NASA ran its final “go/no-go poll,” ahead of the planned Artemis II flight on Wednesday. Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and CBS News senior space consultant Bill Harwood reacted to the command.
REPORTER: I want to bring our viewers’ attention to the launch director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, who is doing something very important. It’s known as the go/no-go poll input to verify the launch. If we have it, let’s listen in.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: Attention on the net, this is the launch director performing the final poll for launch. Verify no constraints and go for launch. EGS, EGS, program chief engineer.
PROGRAM CHIEF ENGINEER: Artemis chief engineers are go.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: Copy. Thank you. EGS chief safety officer.
[? PETE: ?] Artemis CSOs are a go.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: [? Pete, ?] thank you. Range weather.
MAN: Launch weather is go.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: Thank you. LWO and Artemis MMT chair?
JOHN: MMT’s go.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: Thank you, John. And integrity launch director.
MAN: Good to hear your voice, Charlie, [? DLT. ?]
VICTOR GLOVER: Thank you, Charlie. This is Victor. We are going for our families.
MAN: [? MS 1. ?]
CHRISTINA KOCH: This is Christina. We are going for our teammates.
MAN: [? MS 2. ?]
JEREMY HANSEN: This is Jeremy. We are going for all humanity.
MAN: All right, Charlie, your Artemis II crew is go for launch. Full send.
CHARLIE BLACKWELL-THOMPSON: I copy that. Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, on this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people, and our partners across the globe and the hopes and dreams of a new generation. Good luck. Godspeed, Artemis II. Let’s go.
REPORTER: And there you have it. The Artemis go, the go/no-go poll there. Go for family, for teammates, for all of humanity, the daring spirit of the American people and our allies. I saw you guys having a reaction to that. It’s a beautiful thing.
PEGGY: It absolutely is.
MAN: Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh.
REPORTER: What’s going through your mind right now, Peggy?
PEGGY: For me, I was inspired by Apollo 11 and the astronauts walking on the moon. And so this whole thing I think is a reignition of that inspiration to our youth.
REPORTER: Yeah. Yeah. How about you, old man?
BILL HARWOOD: I agree. I agree. I was in high school when Apollo 11 took off. I remember watching it with a friend and being just stunned by the whole thing. And I followed the space program ever since. And I’ve longed for a moment to see us — we’d leave the planet and leave low Earth orbit to head out into the solar system. So this new architecture to go back and build a moon base, perhaps, very exciting to me, for sure.