The Moon Base

Nelufar Ramji (0:00)

Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 436, The Moon Base. I'm Nelufar Ramji, and I'll be your host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more. NASA is building humanity's first moon base, a place where science and technology will support a long-term, sustainable human presence on the moon that will prepare us for future missions to Mars. The moon base will be built in phases. Phase 1 alone will take over 20 lunar landings, where each mission builds upon the last through deliveries of equipment, technology, and science to help us build and sustain a home for astronauts on another celestial body. We are building the moon base near the moon's south pole. It is one of the harshest environments with extreme temperatures ranging from negative 334 degrees Fahrenheit to over 130 degrees. The huge range of temperatures means that the power, communications, and landing systems being developed will need to withstand both intense cold and extreme heat. On this episode, we have Carlos García-Galán, NASA's moon base program manager, joining me to tell us more about humanity's new home on the moon and how it's all coming together. Let's get started.

Music Carlos, thank you so much for being on Houston We Have a Podcast.

First, we'd like to know how you got here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here at NASA?

Carlos García-Galán (1:50)

Sure. It's a pleasure to be here with you guys today. So I've always been really inspired by exploration and pushing the limits, doing things that nobody else has done. So for example, the first people that went to Everest, the first set of explorers that got into a pyramid after many, many years of not knowing where the things were. Things like that have always inspired me. Therefore, space exploration, it kind of meets all of that criteria. It pushes the limits in every angle, technology, science.

And then by default, pretty much every time you go to space, you're seeing new things, and not a lot of people have done that. And there's many places where nobody has gone. So I always was inspired by doing things like that, and NASA embodies all of those things.

They work at NASA, it's all about exploration and doing things that nobody else has done. The near impossible. So growing up, I always had my eye, I grew up in Spain, you know, very distant, but I always had my eye on how can I get involved in something like that. And when I grew up, NASA really was the name of the game. So still is, but now there's more possibilities to do things in different countries, in partnership with NASA. Back then, that was not really a thing.

So I did, you know, I set a course to do everything I could from early on, even high school, to do, get closer to the action, get closer to NASA, the United States, study university here, something that would lead me to eventually being able to be part of it. So yeah, I came to the States to study space sciences and electrical engineering. And then I did it in school that was pretty close to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida Tech. And right after I graduated, happened to be the very beginning of assembling the International Space Station. So I came into NASA as a flight controller for ISS. So long journey, but that's what it takes to realize your dreams.

Nelufar Ramji (4:26)

That's fantastic. And you've been charged with quite a big task. There was something called ignition that happened earlier this year. Where did this come from? The NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, has charged you with quite a big workload.

Carlos García-Galán (4:40)

Yeah. Ignition, I think, was really a different name for transformation. And it is transforming the way NASA does business.

And going from doing multiple things that are all good in summation, but perhaps deluded the key objectives that the agency should be setting out to do, which is things nobody else can do.

So ignition was an exercise of looking at what are those key initiatives that exemplify what we should be after, like accelerating going back to the moon, building a moon base, making sure that we can stay in low-Earth orbit, on permanent presence, even after the space station. Going to Mars and what it takes to do that, including nuclear technologies that may unlock that capability, like nuclear propulsion, and continuing to do science that nobody else can do, because it's in places where nobody can reach other planets, solar system, beyond. So Ignition was about realigning the agency to be able to focus on these things, and not like break all boundaries. It's not about human space flight, science, mission directorate, technology. It's not about any of it, it's about all of it. So every aspect of it aligns to achieve these key objectives. And I think that's what allows us to do the things that nobody else can.