As It Happens6:31NASA moon mission delays are nothing to worry about, says astronaut Chris Hadfield
Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield says that, from where he’s sitting, the Artemis moon missions are coming along just fine.
NASA announced Tuesday it is delaying two upcoming missions — including the flight meant to carry the first Canadian astronaut around the moon — due to technical issues with its spacecraft that could pose a danger to the crew.
Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the moon in half a century, was scheduled to launch this November, but has been pushed to September 2025. Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen is the flight’s mission specialist.
Artemis III, which aims to send humans to the lunar south pole, will be postponed from 2025 to 2026.
Hadfield, who has flown three space missions and also served as commander of the International Space Station, says these delays are a normal and expected part of space travel. Here is part of his conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
The safety and technical issues NASA is citing for these delays, what do they signal to you? Is this where a mission like this should be at this stage?
It’s been 50 years or more since human beings have gone to the moon, so we really want to do it right. You’ve got to be careful. And we flew a test mission a year ago with nobody on board, and learned a lot of things there.
It’s not an airline. It’s not like we’ve got a specific time and date that is absolutely necessary to launch. We will launch as soon as we think everything’s safe enough to have a good chance of success.
The short answer to your question, Nil, is I think things are going along well.
Even when we talk about the significance of some of the things they’ve highlighted? Electronics and the life support system that would keep the astronauts alive?
That’s what spaceships do, right? Every single thing that goes wrong on a spaceship is related to keeping astronauts alive.
I commanded a space station, and things fail all the time. They fail every day. It’s just a big machine. And you try … [to] fix them before you leave Earth if you can, because that improves your chances of success.
That’s the reason you do a test flight is to wring out problems and sort out potential failures, and then work on good solutions to launch with as healthy a ship as possible.
If everything was perfect, I’d be suspicious. You know, I think it’s great that we’re finding problems and working on them and making the vehicle as healthy as possible to get ready to trust it with four people.
Artemis II crew, from left to right, NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (NASA)
If you are Jeremy Hansen and his crewmates, what do you think they’re feeling right now? Relieved or disappointed? Or maybe both, I’d guess?
Neither. It’s just a normal part of the process.
Another six months or a year or whatever it’s going to be, it doesn’t really matter. This is time and preparation and development and mission advancement and making sure we optimize our chances.
For the crew, it’s just, “Yeah, OK. Well, fine.” There was nothing magic about that previous date on the calendar. And there’s nothing magic about this one. And there’s very little chance they’ll launch on this date either. But you have to set a date that everyone’s now working towards.
I don’t think any of my space launches launched on time — or at least, you know, on the first date that we chose. But they all launched, and they were all successful. And it’s because of the process that they’re going through right now.
Artemis II crew talks about inspiring the next generation with their moon mission
So if you were to put a date on it … would you even be able to do that at this stage?
No, nobody can. It’s as simple as that.
The countdown to launch, I know people think it starts at 10, but it starts years in advance…. And at any moment, you can have a launch hold, whether it’s 15 seconds before launch or 15 months before launch.
It’s just a different business, I think, than most people visualize or think about. And this is as hard as it gets, sending four human beings, not 400 kilometres away like I went, but 400,000 kilometres away. So the risks are higher. The opportunities to help them in real time are lower. They can’t just deorbit and come back to Earth.
For Jeremy and his crew, this is life as normal. And they are four great representatives of humanity. I’m super proud to know them.
[In] the previous U.S. administration, there was a sort of sense of urgency infused into getting astronauts back on the moon…. Are you concerned that that kind of urgency from U.S. leaders at that time helped move this along too quickly?
Politicians come and go, and the electoral cycles are going to continue to happen.
It’s always going to be complex and [involve] a lot of external factors. But you could drive yourself crazy worrying about the things that you have no control over.
I think it’s really good for NASA and the astronauts to be focused hard on the things that they can control and make sure that they’re going to be able to do their part properly.
[There are] those who are not as excited about space exploration as you and many others around the world, who point … to these headlines and say this should all be left to private enterprise rather than a taxpayer-funded agency. What do you say in response to that?
There’s always a role for government. It’s why we have governments. And there’s a role for private industry, and that’s why we have private industry.
The things that further humanity, that push back the edges of our understanding of things like the CERN particle accelerator or the SNOLAB that’s in Sudbury, or the research laboratories that are right across Canada, or the telescopes that we help build … that’s not the job of private industry, because they can’t make a profit at it.
Exploring the moon, putting human beings on the moon, exploring the rest of the universe, understanding the very nature of dark matter and dark energy — that still takes us collectively to agree that this is something that humanity needs to work on together. And some of our domestic product needs to go towards that, as well as taking care of each other.
So a mission like this one, Artemis, is somewhat in the middle. It’s private companies building the hardware. But it’s still governments fundamentally footing the bill.
And it’s always been that way. That’s what exploration is. It’s always been like that. This is just the current manifestation of it.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
