"It opens up a whole series of new avenues for scientific exploration"
James Head is a Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University. He trained astronaut crews in geology and surface exploration as well as participated in the selection of landing sites for the Apollo moon program. He speaks to CGTN Europe about the successful Moon landing of the Odysseus mission.
Transcript
00:00 James Head is a professor of Geological Sciences at Brown University.
00:03 He's trained astronauts in geology and surface exploration,
00:06 and helped to select landing sites for the Apollo Lunar Program.
00:10 Great to see you again, Professor. Welcome back to the program.
00:12 So, just how exciting is this? How much of an achievement does this represent?
00:19 Well, Robin, it's really great to be back,
00:21 and particularly on such an auspicious day after the day of landing.
00:25 You know, I, of course, worked on every one of the Apollo landings
00:29 with humans on the Moon, and I have to say that it's no less nail-biting
00:33 and exciting during those last few minutes,
00:35 and also getting communications back from the spacecraft.
00:37 So, it's an incredible day.
00:40 It opens up a whole series of new avenues for scientific exploration of the Moon,
00:45 you know, done with our commercial partners.
00:47 So, a key thing here is China has been very successful
00:51 with their national space program, and landing robotically,
00:53 and returning samples from the Moon, an incredible program.
00:56 The U.S. is approaching it slightly differently.
00:59 They are actually trying to get something like a Federal Express to the Moon,
01:02 where you pay a company to deliver your products to the Moon.
01:06 So, that was the first successful one of these,
01:08 and we're very, very excited about the future.
01:11 So, a giant leap then, perhaps, for private space exploration.
01:15 Is this going to be big business, you think, the future of space travel?
01:20 Well, I think it already is.
01:22 For example, the way we got to the Moon on this particular mission
01:25 with the Turing machines is to be launched on a SpaceX rocket,
01:28 and SpaceX is exactly the same thing, writ larger.
01:33 SpaceX was started not by Elon Musk's loose change in his pocket,
01:37 but through grants from NASA to help develop the private space industry.
01:42 And, indeed, it's a beautiful example of how Glenn Shotwell, the CEO,
01:46 and other, you know, people at SpaceX have just been incredibly successful in doing this.
01:51 So, it's already started a space economy,
01:54 and, of course, we're extending this to the Moon.
01:56 My students are now able to think of, design, build, and launch a spacecraft experiment on these things
02:04 in the course of their graduate career, potentially.
02:06 So, it's very exciting scientifically, as well as for, potentially, a new lunar economy.
02:11 So, you talked about the space economy, the lunar economy.
02:14 What will that look like, do you think?
02:17 Well, the goal is, of course, with China, as well as the United States and other countries,
02:24 is to spend time to actually live on the Moon, okay?
02:28 So, if you do that, you really need resources.
02:30 You need lots of things to help sustain and build the enclosures, to sustain the exploration, etc.
02:37 So, again, that will largely be done in the U.S. by private industry.
02:42 For example, SpaceX sends the astronauts up to the surface in their own capsule and launch vehicles,
02:48 and, indeed, you know, they will be, and supplies to the International Space Station, as well.
02:53 So, that's exactly how it will be done for the Moon.
02:55 And so, we need to be thinking about how we can do this to take these commercial landers
03:01 and develop them into that broader scale aspect to support the Artemis program, which is exactly what's going on.
03:06 So, there's huge opportunities there.
03:08 It's not like we're going to build, you know, developments of housing on the Moon right away, okay?
03:14 That's way off in the future.
03:16 But to support exploration, we need to be able to do this,
03:19 and that's what the economy is going to look like in the short term.
03:22 Also, resources. If we land at the South Pole and there's water there,
03:25 that's a lot, lot better than bringing up tons of water from the Earth to support a colony there.
03:31 Thank you.
03:33 Professor, great to talk to you. Thank you, as always, for joining us.
03:35 That's Professor James Head from Brown University.