In late 2020, Nicole Mann received a call that would alter the course of her life — and may even alter the course of human history. On the line was NASA veteran astronaut Reid Wiseman: He had called to let Mann know she had been chosen to be part of the Artemis mission. Put bluntly: Mann could be going to the Moon.
In an interview with Inverse conducted in late January, she recalled how, despite all her training to prepare her for this great endeavor, she was still dumbstruck.
“First you try to process it, taking it all in and trying to think: ‘Okay is this real? Am I just dreaming this?'” Mann tells Inverse.
Mann may be the first woman to walk on the Moon, but she is also happy supporting the overall mission for the greater good of science.NASA
“It’s just that sense of incredible excitement and just thinking about all the possibilities, and thinking, ‘Oh my gosh I have so much work to do.’ Then it’s back to excitement again.”
“Yes you want to be the first person to walk on the Moon…but really it’s not about you, it’s about the bigger mission.”
Since the news broke, the 43-year-old NASA astronaut has been in an intense training regime along side 18 other candidates selected as part of the Artemis Team. Of the 18, only two will ever actually make it to the Moon and retread Armstrong and Aldrin’s steps on the lunar surface.
“It’s just this really overwhelming sense of emotion in the best of ways that I can describe,” she says.
As the pandemic raged here on Earth, NASA continued its plans to send humans off the planet and on to our natural satellite. On December 9, 2020, NASA revealed the 18 astronauts for their Artemis mission, which will land the next man and the first woman on the Moon by 2024.
The team behind the upcoming Artemis mission will see the next man and the first woman to the lunar surface.NASA
One noticeable difference between the Artemis Team and those who took part in NASA’s earlier mission to the Moon, the Apollo Program, is the sheer diversity of the astronauts. Of the 18 potential astronauts, 9 are women, including Mann — 12 men have already walked on the Moon as part of past NASA missions.
“It’s a huge team working together for this goal which is so much bigger than yourself.”
“We are in way different times than we were back in the ’60s and ’70s,” Mann says.
“It’s just a great example that our country needs right now to show that these barriers are being knocked down,” Mann says. “Anyone and everyone has the ability to participate and be a part of these amazing endeavors, whether that be something in science and technology, or something in society, or something as incredible as going to the Moon.”
Road to the Moon: A slow start
Mann first became a NASA astronaut in June, 2013, at the age of 36.
“I didn’t realize that that was what I wanted to do until a little bit later in my career,” she says.
Before she made the switch, Mann was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. Flying to space was just not really on her agenda, until she visited NASA as part of her training in test pilot school. After this brush with the space agency, she started to look more closely at becoming an astronaut herself.
“I got a chance to meet astronauts and really get a better sense of what do astronauts do on a daily basis other than go to space,” Mann says.
“It’s a huge team working together for this goal which is so much bigger than yourself, and that’s what really drew me towards NASA.”
Mann never had space on the agenda until she visited NASA as part of a field visit with the Marine Corps.NASA
Will Nicole Mann be the first woman in space?
From not caring about going to space at all, to being selected as part of the first astronauts to go to the Moon in more than 50 years, Mann has come a long way in her relatively short career as an astronaut.
Since being chosen for the Artemis Team, Mann and her colleagues now train day in, and day out, for the journey to the Moon.
“It’s busy, it’s pretty diverse, and you wake up excited every day for the cool things that you get to do,” Mann says.
As part of their preparation to go to the Moon, the Artemis Team works on refining the spacecraft which could take them there. This includes drilling down on the procedures they will need to follow to fly the craft and stay safe on the journey, as well as how to land safely on the lunar surface. They also need to practice the science experiments they hope to conduct on the lunar surface.
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“How are we going take what the engineers have built, and now incorporate human beings into this amazing machine — which can be much more complicated than you originally think?” Mann asks, rhetorically.
“How are we going live, and work, and function in space?”
To answer these questions, NASA can only prepare the astronauts so much. Ultimately, a lot will depend on the individual characteristics of each crew member. Mann and her team will need to keep training as if they are the chosen ones for a while yet, however.
NASA plans to put the astronauts through more specific training in preparation for the journey, and place them under pre-flight restrictions just 18 months ahead of the scheduled 2024 launch. For now, Mann and the astronauts are learning how to take care of their bodies in space — how to eat food, use the restroom, sleep, and live in a microgravity environment.
Doctors, scientists, and former astronauts are also helping to prepare them for the mission, Mann says.
As 2024 approaches, the astronauts will conduct test flights — critical trials of whether what they have learned on the ground can help them survive and thrive in space.
“We are going to learn a lot,” Mann says. “You may come up with the perfect plan here on the ground and the perfectly designed solution, but you will still learn something in space.”
Up there, she says, “things will not always work perfectly.”
A new era for space exploration
As much as Mann wants to leave her footprints on the Moon, she also recognizes the bigger picture of the mission as a whole.
Buzz Aldrin climbs down the Eagle’s ladder to the surface. Will Nicole Mann be the first woman to retrace these steps?NASA
“Yes, you want to be the first person to walk on the Moon, you want to fulfill that role, but really it’s not about you,” Mann says. “It’s about the bigger mission, so you’re just excited to support in whatever role you can.”
It has been more than 50 years since humans landed on the Moon, and this time our species is going back with more advanced technology than ever to probe the lunar surface. Ultimately, we hope to discover the origin story of our natural neighbor, as well as our own.
NASA hopes to establish our presence on the lunar surface, starting with Artemis. The agency hopes to build a lunar base on the Moon for sustained exploration and development. The lunar base may one day help humans reach further destinations like Mars and beyond.
Mann feels the weight of that legacy for future generations, especially when she goes to talk to children in schools as part of outreach for NASA.
“You can see their eyes light up,” Mann says.
“You can tell their brain is clicking and thinking and they have such incredible questions. It just gives you such an incredible perspective on life — they’re filled with excitement and wonder.”
“That’s what we all need, especially right now,” she says.
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.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
