy said we’re going to send man to the moon and return him safely before the decade out. And there was nothing in there about and while he’s there, he’s going to pick up rocks and bring them back to, you know. It was all about the humans and getting them back safely. But you know as, as the training progressed and as, as we went through Mercury and Gemini, we get into Apollo and then people start planning for an actual surface excursion, you know? It’s, it’s when I, my first degree was in aerospace engineering. Because I thought it was all about that cool flight back and forth, you know, to the moon. And the spacecraft and the rockets. But really, you have to ask yourself well, why are you even going to the moon, right? This was obviously very political, geopolitical driven thing. But, but nowadays, we ask ourselves why are we going back to the moon? Or why are we going to Mars? And it’s all about what you’re going to do on the surface, right? And if you don’t really have any plans to do something on the surface, well then why go in the first place? But it was reversed during the Apollo. So we, we were going to the moon. So since we are going to the moon, what are we going to do when we get there?
Host: Yeah.
John Gruener: And the obvious thing was geologic field work. So NASA brought in a geoscientist also worked with the United States Geological Survey, USGS. To train the astronauts in geologic field work. What to look for. How to employ long-lived scientific instruments. And then they decided okay, well, we’re bringing these rocks back and they’re on this moon with no atmosphere, right? No oxygen to interact with the rocks. So and you’re bringing it to Houston with a very humid atmosphere.
Host: Oh yeah.
John Gruener: Right? Lots of water in our atmosphere here. So what are the specifications? What do we need to do to protect these rocks? And so lot of work went into what we now have as the Apollo Sample Curation Facility. You mentioned you talked to Ryan Ziegler. He’s running that now.
Host: Yeah.
John Gruener: So yeah, science was very much, I won’t say it’s an afterthought. But it came later in the, the process of, of getting to the moon. And we’re going to bring these rocks back, so we need to protect them. We need the science labs to understand the rocks. We did have Rice University, University of Houston just right up the road. You know? And a lot of the early scientists came from those institutions. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to Dr. Wendell Mindell but he was here during Apollo. He grew up a Houston boy. Went to Rice, then went out to Caltech. Well, went to Caltech first, then he went to Rice. But so you know we, we drew. You talked about one of the draws for why would the manned space center be here? Well, we had these two university systems. That we could pull from. So you know the, the Lunar Sample Curation Facility started being designed. But, but even before that from the science prospective it was like, and the safety prospective. So we’re going to land on this moon. Is it just a dusty surface? And we’re going to sink into this bowl of dust? And our astronauts aren’t going to be able to get off, right? So we had to send robotic missions to the moon to answer these, not only the lunar environment questions. But lunar science questions. You know, very simple thing. Is the moon an intact surface that you can actually land on? And walk on? And work on? And what a lot of people don’t realize is we successfully sent 13 robots to the moon before Neil Armstrong ever set foot there, right? So the Ranger program was basically a, a big camera. Almost like a, you know, telescope. And it just came closer and closer to the moon. And it kept sending back pictures until it crashed into the moon, right? A lot of those early Ranger missions didn’t work, right. We, we talked about our failures were right there in, in the public’s view, right? So in all we tried to send about 20 missions to the moon. But only 13 of them succeeded. Right? And that was okay for robotic missions. But that kind of success rate wouldn’t work for humans, right? 13 out of 20. But after the Rangers slammed into the moon, gave us our first up-close views. Then we had some lunar orbiters that went into orbit around the moon. They started taking high-resolution images to pick landing sites. And then the surveyor landers actually went down and actually touched, landed on the surface of the moon. Showed that it was competent. You could walk and work there. Even had a alpha particle X-ray spectrometer which measure the chemistry of the, on, on the surface of the moon. Those up-front, those cameras right there in front of the field of surveyor gave us an idea of what the surface was like. It kind of looked like you know a beach. Sandy, gravel-y stuff. So there was a lot of science going on behind the scenes while the humans were in the spotlight.
Host: Right. So I mean just to, to understand the moon. Does that, that takes a lot of energy to, to get up there. Even those robotic missions, maybe smaller rockets, but now you want to send humans. And like you said with this lunar rendezvous profile, Jennifer. That’s, you’re talking about large spacecraft, multiple space, spacecraft. You need a giant rocket. So that’s when the Saturn V starts coming in, right? So what was the story there? To actually make this lunar, this human lunar mission possible?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well, yeah. I mean, we needed, we needed a large rocket. And Marshall Space Flight Center was heavily involved in developing that Saturn rocket. And you know what, it didn’t need to be as large as that Nova rocket that we talked about for Direct Ascent. But that was, that was something that they, they worked on. The German engineers out there at Marshall Space Flight Center. Here at, at JSC, we were more focused on things like building the spacecraft itself. So the command module that you see the astronauts working and living in. As they go to the moon and return back home. That’s really the only thing that gets to come back also from the moon. And also working on that lunar lander, the lunar module that ends up traveling down to the moon’s surface. And the astronauts live in while they’re on the lunar surface. So you know there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. And there’s a lot of contractor all across the United States that were working on this program. And also universities. People like at MIT who were working on different projects.
So there, there were thousands of people who worked on the Apollo program. You know, just people that, that you might not associate with the Apollo program. People—seamstresses who were sewing space suits for instances, and gloves that the astronauts wore on the moon.
Host: Oh yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: So you know, there are, there are a lot of people involved in this program. I think a lot of the, the people that we often think of and associate with Apollo are the people that get the most attention. Who appear on these magazine covers like the astronauts, of course, on life magazine. Or you might see Chris Kraft who was on the cover of Time Magazine. All the Mission Control folks before we had TV. And on the spacecraft we would see what was happening in Mission Control. That’s where all the action was. But you know we don’t often think about all the engineers and the scientists and all the other people who made this program successful.
Host: Right. And there was with so many people involved. You said there was a lot of designing, design work going on here, right? For the command module. Was the lunar module here too?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Yes.
Host: Okay, do you know if the picking up moon rocks, as John was describing was part of the design. Or was it designed for a function and you fit the moon rocks in there?
John Gruener: It was exactly that.
Host: It was the second one?
John Gruener: So, yes. So we have this spacecraft. How many suitcases can we take with this, right? It’s like you’re planning on a trip. You just kind of know that there’s these overhead bins in the airplane that you can fit your suitcases in, right? So once the ascent module, the lunar module that would come off of the moon. And once the command module, once that volume was kind of set and they started putting things in. It was like okay, now how many suitcases of rocks can we fit in?
Host: Yeah. Okay. Now after, of, of course the first Apollo, Apollo XI landing. That was of fairly short duration, right? A few hours, I think they were actually walking on the moon? And collecting rocks and just putting it in there? But the new technologies started coming out with some of the later missions, right? Now we have a rover. I don’t know, was there more capability to bring more rocks back? What was evolving at the time?
John Gruener: Well, there was.
Host: Okay.
John Gruener: So you know, you talked about the size of the Saturn V, and I you know one of my buds in the Apollo in the astronaut office is Don Petit, and I know you’ve talked with Don Petit a couple of times on this podcast. And he likes to talk about this thing called the tyranny of the rocket equation. I don’t know if you’ve heard that from him. But when you’re an aerospace engineer in college. You learn all about the rocket equation. And that basically tells you, you know, how fast you have to get moving to get off of the earth and escape earth’s gravity. And get to the moon. And then how much you need to slow down to get in orbit around the moon. And then you have to, okay, I got this, the velocity’s worked out. Now I’m trying to send a, a certain amount of mass to the moon. The spacecraft, the people. And so mass is a part of that rocket equation. And the huge chunk of mass is the propellant. You know, so now that you know the velocities you need. How much mass you’re trying to get somewhere. Now you can figure out how much propellant you need. And it was like 80% or so of that big, tall rocket. Standing on the launchpads during Apollo. 80— , 75-80% of that was just propellant, right? So the, this rocket equation. You know, the tyranny of the rocket equation. It all based on physics. And of course physics haven’t changed since Apollo, so we’re still fighting it today. And, and probably some of you know the biggest breakthrough is with this company called SpaceX. Where now they are reusing their booster stages. Well, they’ll, they’ll launch off the pad and then they’ll reuse their booster stage. So you know you save the, the high-technology parts that the rocket engines, the fuel tanks and stuff. But still, you’ve going to fill it up with a bunch of propellant because it, it just takes a lot of propellant to get the mass you’re trying to get out there.
Host: Yeah.
John Gruener: And then, I think I talked to you, when we were doing the Living Off the Land podcast, you know. A lot of equations here at NASA, most of them extremely long with a lot of variables. But the most important equation’s real simple. Mass equals money. And if you want to send Apollo astronauts to the moon on a huge Saturn V that’s just massive. You have to have massive amounts of money, right? So the, the Rangers, the surveyors, the lunar orbiters, the smaller spacecraft are a lot easier to get there. A lot cheaper to get there. So it’s, it’s, it’s a huge commitment when you’re talking about human spaceflight. And you know, Kennedy, you know, people focus on the technology a lot. But the cost of Apollo was incredible. Sometimes up to four percent of the federal budget. And, and Kennedy realized that. And he said, “You know, this is going to wrack some of our social programs. I understand that. But this is the second-most important thing as a nation we need to be doing right now.”
Host: Yeah. Because it was, because it was ultimately you know it wasn’t just get to the moon and pick up rocks. Which was scientifically astounding. But at the same time, we had to beat the Soviet Union. That was a, that was a huge part of it.
John Gruener: And when you’re doing things for the first time, you know, from the engineering standpoint, you throw in a lot of margin, right? So mass margin. Propulsion margin. Delta V, change in velocity margin. And as you are flying these missions to the moon, you start understanding it better. And so the, our last three missions, Apollo XV, XVI, and XVII, that’s where we got the little electric cars that you talked about. You know, buggies to drive around. All of that increased capability on the surface of the moon, and bringing more mass to the surface of the moon. Was because now that we understand our rockets better, we can release some of that margin and actually use it as payload. So same rocket, but we just understand it better. So now we can spend three days on the moon instead of one day. We can bring a little electric car with us. And we can bring back, you know, close to 100 kilograms of rocks and soil. Where the first Apollo XI, they brought back a few, you know, tens of kilograms. So it was an order of magnitude change with the Apollos XV, XVI, and XVII. And that was all based on understanding our, our rockets better.
Host: Yeah. So, so to make that possible, Jennifer. I know like so the whole, NASA as a whole as John said was funneling a lot of money just into the Apollo program. Is, was you know what percent of all of the agency was just Apollo? And was, was there just less going on at NASA that allowed us to funnel more money into that single program? Compared to now with all the different programs we have?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well, there were definitely other programs going on. We did have people looking at space stations very early on. NASA always wanted a space station. So there were people looking at future programs. You know, we, in the middle of working on Apollo, we were still working on Gemini, sending folks up there. We had been working on Mercury. We also started working on the Apollo applications program. Which became known as Skylab. When we launched Apollo XI, we actually had people working on the design of the space shuttle. So money was, was being spent on other programs. And of course you know we used a lot of money for facilities. I think John was talking a little bit about bringing the lunar curatorial facility online. When we originally built the Manned Spacecraft Center, that wasn’t one of the, the buildings that was built. No one thought about well, okay, we’re going to go to the moon. What are we going to do with these rocks?
Most of the people working here thought this was an engineering problem. We need to send men to the moon. We need to figure out how we’re going to do it. Size was sort of like oh yeah, kind of a moment. And so we didn’t actually start thinking about what we were going to do with those rocks. Until later when we brought those geoscientists onboard. And they said of course we’re going to the moon. We’re going to get rocks, and then what are we going to do with these rocks? We gotta keep them pristine. We gotta make sure that they’re protected from earth’s atmosphere. And so we didn’t start building our lunar receiving lab until much later. And then it, it’s, it was a little fight actually to bring it here to Houston. And the original design of that facility was very tiny. We did not envision what eventually became known as the lunar receiving lab. We thought we would just bring home some lunar rocks and package them and send them out to principal investigators. And then other people got involved and said, “Well, we have to be concerned about potential life forms coming back from the moon.” And suddenly this small little lab that we had, became this huge 83,000 square feet facility.
John Gruener: Yeah sadly the lunar receiving lab, it was in Building 37. And then they built Building 31 where the, the lunar rocks are now. And all sorts of collections. It’s not just about the moon. We, we have astromaterials from all over the solar system.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: You know, different collections. And sadly, Building 37 is set to be demolished right now. Yeah, and that’s where, that’s where the original lunar receiving lab was. That’s where the quarantine facility was for the first few missions to Apollo. But it wasn’t big enough just to handle all of these rocks that are coming back from the moon. You know, the, it’s, it’s surprising. You, you look at the calendar from you know ’69 to ’72. And, and how often we were going to the moon back then. And you know every one of those trips brought back more rocks. It’s like where are we going to put these things? So before Building 31 got built, there were safes, you know, like bank safes all over the center holding little sealed containers of moon rocks. They were scattered all over site.
Host: Wow.
John Gruener: Until we got Building 31. And that, that lunar curation facility built. And so you know, it’s kind of fun to, to think about how these moon rocks were just scattered all over. Because we just didn’t have that building yet.
Host: Yeah. So did the, did the geoscientists and just science in general look at the rocks and have questions already about you know knowing what rocks they wanted to bring and what they wanted to study? Or was it just get the rocks and we will study it later and figure it out?
John Gruener: Well, you know, people have been looking at the moon for centuries, first with our eyes. And then as these things called telescopes got bigger and bigger you could look at the moon in ever-increasing detail. And by looking at the surface features, the topography, the terrain on the moon, geoscientists had a pretty good idea, you know, that those dark areas up there on the moon were going to be some type of lava, you know. Because you look on earth here and it’s dark lava, right? Coming out of Hawaii and other places. So they had, you know, they had a pretty good idea of the dark areas on the moon. Weren’t quite sure about the bright areas of the moon. You know, you look up at the, the moon at night. And you’ll see the dark areas and the bright areas. And here’s a great you know time for a public service announcement. This Saturday is the International Observe the Moon Night. And, and so there’s stuff going on all over the country here in Houston. At Space Center Houston. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll have you know something going on with the Lunar Planetary institute and JSC. But all over the world, there are these events, you know just to look up at that moon at night. And, and, and say wow, there it is, and we’ve been there, right?
Host: Oh yeah.
John Gruener: But those bright areas of the moon we weren’t so sure about. And a matter of fact, on Apollo XVI, that was our real own mission. Only mission that went to those bright areas of the moon. They train the astronauts to look for these light-colored volcanic rocks called rhyolite. Right? So basalt’s really dark. That’s stuff coming out of Hawaii. So you see these dark lava flows. You have these beautiful black sand beaches. That result from the breakdown of those volcanic rocks. Well, they’re also, volcanic rocks are higher in silicon. And they’re, they’re much lighter in color. And so they, they train these Apollo XVI astronauts to look for these felsic you know volcanic rocks. But they also trained them in other types of rocks and minerals. And when John Young and Charlie Duke landed there, it was like, you know, they didn’t quite say, “Houston, we have a problem.” But they said, “Hey, this isn’t exactly that volcanic landscape you told us it was going to be,” right? So then we get these rocks back. And then, and now we can start formulating ideas on how the moon formed and why are these particular rocks and minerals there? So we had a broad idea of what we might find on the moon. But clearly, you know, no real understanding of, about those bright areas.
Host: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite parts about the Apollo program is just you, they, they had a mission. And then they did that mission. And then the next mission was kind of evolving and doing new things, right? Let’s add a car. Let’s take away margin. Let’s pick up more rocks. It’s, it was just fascinating to see that. And then just dealing with those challenges as they came along. Because everything was new, so obviously not everything was going to be perfectly planned. Including, where are you going to put the moon rocks whenever you get them?
John Gruener: And there’s even a program called the Apollo Applications Program, of AAP. And that was if we use the lander stage that brought, brought the astronauts to the surface of the moon. And we put a little house on it or a habitat. Right? Now we could actually stay on the moon for more than a handful of days. And we could you know start this idea of a lunar base or a lunar outpost. Where we were up there for months at a time instead of days at a time. But none of that ever made it to prime time, you know. We had Apollos XVIII, XVIIII, and XX in, in the plans. And those didn’t make it into it either.
Host: Right, yeah. No, I, it was a lot of a funding issue. Jennifer, I know like as it was going along. Was it the public interest was sort of kind of falling off? You know, we landed on the moon and that was like yay! And then they did it again. It was like, well this is, this is the same thing.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well actually funding started to fall in the mid-sixties under Lyndon Johnson. We were in the middle of, of fighting the Vietnam War. We were also fighting a war on poverty. You know, you couldn’t have your guns and butter, like they, they say. And so you know that, that was part of the issue. You know, we had had this, this huge budget. And you actually see it on a graph. It just sort of declines rather precipitously. So things had fallen off well before we even landed on the moon or went around the moon.
Host: Yeah. Now, that was kind of when we started thinking about even missions beyond, too, right? That’s Skylab was sort of let’s take this thing that we have and fit it into a space station sort of concept, right?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Absolutely, yeah. You know, how can we use some of the equipment that we have for Apollo to create a space station? And so we start looking at that. We also start looking at like I said, the Space Shuttle in 1969. Max Faget comes up with this idea for a reusable spacecraft. Because we, we couldn’t really reuse anything from Apollo. It was all throwaway. And so, you know, we come up with this new idea. It’s going to be cheaper. We’re going to fly more regularly. And we start working on those designs in 1969. We have people who are about, 20 people who are locked in a room here at JSC working on what’s it going to look like? How’s it going to operate?
Host: So that was actually, that’s actually a huge part of the Apollo program and one of the difficulties looking forward now. Is we’re talking– John, you mentioned returning to the moon. And what are we going to do? A lot of it is dealing with staying there for a long time. Learning how to work and live. But the Apollo program, all of these pieces of technology. The lunar lander, the, the rovers, the command module. They were meant for just using that one time. They had limited consumables, right? So when you’re kind of designing that mission. Taking away that margin like you said, how, how does that work? How do you? Was it, everything just built to be thrown away? How do you justify the lifespan of the technology itself?
John Gruener: Well, we had that schedule, you know. Send a man to the moon, return him safely before the end of the decade. So as long as you have a president pushing this. And then you have a Congress supporting the president pushing this. And throwing lots of money at it. You can make things work, brute force, you know, get it there, get it done. But you’re not thinking long-term operations. You’re not thinking sustainable operations. So Apollo was not sustainable. But it wasn’t meant to be sustainable. It was meant to beat the Soviet Union to the moon.
Host: Exactly. Yep, that makes sense. So now, now we have, we’ve used the, the technology to get us to the moon. We used the technology to get those moon rocks back. What have we been learning? You know, we have all of this moon rocks. We built the facility, put them in. Now we’re, we’re looking at them. What is so interesting about the moon?
John Gruener: Well, I wish I could say we’ve answered all the questions.
Host: I guess that’s a good thing, right? There’s still more.
John Gruener: Oh, there’s, there’s tons of more questions, right? But we have a better idea of, of maybe how the moon formed. Before we went to the moon with Apollo, there were three, you know, major theories or hypothesis on how the moon formed. One was called the fission theory. Where there, there, the early proto-earth is, is spinning on its axis really fast. And it’s, you know, it’ll throw off a blob or two out into space. Around the equator where it’s spinning the fastest. And those blobs would eventually form this moon, right? So that was the fission theory. But the problem with that is the earth is not spinning fast now. So what happened to all that angular momentum. If you’re spinning so fast to spin off blobs to make the moon. Why aren’t we spinning that fast now? So we said okay, maybe that doesn’t work. Then there was the idea that the moon and the earth formed in the same neighborhood at the same time. In the same neighborhood. And you know, so it’s kind of like a binary planetary system, if you will. Right? And when the first moon rocks came back, they were very similar to the earth. It’s like, ah, Coaccretion right? That, that’s, that’s the thing that actually happened. The moon and the earth formed together. But then there were some small difference. You know, so well, maybe that doesn’t quite work either. And, and how do you get, again, this, this binary system where the moon’s orbiting the earth, right? How do you get all that to work physics wise? If they form together in the same neighborhood. So I don’t know, still up in the air. But it, it was more favored than say the fission theory. And then there was the capture theory. That the moon formed somewhere else. You know kind of the same distance from the sun as the earth. But, but somewhere else. And then as the earth and the moon came close together. The gravity of the earth pulled the moon in, right? It got it into orbit. So that was the capture theory. So those are the three main ideas on how the moon formed. Well, when then rocks came back. More and more people started thinking about this. Says you know? How about this idea? You know let’s just call it the big whack idea where there’s a Mars-sized planet out there. And it slams into the earth in the, you know, early history of the solar system. And that collision then throws out or ejects you know all sort of particles and mass into orbit around the earth. Much of it rains down back on earth. But some of it stays in orbit. And then all of that debris from that giant impact formed the moon. And so that’s kind of the prevailing theory right now. This thing called the giant impact theory for the formation of the moon. And then when you started looking at the actual minerals of the moon. It’s like, wow. We think the moon, you know, at least the upper surface of the moon was completely molten at one time. So you know you think of the Star Wars movies, and Mustafar, where they have those great light saber duels. And it’s a very volcanically active planet, right? Well, we get these, these rocks and minerals back from the moon. And the best way we can explain them is that there was a magma ocean, if you will. On the outer hundreds of kilometers of the surface of the moon, right? And, and as, as the, the lava or magma cooled, the lighter the rocks, the rocks with the lighter elements in it kind of floated towards the top. The rocks with the heavier elements kind of sunk to the bottom. And you kind of have some segregation going on there. And so this magma ocean hypothesis now has come up. Not only for the moon, but maybe all of the inner, you know, the planets and the moons in the inner solar system. So the moon’s not only teaching us about how the moon formed, but possibly how the inner solar system formed. All the different planets.
Host: Wow.
John Gruener: And then you look up at the moon. You know, we’re all going to look at the moon this Saturday, right? International Observe the Moon Night.
Host: I know I will.
John Gruener: And you look up at the moon. You see those circular dark features. And those are big flood lavas. Basaltic lava, like out of Hawaii. But before that lava was there, there were huge holes in the ground. So when something hits the moon, it makes a crater. Everybody kind of familiar with that term, crater. But when the crater is huge like continent size, we call them basins. Impact basins. And so there’s a real question is when did all those basins form on the moon? And did they form all at once, you know, or relatively near in time? You know, hundreds of millions of years apart? Or was there kind of a steady formation over the first couple billion years of the moon? So we have this thing called the cataclysmic bombardment idea. That all of these big holes on, on the moon were created pretty much at once. But if it was happening on the moon, it was also happening at the earth, right? So we’re trying to tie in the, the impact ages of the moon. And the, the life on earth. And when did life, you know, what are oldest fossils on the earth?
And how do we tie that into the formation ages of the surface of the moon? And then the big impact basins. So what we’ve learned a lot from the moon is that very early beginning of our inner solar system. And not just for the moon, but for, you know, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth. All, all of that. So the moon is just a great laboratory to test ideas and hypothesis on planetary formation and then differentiation between crust and mantle and core. We learn about all that in junior high school science class. Right? So we, we’ve learned a lot about the moon. But of course, any time you get into an, an experiment in science. You answer your maybe your primary question. But all these secondary questions start to pop up. And because we brought the rocks back. We could put them in very detailed scientific instruments. You know, in laboratories. And measure things down to the parts per million or parts per billion. And so now we’re, we’re trying to understand you know why do these rocks have chlorine in them and these rocks don’t? You know? So you know and, and that gets into, you know, that whole idea of geochemistry and petrology of the moon, you know. Really, really fine details have been argued now for, for decades. And maybe you know, to the, to the common person that kind of stuff doesn’t really matter. But it does. When you’re trying to you know take bits and pieces of space debris and put them together to make a planet. It, it’s all important.
Host: Yeah, that’s actually one of my favorite things about—I, I have a lot of astromaterials folks on the podcast because I find it fascinating.
John Gruener: It’s a fun place to work.
Host: It, it’s super fun. And you can look at a rock and get this fascinating story about molten lava and this fiery world and bombardment. And all these fantastic stories all from looking at a rock. And you can get a history.
John Gruener: Yes, as a matter of fact. So on Apollo XI, they had one suitcase. And the astronauts were trained to, you know, pick up the rocks with their, with their devices. Their little tongs or what not. Shovels and scoops. And put the, the rocks into bags, right? And then seal up the bags. And put the bags into a box. And then close the box. And you know Neil was on the surface. And he, he looked in this box and it was full of rocks. But as you know, rocks don’t pack perfectly. So there was a lot of void space. He just used a shovel. He started piling dirt into the box to fill up the, the void space. And that sample which is 10084, so we, we number all of our samples that came back from the moon. And, and 10084 was just that dirt that Neil decided we need to fill up all this empty space in the suitcase to make this trip really worth it. And some people look at that, that soil sample. And you, you can describe the, the formation of the moon from that one soil sample. Right? All the other rocks and soils help validate what, what, what you could do with 10084. But yeah, it’s amazing what you can do with just a little bit.
Host: Unbelievable. So I mean, this was one of those things that was completely new, right? It’s like go to the moon and pick up rocks. And then when you do, you realize how much space is left over. So you kind of have to pull an audible and say, “Alright, let’s fill that space.” Jennifer, I’m sure you’ve talked to a lot of folks that have actually walked on the moon. Can you talk about the difficulties of just adjusting to the one-sixth g? And what they were learning from each other as time went on? And more and more people started walking on the moon?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: You know, I’m try to think about—We have talked to a number of people who have walked on the moon. But I don’t think any of them have talked about necessarily the difficulty that they encountered. I think more what they talk about is just the beauty of the moon. And our place in the, the solar system. And how in awe they were of, of being on the moon. And this great accomplishment. And the opportunity that they had as an astronaut to be in the lunar surface. And the contributions that they and other people made to the Apollo program. I think it was just a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. You know, people like you know Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. All of those guys, you know. It’s just, it was an amazing opportunity.
John Gruener: And, and Buzz Aldrin, you know, he said this is magnificent desolation. What a great way to describe that, the lunar surface, right?
Host: Yeah.
John Gruener: Because it is magnificent, but it is desolate. There’s nothing there.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: As, as, as you know, human explorers have gone all over this planet. But we always encounter other peoples. Or other animals, right? Or other plants. And of course none of that was on the moon.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: Do you know what? We’re talking a lot about those, those Apollo missions that went down to the surface of the moon. Coming up here in a couple months, December will be the 50th anniversary of Apollo VII, VIII, right?
Host: Right, right.
John Gruener: And that photograph that they call earthrise. So as the space, spacecraft were coming around from the back side of the moon. You know, now you can start seeing the earth again. And because of the motion of the spacecraft. It kind of looked like the earth was rising into the sky, right? And they scrambled to get their cameras in to take this picture. And it made the cover of Time magazine. And, and really, you know, a lot of people credit that photograph of, of the earth from the moon helping start the big environmental movement. That you know we have a very fragile planet. We’d better take care of it. You don’t see political boundaries from the moon.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: So you know those experience, those personal experiences that those, those guys had. Were, were just tremendous. And it’s fun to talk to them about that. So in the science world, we, we do bring, we did bring those guys back for discussions during the. About ten years ago, we had the Constellation program. And we were talking about going back to the moon. And so the, the engineers who designed the spacesuits. The scientist who want to do things on the moon. We had a lot of discussions. So how did those spacesuits work on Apollo? And the question, and the answer was not very well. You know, it kept them alive, but there was no mobility in the waist. Very hard to walk. Right? So it was that lower-body mobility that they’re really trying to get into the new suits. For our return to the moon. The gloves particularly were very hard to work. So, so they’re working real hard. Amy Ross and others are working real hard to make nice gloves that you can use more easily. The problem with spacesuits. You know, you, you’re like the Michelin man, you blow up. And so you have to basically fight against the spacesuit to make it move. Whether you want to open your hand. Open your hand, you’re pushing against the glove to open your hand. You’re pulling against the glove to close your hand. And those, the Apollo astronauts, their hands were just wore out.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: Even the, the three days missions. You know, Jack Schmitt will say, “I couldn’t have done more.” Because after those three days, you are just wore out from fighting your suit. Trying to do the science that were on the agenda, right? So, so scientists. We have guys like Trevor Graff and Kelsey Young, geoscientists working with the suit designers now to try to get suits that work better on the surface of the moon that will allows scientists to bend over, to pick up a rock. Or, because you, you know, there are blooper reels of these guys falling down.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: All over the moon, right? And you know, it was mostly when they were trying to bend over to pick something up. And of course they pop back up. Because it was, it was easy with the one-six gravity.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
John Gruener: But it is a difficult place to get used to and to work.
Host: So by the end, what, how? You said they were there for three days. How long were those spacewalks that made it so tiring?
John Gruener: They’re always less than eight hours, you know. So think about your eight-hour work day.
Host: That’s still three days in a row.
John Gruener: Right, three days in a row, exactly. So, so nowadays, we talk about future missions to the moon. We talk about rotating the crews. Very much like we did on the Space Shuttle. Where we would have a Hubble Telescope repair mission. And on one day, two astronauts would go out. And then on the next day, two different astronauts would go out. And then on the third day, maybe the same astronauts from the first day would go out so these, this idea of alternating crews. And give them a day off in between EVAs to rest. That’s kind of what we’re talking about with the moon. And, and, and that’s why that, you know, that, those long-term stays start to pay off. Because if you and I wanted to go to Orlando and go to you know Disney World or Orlando, you know, the Studios there with Harry Potter World, and all that stuff. We could go there. You know, it’s, most of the money is getting there, right? And we could spend 30 minutes there, a couple hours there like Apollo XI. But would we really get our money’s worth? You know, at Disney World if we only went there for 30 minutes to a couple hours? Right?
Host: Right.
John Gruener: You want to spend the entire day. You spent all this money and time and energy to get to Disney World. You want to spend some time there and enjoy the rides. And it’s much the same thing with the moon. So we know it’s a hard environment to work in. So you know, just use our smarts and, and rotate the crews. And protect the crews. You know, that’s our number-one job here at JSC is the safety of the crews.
Host: Absolutely.
John Gruener: So we can’t give them an impossible task to do on the moon. But they, those guys in Apollo were, were giants. I mean, they worked like Hercules out there, what they did on those three-day missions.
Host: Right. Yeah, they were all mostly, well I think most of them were test pilots except for Jack Schmitt, right?
John Gruener: Scientist, yeah.
Host: Scientist, yeah. So he was the one. I’m sure he, you’re, he’s still very involved in the community, right?
John Gruener: Oh yes, yes. We’re getting ready to have a meeting in just a couple weeks. Lunar exploration analysis group. We meet once a year. And Jack’s always there. And man is, is does he add to the conversation.
Host: Yeah, really well too. Because you can all talk about the moon. And he can say, “Well, when I was there.” [Laughter] So he’s got that on his side. So Jennifer, I kind of wanted to end on, on this note. Well actually first, I have a super-random question that I, it’s just– .
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Is it trivia?
Host: Well, yeah. Well, it’s something that has always been in the back of my mind. I, I’m thinking about the Apollo XI landing, them actually landing on the moon. You see Neil Armstrong get out of the lunar module and actually jump out and touch the lunar suit, surface. How did the camera get there? Did it shoot out from the lunar module once it landed? Do you know?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: I’m not 100% sure.
Host: I’ve always been curious.
John Gruener: Yeah, so they did have externally mounted cameras. And I’m not sure if it was on one of these little, you know, crisscross things that, that, that kind of telescope out you know. To, to, you know, flop out one direction. I’m not exactly sure either.
Host: Okay.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: How it was done. I watched it as a kid. I mean, we talked about the early ’60s and, and John Gruener was a little boy growing up here in Houston. Watching all this stuff. And so you know, we happened to be in New Orleans when, when Apollo XI happened. And I always was fascinated with well why can’t we see right through these guys? They’re like ghosts. Those early television images. If you watch the Apollo XI guy. You can see through them. And I never understood that. I’m not a photography guy. But that’s, we kept asking our parents. “Are they really there? Because you can see right through them.”
[ Laughter ]
Host: Yeah, those early, early TVs. Alright, sorry that was a random, random question.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: No, and I hate to be– .
Host: It’s just something as the public affairs guy. That’s the part, stuff that gets to me. It’s just like how did they get that footage? Where’s that, where’s that footage coming from? And like the livestreaming capability. I was always wondering.
John Gruener: And part of geologic training was to get the astronauts to take pictures of the rocks on the moon. And up-close pictures, surface of the moon. Well, Neil Armstrong had that camera on his chest. Right? So you see lots of picture of Buzz Aldrin on the moon from Apollo XI. There are almost no pictures of Neil Armstrong on the moon. The ones we do have are from those external camera that you talked about when he went down the ladder. And also there are pictures where you can see Neil as a reflection in Buzz’s visor. They had those gold visors to protect them from the bright sun. And you can see Neil in that visor. But he had the camera.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: So my wife always complains about that. We have all these vacation pictures, and I’m never in them! [Laughter] So luckily there’s things called selfies now, right?
Host: Yes, yes. Need a selfie stick. See there’s a good Apollo technology.
John Gruener: Neil needed a selfie stick on the moon.
Host: A selfie stick, there you go. But I do, I do want to end with this note. Jennifer, you were talking about the astronauts talking about the beauty of the moon. What were some of the things that really stuck out to you when you were talking with them? Whether it was the beauty of the moon or the view of earth from the moon? What were some of the things that stuck out?
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Well, some of the things that, that John was talking about. Just the fact that, that earth seemed so fragile from where they were, you know? You couldn’t see the boundaries of countries or nations. It was just one planet. And you know, they were really struck by this blue marble in a sea of blackness. It really stood out. And it was such a unique place compared to other, other places like the moon. Which was so stark and so desolate.
Host: Right.
John Gruener: And for those Apollo guys on the surface of the moon, they always saw earth, home, up in the sky. Because all of the missions from Apollo were on the front side of the moon. We never sent Apollo astronauts to the far side of the moon or the back side of the moon, right?
Host: Yes.
John Gruener: Matter of fact, no real spacecraft has done a mission back there yet. The later this year, the, the Chinese are getting ready to launch Chang’e-4 and that will be the first spacecraft of any type. To land on the far side of the moon.
Host: Wow.
John Gruener: So you know, just that, that draw to home. There’s home waiting for us. Finish our work, and we get to go home, and there it is. So some people worry about that with Mars. You know, you go all the way to Mars. And of course earth is not there in the sky. It is, but it’s teeny-tiny. It’s a little blue dot in the sky right? But what will those people who work and live on Mars for long periods of time, how will they feel? Because earth is so far away and they can’t see home. You know?
Host: Yeah, no that’s a big thing. I talked with a lot of folks from the human research program about isolation and confinement. And what that does, especially for missions where you would be on Mars for a very long time. And it’s, it’s real. So you’d have to have that sort of connection. Definitely something we need to explore. And it’s, it’s an interesting point just to look up and say huh. That’s, that’s everyone I know. You know, everyone I know, everyone I’ve ever known is on just that little level of circle. It’s got to be just a profound feeling. And I hope something that more people get to, get to talk about in the future, too. Whenever we’re talking about these upcoming lunar missions. Just to see, get that perspective once again. It’s going to be fantastic.
John Gruener: Right, because it’s not just NASA or the other space agencies like China. We’re starting to get commercial industry involved as well. And commercial companies are now, you know, working on delivering things to the moon, including people. So the hope and dream is that the commercial companies can not only take NASA astronauts to the moon, but they can take citizens to the moon as well. To experience it.
Host: Yeah, for all mankind. I love it. [Laughter] Or humankind. There you go. Alright, so John and Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on! This was, this was better than I expected, honestly. Because I, I was kind of, I was kind of thinking like how are we going to combine the history and the science? But I, I think it worked, and I really appreciate your time today.
John Gruener: Sure, it was fun.
Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal: Thanks for inviting us.
[ Music ]
Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. So today we talked with Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal. And Mr. John Gruener about Apollo and the moon. We went into the history and explored some of the science and how this is all going to help us here in the future. So like I said, in the intro, we are in the middle of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo program and the missions that coincide with that. If you want to learn more about some of the programs we’ll have. And some of the things we’re doing, and even some of the history. Go to NASA.gov/specials/apollo50. Otherwise you can check out some other podcasts from our friends in other centers. We had the podcast Gravity Assist about planetary science, NASA and Silicon Valley about what’s going on a the Ames Research Center. And then Rocket Ranch, if you want to know what’s going on in Florida. Go to NASA.gov for all the latest and greatest. On Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can follow us @NASA. You can follow @NASAJohnson Space Center. And you could follow Astromaterials, if you want to know specifically about moon rocks. And some of the other meteorites and cool celestial collections that we have here at the Johnson Space Center.
You can use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea, suggestion, or question for the show. We’ll make sure to, just make sure to mention it’s for Houston We Have a Podcast. And we’ll get to it. This Episode was recorded on October 16, 2018. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Noah Michelsohn, Tracy Calhoun, and John Uri. Thanks again to John Gruener and Jennifer Ross-Nazzal for coming on the show. Happy 50th anniversary to NASA’s Apollo Program. We’ll be back next week.