NASA to launch its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than half a century
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
NASA is to launch the Artemis II mission to the Moon, more than half a century after the last Apollo missions – we’ll hear from one of the four surviving astronauts who have set foot on the Moon.
Also in the programme: US President Donald Trump attends a Supreme Court hearing about his attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order; and how a hundred driverless taxis all suddenly stopped mid-journey in a city in China – so how robust is the tech?
(Photo: The Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft at Launch Complex 39B ahead of the mission launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US. Credit: Reuters/ Brendan McDermid)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to NewsAff from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.6 | I'm James Menendez. Now, given that we spend almost all of our time on this program telling you |
| 0:19.0 | about what's going on around the world. |
| 0:26.0 | It's quite refreshing to escape planet Earth once in a while, and that's what we're going to do today, |
| 0:37.1 | at least for a fairly big chunk of this edition of News Hour, because a little later it's looking likely that NASA will launch its first crude mission to the moon in more than half a century. |
| 0:39.1 | That was the era of the Apollo missions that captured the imaginations of an entire generation and gave humans their first |
| 0:44.4 | glimpse of another body in space, as well as their first glimpse of Earth from space. |
| 0:51.0 | Well, this mission is called Artemis 2 and the window for launch from the Kennedy |
| 0:55.3 | Space Center in Florida opens in just over two hours time. Lots of people are gathered outside |
| 1:01.5 | and they're certainly excited. I think that people going up to the moon is kind of like cool and |
| 1:07.4 | stuff because when they, when the booster comes down it makes a big old noise and stuff |
| 1:11.7 | and it's cool. I love space. It's amazing. It's the greatest unknown out there. I mean we've |
| 1:16.9 | honestly it's really incredible. I'm pretty excited about it. I came out here to see it and I heard |
| 1:24.5 | it's going to be a great show. A lot of people are going to be here. |
| 1:28.1 | Final preparations are underway, as evidenced by the background chatter over the airwaves used by the Artemis Mission Controllers. |
| 1:35.9 | CDR, OTCU, Ryan, Earth 1. |
| 1:38.1 | Go ahead. |
| 1:38.8 | Yes, sir. You are prime for hatch opening. |
| 1:40.9 | Integrity crew is prime for hatch opening. |
| 1:43.4 | Well, Jeremy Hanson from the Canadian Space Agency is one of four astronauts on board. |
| 1:49.1 | He's been speaking to the BBC's Space podcast, 13 minutes. |
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