British astronaut Tim Peake speaks to the Mirror ahead of Artemis II’s historic mission to the moon, and tells how we may be able to holiday in space in our lifetime…
When Artemis II blasts off on Wednesday – taking astronauts to the far side of the Moon for the first time – Major Tim Peake admits he will be “green with envy.” It will be a decade in June since the astronaut returned from his own history-making voyage as the first British European Space Agency astronaut to go to the International Space Station.
Tim, 53, has given his regards to Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hanson, 50 – one of the four-strong team joining the 10 day Artemis II mission. Other crew members include NASA astronauts – mission specialist Christina Koch, 47, commander Reid Wiseman, 50, and pilot Victor Glover, 49.
READ MORE: Inside Artemis 2 as NASA’s manned mission to Moon is days away from blasting off
Tim says: “I spoke to Jeremy and wished him luck. Who knows what’s going to happen? It’s a big moment. This is the beginning of the new era of space exploration and this time, with a view to staying there for long periods of time. There isn’t an astronaut on Earth who doesn’t want to be in that rocket. I promise you we’ll all be green with envy.”
The crew has been at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, making final preparations for the launch, scheduled for Wednesday. Nasa’s Artemis II mission will fly in a figure of eight, looping around the far side of the Moon, bringing us never seen before views, along with new understandings of the lunar environment. The 10 day rocket trip will also pave the way for another Moon landing, the first since Apollo 17 in 1972, and, eventually, for a research base on the Moon – man’s first step to learning how to live on another planet.
Tim, who lives in West Sussex with his wife of 26 years Rebecca, a former British Army officer, and their sons Thomas, 16, and Oliver, 14, says Artemis II is all about progression. He says: “The idea is to actually start building a research laboratory at the south pole of the moon.
“Then we’ll start to see astronauts living there for long periods of time. In our lifetime, we’ll definitely see astronauts spending six months, one year on the moon, maybe even two or three years on a lunar base. That’s a stepping stone for going to Mars, which is probably late 2030s early 2040s. I don’t think we’ll see people living on Mars in our lifetime. But I do think there will be visits to and from Mars by astronauts. Each round trip would take three years, as Mars is 345 million km away.”
Anyone who fancies living on the Moon or Mars had better not be planning a family. Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia, have found that human sperm “gets lost” on its way to the egg without gravitational force to guide it through the female reproductive system. Tim laughs: “There’s all sorts of things that use gravity. When you take gravity away suddenly they’re left thinking ‘hang on a second, I was using gravity. Can I have it back again?’”
But Tim, who was a British Army officer and Apache helicopter test pilot before retiring in 2009 to join the ESA, says we could be booking holidays in space before too long. He says: “The space economy is really just starting. There might not be an Airbnb on Mars for a while, but there may well be one in low orbit. Especially as space becomes easier and cheaper to access. But we also need to be responsible and sustainable.”
Space exploration is definitely getting cheaper. The 1960-73 Apollo programme cost $333 billion (appx £290 billion) in today’s money, compared to the Artemis programme, between 2012 and 2025, which cost $93 billion (appx £81 billion). Each Artemis launch (this is the second) costs $4.1 billion (£3.57 billion).
Recalling the build up to lift off, Tim recalls being quarantined. He says: “I was allowed to see my wife, but I wasn’t allowed to see my two boys because they were under the age of 10, and so bug carriers.” He admits he felt some trepidation. He says: “It would be ridiculous to say that astronauts don’t have an element of fear about sitting on top of that rocket. We look at it in terms of risk and risk mitigation. We’ve launched a thousand times in the simulator. We’ve seen every emergency thrown at us.”
Tim experienced several hairy moments in space. He says: “We had a problem docking and we had an emergency out on our space walk. My crew mate, Tim, his helmet was filling with water, so we had to get him back in a hurry. But genuine fear only starts to creep in when you run out of options. Part of our training is to make sure that we never run out of options.”
Tim trained solidly for two and a half years after being selected for his mission. He explains: “I lived under the sea for 12 days as part of my prep. If you’re going to be a space station crew member, you need to be able to do everything. We need to fly the spacecraft, to dock it, to do space walks, to be the doctor, the dentist, the plumber, the electrician. We spent a week in accident emergency wards. We worked with dentists. We practiced teeth extraction, just in case we needed to do it for real.”
While the Artemis II capsule, which is around the size of a mini-van, is huge compared to the capsule he travelled in, Tim says it will be ‘cozy,’ adding: “If you didn’t know each other before, you’ll certainly know each other well when you get home!”
Artemis II will orbit the Earth once before the decision is made to fly to the moon. Tim explains: “They’ll be checking out the spacecraft, the life support systems, communications, navigation. They’ll be detaching themselves from the upper stage of the rocket. They’ll be doing some manoeuvres – physically flying the spacecraft, piloting it around, making sure it’s all responding absolutely correctly.
“Once everybody’s happy that everything looks good, they’ll kind of push the button which ignites the engine that sends them to the moon. It’s called a TLI, a trans lunar injection. It burns the engine. They’ll speed up and speed up as they come around the Earth. That slingshots them out away from the Earth and off to the moon. Once they’ve done that burn, the interesting thing is there’s no coming back except to complete the mission. One of the big wow moments for me was the first time the engines cut out after launch. “You’ve had all of that violence of launch and suddenly it goes quiet and you’re just floating and you’re orbiting Earth.”
When Artemis II flies around the back of the moon, there will be 30-50 minutes where all communications with Earth and the ISS are lost. Through their window, the crew will see the far side of the moon. Tim says: “This is the crazy thing. They are actually going further than any humans have ever gone before away from Earth. They’ll be seeing the Moon and then they’ll be seeing a long long way beyond the Moon. They’ll be seeing Earth much, much smaller. It’s going to be amazing for them. It’s going to be absolutely jaw-dropping.”
*Tim will be hosting the BBC World Service podcast ‘13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II”. It will be available on BBC Sounds from two days before the launch of Artemis II and will also air on BBC World Service.
READ MORE: Meet the Artemis 2 crew set to launch in days on NASA’s first Moon mission in 50 years
