Moonshot mindset: meet NASA’s project boss

Okay, so now we're talking about projects.

I mean, what a year for NASA so far.

Artemis has just grabbed the headlines everywhere.

It's completely inspiring and awesome.

you know, created a great deal of interest in new generations of people who, you know, with their eye on the moon and what can be achieved.

But whilst we're talking about programs, would you mind giving an overview of the, well, you said roughly the number of programs, but what would be the, which are the most important? So which are the ones that are most critical for NASA at the moment?

Yeah.

We're talking about especially our largest programs.

Everything we do is critical.

I mean, we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't.

A lot of what we do comes directly from the need for the nation on what priorities we're trying to fulfill.

So I'll have to do kind of just a selection of the fun stuff.

So we have our Artemis program, and the Artemis program is basically, you can think about it as basically the transportation system from here into deep space.

Lately, our focal target is the moon and the lunar vicinity, and it's just lunar space.

And that consists of our giant SLS rocket, which has multiple parts in the ground systems and the comms that support it.

It's all really part of the Artemis program.

So the other big program that's brand new, that's catching a lot of attention is our Moonbase.

And so just a few months ago, we announced the start of our Moonbase program.

And over the next few years, you'll see many, many launches of small to medium sized landers and large landers and also landers.

you know, I'll, you know, drone, uh, reconnaissance spacecraft that'll be, uh, exploring, um, surface of the moon and really just establishing our, um, our presence on the moon in a sustained way.

So that's what really is different from our previous programs back in the 60s, is we're going to stay and have a sustained presence and then move on to Mars after that.