After NASA's glory days of putting astronauts on the moon in the 1960s and '70s, its crew stayed closer to home. That all changed earlier this month with the Artemis II mission, and few things excite Americans and NPR reporters more than moon missions. For example, here's NPR reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce speaking with host Scott Detrow.
SCOTT DETROW: At this very moment, the crew of Artemis II is lifting off on a mission to the moon. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce is on the scene. Nell, tell me what you're seeing.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: The rocket is just arcing up into the sky. There's a tremendous noise and just a bright, bright star-like streaking star in the sky as it goes up and up. The sound was, like, physical. You could feel your body shaking. And there's a long straight cloud, white cloud, coming down from the rocket, which is still very visible.
SCHMITZ: Wow, Nell. It sounded like you were on that rocket.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Well, you know...
SCHMITZ: ...Fantastic timing. I mean, you - the - our - ALL THINGS CONSIDERED is just starting, you're live, the rocket's, like, firing. Did - were you pulling strings with NASA to coordinate all of this? How does that - how did that work?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yes, yes, yes. I had them hold their countdown for 10 minutes so that they would launch at the exact second that our segment started. No, we had no idea that we would be live during the launch. The launch window actually opened a good 10 minutes before then. And so...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: ...I had thought that, by the time it was time for me to go on the show, that the astronauts would be in orbit.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And so it wasn't until fairly late in the day that we started realizing that, hey, you know, we might actually be doing this live.
SCHMITZ: Nell Greenfieldboyce has been reporting on NASA missions for more than two decades, and you can hear in her voice that this mission was a big deal. So for today's Reporter's Notebook, we wanted to lean on that experience and ask her why the Artemis II mission captured the imagination of so many.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I think people are interested in space when something unusual happens up there. And I think if you look at those astronauts that were on a test flight that ended up getting stuck on the International Space Station for months...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: There was a lot of interest in them, too. So I don't think it's necessarily just the moon that was drawing people in, but definitely there was this sense that people were going somewhere new, that - you know, someplace that for most people alive today were not alive during the days of Apollo. I know I wasn't. You know, I was born after the last moon mission. So for many people alive today, this was the first time they had ever seen people going to the moon. And it was new to them.
And it was also, you know, a group of astronauts that were really friendly and cheerful and upbeat. And I think that it was just engaging for the public to see this kind of team group effort - you know, like, not just NASA, but international partners and, you know, people on the ground and people in space and everybody kind of working together in this kind of, like, you know, excited, productive way. I think a lot of people feel like that was something they'd been missing seeing in public.
SCHMITZ: And I think what was also really interesting about this mission is that there was sustained interest throughout the course of the mission. I mean, every day, the - you know, the - we - everyone was very interested in this. Was there a single moment that you think summed up the best part of the mission?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I think, you know, the lunar fly-by, the day when they actually got closest to the moon...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And they were, you know, sending back their impressions of the moon.
REID WISEMAN: As we came around the near side of the moon, seeing all the sights that we've seen from Earth for all of our lives, but we're seeing them from a different perspective. And we saw sights - Orientale - sights that no human has ever seen before, not even in Apollo, and that was amazing for us. And then the surprise of the day, we just came out of an eclipse, where...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I think that was really touching for people. And then seeing the pictures they sent back, again, I mean, they saw parts of the moon that human eyes had never seen, and they ventured farther out there than any human had ever ventured. And so I think those were kind of the highlights. And, of course, the other highlight was everybody getting home safe, which, as someone reporting on this, like, that's what I really want to see. The launch is exciting to cover, but I would say the splashdown is even more scary to cover, from my perspective.
SCHMITZ: And what are folks at NASA telling you about how the mission went from their perspective?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I mean, I think this was a huge confidence boost to them. I mean, the whole time I've been reporting on NASA - so more than 20 years - I've been listening to them talk about wanting to go back to the moon. And now, you know, there's this palpable sense that they're really close, right? They're really close to landing on the moon again. And so the current NASA administrator is trying to, like, push that forward and is shaking things up and changing missions around. And so I think there's, like, an energy. I think this has given the whole agency a sense of, you know, inspiration and energy.
SCHMITZ: So as a science reporter who's covered, you know, space for as long as you have, you know, let's geek out a little bit. What was your favorite part of covering this mission as a science geek?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I liked the terminator. So the terminator is what they call the line on the moon between the illuminated side and the side that's dark.
SCHMITZ: That's called the terminator.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah, the terminator line.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And the way the light is there, it's really strange and dramatic. And astronaut Victor Glover, in particular, talked about just, like, staring at the terminator and being unable to take his eyes off of it and feeling like, you know, the craters were so dark. They looked like black holes where you would just, like, fall down into the moon and go on forever. And so that was kind of the bit that I found most evocative, this line between light and dark where everything is the most intense.
SCHMITZ: The terminator - and so, I mean, I loved all of your coverage of this mission, but I got to say, one of my favorite pieces of yours was when you went to the entrance of the National Air and Space Museum here in Washington to interview kids about what they thought or knew about the mission. Here's some tape from that.
ROSALINE DYER: I feel like we shouldn't really be focusing on building a moon base there, but, in my opinion, I feel like we should be focusing more on Mars.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Tell me your name.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: All right, so what, if anything, do you know about the moon stuff going on right now?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: You don't know anything at all?
SCHMITZ: (Laughter) I love the follow-up. You don't know anything at all. The poor kid - oh, my gosh. He's like...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: How is he supposed to know, you know? It occurred to me that kids today, they are looking at their devices and stuff and what's happening on social media. Like, they don't necessarily see the main news of the day, right?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I mean, how would they?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: It's not like they're going downstairs and the kitchen - somebody's paper newspaper on their kitchen table with, like, the headlines and the picture and stuff, like...
SCHMITZ: How many of these kids did not know that this was happening? You know, like...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: A large number. Yeah. And I thought - at first, I was surprised by that, but then I thought, you know, some of the adults didn't know either.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And I think that there is this kind of idea that, like, everybody's super excited. Well, a lot of people were just oblivious. And even of the people who knew, they weren't necessarily super excited. Some of them were just like, yeah, it's OK, you know?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: I think that the kids are a lot like the adults in that way. And I think there's this idea that, like, oh, of course kids love space, and oh, of course this is going to inspire them or whatever. But there's a real mix. You've got ones that don't know anything, and then you've got ones who feel perfectly free to criticize NASA for its plans for a moon base because obviously we should be going on to Mars, and we're just going to get stuck on the moon. And, like, you know, I love that. I love that...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: ...You know, very young people have well thought-out, completely defensible positions on this stuff?
SCHMITZ: What are you going to be looking for as you continue to cover the Artemis program as it prepares for a planned 2028 mission to actually land a crew on the lunar surface for the first time in more than five decades? That is incredible.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Two things, really - whether NASA is really going to be able to pull off more than what they call flags and footprints. So in the days of Apollo, we did some moon landings, and then people kind of lost interest, and they weren't able to sustain it. And NASA says, this time is going to be different, that they're going to build a moon base and that they're going to have all kinds of support for a long-term continued presence on the moon. I guess what I want to know is if - is that going to be true? You know, we're going to get a lot of attention to the first moon landing, but what about after that? And the other thing I'm really interested in is the role of the international partners...
GREENFIELDBOYCE: ...You know, because in the old days, it was just NASA doing it alone. But now you've got the European Space Agency, you've got the Canadian Space Agency. You've got all these international partners. And so I'm really curious, you know, how they play into all this.
SCHMITZ: That is NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce. Thank you.
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