A2 · Elementary
11 min
culturesciencehistorytechnology
La Luna y los Hombres: El Regreso de Artemis
The Moon and the Men: The Return of Artemis
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Elementary level — perfect for beginners building confidence.
So, Artemis II is back.
The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, near San Diego, yesterday.
And I'll be honest, I watched the footage and felt something I did not expect to feel.
Bueno, mira.
Well, look.
Artemis II vuelve a la Tierra.
Artemis II returns to Earth.
Es un momento muy importante.
It's a very important moment.
It really is.
This was the first crewed spacecraft to travel to the Moon's vicinity since Apollo 17, in December 1972.
That's more than fifty years.
More than half a century since human beings have been anywhere near the Moon.
Cincuenta años.
Fifty years.
Es mucho tiempo.
That's a long time.
Yo no vivía en 1972.
I wasn't alive in 1972.
Neither was I, for the record.
I was born in 1971, so I was one year old when the last humans left lunar orbit.
My entire conscious life has been lived in an era where no human being was anywhere near the Moon.
That's a strange thing to sit with.
A ver, pero Artemis II no llega a la Luna.
Right, but Artemis II doesn't land on the Moon.
Los astronautas van cerca, pero no aterrizan.
The astronauts go close, but they don't land.
Right, exactly.
This was a flyby mission, a loop around the Moon.
No landing.
That comes later, with Artemis III.
But the cultural weight of putting a crew back in lunar space, after all this time, is enormous.
And I want to talk about why that is.
Bueno, para América, la Luna es algo especial.
Well, for America, the Moon is something special.
Apollo es un símbolo muy grande.
Apollo is a very big symbol.
It is.
And look, I want to be careful here, because I think there's a version of this conversation that gets very American-flag-waving very fast.
But the thing is, Apollo was genuinely a collective human experience, not just an American one.
I've talked to people all over the world who remember watching the first Moon landing in 1969.
La verdad es que sí.
That's true.
Mi padre ve la televisión en 1969.
My father watched it on television in 1969.
Un momento muy importante para él.
A very important moment for him.
Your father.
In Madrid, watching the Moon landing on television in 1969.
I love that.
Because this is what I mean.
The Moon doesn't belong to anyone.
Neil Armstrong said "one giant leap for mankind," not "for Americans." People forget that.
Sí, pero mira, es una historia americana también.
Yes, but look, it's also an American story.
Los americanos van a la Luna.
The Americans go to the Moon.
No los europeos, no los rusos.
Not the Europeans, not the Russians.
The Russians.
Here's what gets me.
The whole Apollo program only exists because of the Soviets.
It was a competition.
Sputnik goes up in 1957, the Americans panic, Kennedy stands up in 1961 and says we're going to the Moon before the end of the decade.
That speech is pure Cold War politics dressed up in the language of human destiny.
Es que la competición es importante.
The thing is, competition matters.
Sin la competición, los hombres no van a la Luna tan rápido.
Without the competition, men don't go to the Moon so quickly.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
Fear is a remarkable motivator.
And now, fifty years later, we have a new competition.
China has a serious lunar program.
They want to put taikonauts on the Moon by 2030.
And suddenly NASA has urgency again.
Bueno, China va a la Luna.
Well, China goes to the Moon.
Es muy interesante.
That's very interesting.
Una nueva carrera espacial.
A new space race.
A new space race, yes.
And the question I keep asking myself is: does that framing cheapen it?
Because when you say space race, you're saying the Moon is a trophy, not a destination.
It's a geopolitical prize, not a place human beings are going to explore and maybe eventually live.
A ver, la Luna es un lugar real.
Right, the Moon is a real place.
No es solo un símbolo.
It's not just a symbol.
Los científicos tienen muchas preguntas sobre la Luna.
Scientists have many questions about the Moon.
Exactly.
There's water ice at the lunar south pole.
There are minerals, resources.
There's the possibility of a permanent base.
Artemis III is supposed to land near the south pole, which is scientifically and strategically significant.
This isn't just flags and footprints anymore.
Mira, pero la gente normal no piensa en el agua en la Luna.
Look, but ordinary people don't think about water on the Moon.
La gente piensa en los astronautas.
People think about the astronauts.
En la historia.
About the story.
And that's the cultural piece, right?
Most people who watched the Artemis II splashdown coverage were not watching because of lunar south pole geology.
They were watching because of something older and harder to name.
Something about human beings going somewhere terrifying and coming back.
Sí.
Yes.
Los humanos siempre quieren ir a lugares nuevos.
Humans always want to go to new places.
Es parte de nuestra naturaleza.
It's part of our nature.
It really is.
I mean, I've spent a career going to difficult places, and I always found it hard to explain why.
There's something in us that pulls toward the edge of the map.
The Moon is just the most extreme version of that impulse.
La verdad es que los astronautas son héroes modernos.
The truth is that astronauts are modern heroes.
Como los exploradores del pasado.
Like the explorers of the past.
Modern heroes.
And here's the thing, the Artemis crew is genuinely different from Apollo.
Apollo was twelve men, all white, all American military test pilots.
Artemis II had an international crew, including the first woman and the first Black astronaut to travel to lunar space.
That's not a small thing culturally.
Bueno, es muy importante.
Well, that's very important.
En 1969, la Luna es solo para los hombres blancos americanos.
In 1969, the Moon is only for white American men.
Which is a damning way to put it, but it's accurate.
And it matters who goes.
Because when a little girl sees a woman floating in lunar orbit, that image goes into her head and stays there.
That's how cultures change.
Not through policy memos, through images.
Es que las imágenes son muy poderosas.
The thing is, images are very powerful.
La foto de la Tierra desde la Luna, por ejemplo.
The photo of the Earth from the Moon, for example.
Todo el mundo la conoce.
Everyone knows it.
Earthrise.
Taken by William Anders on Apollo 8, December 1968.
That photograph, arguably, launched the modern environmental movement.
People saw the Earth as a small, fragile, beautiful thing hanging in black space, and something shifted.
One photograph.
Mira, una foto cambia el mundo.
Look, one photo changes the world.
Es increíble pensar en eso.
It's incredible to think about that.
And we're going to get new images.
Artemis will produce photographs and video of Earth from lunar space that will reach people through social media instantly, in a way that was unimaginable in 1968.
The cultural impact could be enormous, if we're paying attention.
A ver, pero hoy la gente tiene muchas cosas en el teléfono.
Right, but today people have many things on their phones.
Muchas noticias.
A lot of news.
La Luna compite con muchas cosas.
The Moon competes with a lot of things.
That's actually a really sharp point.
In 1969, if you had a television, you watched the Moon landing, because there was essentially nothing else.
Today you're competing with a war in Lebanon, a political crisis somewhere, a hundred million TikTok videos.
Attention is the scarce resource now.
La verdad es que muchos jóvenes no conocen el programa Apollo.
The truth is that many young people don't know the Apollo program.
No estudian la historia del espacio.
They don't study the history of space.
Right, and that's a real gap.
I teach university students, and I can tell you, for a lot of them, Apollo is ancient history in the same category as the Second World War.
They know it happened.
They don't feel it.
Bueno, pero Artemis es nuevo.
Well, but Artemis is new.
Los jóvenes pueden tener su propia historia con el espacio.
Young people can have their own story with space.
That's the opportunity, yes.
Artemis could be to this generation what Apollo was to mine.
Or to your father's generation.
A shared moment that people carry for the rest of their lives.
But only if we treat it that way.
Es que también tenemos a Elon Musk y SpaceX.
The thing is, we also have Elon Musk and SpaceX.
El espacio no es solo del gobierno ahora.
Space doesn't just belong to governments now.
The privatization of space.
Look, this is complicated for me.
On one hand, SpaceX has driven innovation faster than NASA managed in decades.
The Falcon 9 rocket is a genuine engineering achievement.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the Moon as someone's business venture.
Mira, para mí, el espacio es de todos.
Look, for me, space belongs to everyone.
No es un negocio.
It's not a business.
Es parte de la humanidad.
It's part of humanity.
And there is actually a legal framework for that.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says no nation can claim sovereignty over the Moon or any other celestial body.
But it was written before private companies were a serious factor.
Whether it covers Elon Musk's mining operation is a genuinely open question.
A ver, si alguien tiene la Luna, es un problema muy grande para el mundo.
Right, if someone owns the Moon, that's a very big problem for the world.
An enormous problem.
And the cultural dimension of that is interesting too.
The Moon belongs to every culture on Earth.
It appears in Spanish poetry, in Japanese art, in ancient Egyptian religion, in every human tradition I can think of.
The idea that it could become a private asset is almost cosmically arrogant.
Sí, la Luna es un símbolo universal.
Yes, the Moon is a universal symbol.
En España, en México, en Japón.
In Spain, in Mexico, in Japan.
Todo el mundo mira la misma Luna.
Everyone looks at the same Moon.
Everyone looks at the same Moon.
I genuinely love that.
There's no other object that every single human civilization, across all of recorded history, has had a relationship with.
The Moon is the one shared cultural reference of our species.
Bueno, y ahora los humanos van allí otra vez.
Well, and now humans go there again.
Es un momento para pensar en eso.
It's a moment to think about that.
It is.
And maybe that's the healthiest way to receive what Artemis II just did.
Not as an American victory, not as a geopolitical move against China, but as a reminder of what we're capable of when we stop shooting at each other long enough to look up.
La verdad es que sí.
That's true.
El mundo tiene muchos problemas ahora.
The world has many problems right now.
La Luna es algo bueno.
The Moon is something good.
Algo diferente.
Something different.
Something different.
I'll take that.
The extraordinary thing is that this mission happened at all, in the middle of a war in the Middle East, fuel protests in Europe, all of it.
Four human beings strapped into a capsule and went to see the Moon.
And came back.
That still means something.
Mira, yo quiero ver Artemis III.
Look, I want to see Artemis III.
Cuando los astronautas aterrizan en la Luna.
When the astronauts land on the Moon.
Ese día es especial.
That day will be special.
Me too, Octavio.
Me too.
And when that happens, I think we should do this conversation again, because I have a feeling it's going to be one of those days that splits time.
Before and after.
Like the first Moon landing was for your father.
Sí.
Yes.
Y esta vez, yo también quiero ver las imágenes en directo.
And this time, I also want to watch the live images.
Con una buena copa de vino.
With a good glass of wine.
Sin hielo.
Without ice.
He had to get it in.
We were this close to a full episode without the ice comment.
Gracias, Octavio.
And thank you all for listening to Twilingua.