Artemis II Returns Home and an Update on the Iran Conflict

Artemis II Mission Recap + Iran–US Conflict Update (Strait of Hormuz Explained) | Takaro Kids

Takaro Kids returns after a missed week to cover two big stories: NASA’s Artemis II mission and an update on the ongoing Iran–US conflict. The hosts recap Artemis II as a “dress rehearsal” for future deep-space travel, naming the four astronauts and highlighting records, the flyby path using Earth and the Moon’s gravity to save fuel, experiments including organ-chip “avatars” made from astronauts’ cells, and the dramatic reentry and Pacific splashdown on April 10 using drogue and main parachutes. They then explain the Strait of Hormuz’s importance for global fuel shipments, Iran’s threat to control passage and charge ships, and note a ceasefire involving Israel, Iran, and the US, while Israel says it will keep attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon. Negotiations are set in Islamabad on April 11 with US VP JD Vance attending, and a quiz asks where Artemis II took off from.

00:00 Cold Open and Welcome
00:26 Today’s Two Big Stories
01:01 Artemis II Crew and Milestones
02:12 Why Artemis II Didn’t Land
03:24 Flyby Science and Slingshots
04:31 Deep Space Health Experiments
07:04 Earth Appreciation and Big Questions
08:47 Reentry Heat and Splashdown
10:40 Iran US Conflict Quick Recap
11:41 Strait of Hormuz and Oil Leverage
13:28 Ceasefire Nuances and Lebanon
14:54 Negotiations in Pakistan Updates
15:52 Quiz Question and Wrap Up

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Transcript

Kiran 0:00

Mics camera. Action. Takaro Kids, the definitive podcast for kids to understand what's going on in the world around them. You like that introduction, Debbie?

Debkanya 0:13

I did, I think it was very good. Uh, we skipped a week, unfortunately, and clearly you've used that time well to think about a good intro. So good job.

Kiran 0:23

Thank you. you. I appreciate it. So this week, are we gonna be talking about?

Debkanya 0:31

In the last two weeks, there's a lot that's happened, but the two most important stories that we wanted to cover today are. From space. The Artemis two mission and the second, which is happening down here on Earth and has been happening for a while now, is the Iran US conflict. So we are gonna cover both these stories. Um, we are going to go into detail with the first one. The second one is an ongoing story, so we'll just give you an, a quick update. So that's what's planned for today's episode.

Kiran 1:01

Awesome. So Artemis two, we already did cover Artemis two and you know, it's initial launch date, then it's postponed launch date, then it's final launch date, you know, so, um, it's been through. A little bit of a back and forth in terms of timing, but they are actually all done with the entire mission, right?

Debkanya 1:20

Yeah. I mean, see the back and forth is but natural for a, for a mission of this size and of such importance. They literally took 10 years to plan this mission. The four astronauts who prepared for three whole years for this mission are Reed Wiseman. He's the commander. There's Victor Glover, who is the pilot, Christina Koch, who's a mission specialist. She's the first ever woman, by the way, to have traveled this far in space. So that's a huge achievement. And Jeremy Hanson, and he's also the first ever Canadian to go this far from Earth. Victor Glover, in fact, became the first person of color to ever, go so deep into space. So multiple records here as well. Such an exciting and big mission. Lots of prep. Now they're finally done, and I think they managed to achieve everything that they set out to.

Kiran 2:11

Yeah, I think so. And, uh, I think the eventual goal, right? Uh, 'cause kids have asked me, you know, over the last couple of weeks, why did they do this? Why are they not landing on the moon? Um, so just to kind of give that sort of context and rewind a little bit. I think the idea was never to basically land on the moon,

Debkanya 2:30

Yeah.

Kiran 2:30

Idea was always to kind of create a, um, you know, a test, what's called a dress rehearsal, a test to check if we can actually go all the way, uh, to the far end of the moon, to the dark side of the moon. If we could potentially over a period of time use moon to land and then create a base station on the moon, will then help us go further into space, so then can further go into Mars and maybe other parts of space. So it kind of becomes a space station. Moon becomes kind of like the space station, right? That's the big goal. It's not gonna happen anytime soon. It's gonna be years and years and years before any of that happens. But this was the first sort of mission to do a lot of those experiments and see what's possible.

Debkanya 3:18

We haven't been this close to the moon in like 50 years. I think last one was 50 years ago. So the, what they actually did was they took the, the, um. Shuttle and they did a fly by. You know what a fly by is? A fly by is basically when you go as close to another planet, or in this case the sat, our satellite, which is the moon as close to it as possible to study it. And what you also do is you use the moon's gravitational force. To basically go around it, right? So you're saving a lot of fuel. You are, you know, kind of going into cruise mode where you're just going around the moon using its own gravity, watching it, studying it, and then, you know, going out of it, right? Going out

Kiran 4:02

of called a

Debkanya 4:02

of, you know, away.

Kiran 4:03

right? And they actually did that with Earth as well. So they go around earth. So if you, if you can go and, you know, do some research to see, uh, what the Artemis two's path was, you'll see that they actually go around earth first.

Debkanya 4:15

Hmm.

Kiran 4:15

And that is slingshot using earth's gravity and then slingshot into the moon with less resources being used. So it's very cool.

Debkanya 4:24

Super cool. And yeah, so they, they went as close to the moon as possible. They did a lot of different experiments, uh, up there. In fact, one of, of course, like you said, Kiran. One of the most important things was learning how the human body would survive in deep space, uh, whether we would be able to survive. Which reminds me, I watched a really interesting movie last weekend, the weekend when we should have been giving you an episode on Takaro

Kiran 4:48

That's why we didn't do an episode because Debbie was watching movies, guys. Sorry.

Debkanya 4:54

So I went and saw Project Hail Mary. I recommend it highly. If you haven't seen it with your parents, go and see it. It is brilliant. I mean, Ryan Gosling has done such a good job and it's a, it's, it's really cute and it's a very sweet, and it's also about basically a science teacher who goes off into deep space. His mission is to save the Earth as usual. Most of our space, uh, mission movies are about how to save our planet. So this is about the same thing, but it's about survival in deep space, that's one of the things that these astronauts were studying, right? So for example, they did this one experiment where they had organ chips or what NASA has called avatars, which was basically made out of the astronauts own cells, right? These little things to see how they respond to deep space, what happens to them. And then accordingly, maybe, you know, I don't know what the use would be, maybe prepare, uh, future astronauts who will go into deep space in terms of the kind of suits that they will wear or the kind of environment that they will need to be in, how much oxygen, how much humidity, how much heat, all of these things, maybe the kind of food that they, they will need to eat to survive, right? So it's all of these kind of things that they've been studying in addition to a lot, many more things, of course.

Kiran 6:05

And, and if you remember, you know, we did this, um, a couple of, uh, episodes, I think on the astronauts who were stuck at the Space Station,

Debkanya 6:14

Yep.

Kiran 6:14

Williams and, uh, Butch Wilmore, who, again, they were stuck for so long. They've actually, they created the record by staying the longest in space. But when they came back, there were actually issues and, a lot of medical care required and, you know, urgent care required. So. Space does a lot of different things to your body, which don't know about is yet. Right? And so that is a big, big sort of goal to be able to then go, maybe set up that moon, um, you know, landing pad and then a space station over there. I mean, think about it. You are building something in, in a completely different environment. have only built stuff on earth. We have never built anything anywhere else. So, yeah, it's, it's beautiful to think about the possibilities.

Debkanya 7:04

To think about the possibilities for sure, but it also makes you appreciate something else, which is how amazing it is that the earth has been taking care of us humans so beautifully. Literally, like it's the perfect environment for us to thrive in, right? Everything is just right that. Just the right amount of water, just the right amount of oxygen and nitrogen in the air, just the right amount of everything that we need to grow and survive. We are trying to replicate these living conditions in, you know, somewhere else, in, in, in space, uh, to be able to do the same thing, which is thrive and grow and learn and survive. Right. So it, it makes you appreciate what you already have and maybe give it a little bit more thought in terms of how can we make sure that we keep it like that this, this planet of ours that is so perfect in so many ways.

Kiran 7:53

It's interesting to see us wanting to expand and grow into different places. It's very interesting. It's a very human thing to do. but then you also have to wonder, you know, all those, sci-fi movies, whether there are others out there,

Debkanya 8:10

Hmm.

Kiran 8:11

life out there? Someone else liked the humans who's in some other

Debkanya 8:15

What?

Kiran 8:16

many, many millions of years ago. I mean, years away.

Debkanya 8:19

Yeah. Yeah. Watch the movie. Like I said, watch the movie. No spoilers, but watch the movie. But yeah, so yeah, so this happened.

Kiran 8:27

mm-hmm.

Debkanya 8:28

It's a very big deal, like we mentioned. The last time we did this was in 1972. This is way before, I mean, Kiran and I were also not born at that time, so this was a long, long time ago. And they, after flying so many, so many miles slash kilometers away from Earth, they are finally back.

Kiran 8:47

Yep, they are back on April 10th. Orion reentered the Earth's atmosphere and, and that's also a very dramatic thing, right? Because when you're reentering the Earth's atmosphere, it's one of the most, um. I would say dangerous moments in the entire mission because the Earth's atmosphere has so many layers, and at that speed, when it's coming through, those layers actually burn up things to literally create dust out of it. And so this, um, you know, space shuttle has to be resistant enough to face those temperatures to face the speed. I, I think at one point it was, um, reaching a peak speed of. 25,000 miles per hour, which is absurd. You are coming down and you are seeing just fire outside your window, right? That's what the astronauts see, and it's hotter than lava. It's a thousand plus degrees Celsius. Oh,

Debkanya 9:44

Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. So that's the other thing, right? I mean, imagine the amount of studying and science and data collection that's gone into figuring out, okay, this is how much we can manage for the shuttle to survive, the capsule to survive as well as the astronauts inside to also not be too uncomfortable when you're making this descent back into the earth's atmosphere. Yeah. So, so they came back, um, you know, they descended with drogue parachutes, they're called. Three main parachutes around 6,000 feet. Uh, were used to slow this capsule down for when it finally splashed down. So usually they always land in a water body, right? So they splash down and um, they were lifted out in the Pacific Ocean and then they were taken out for, you know, and as usual, as per protocol taken away for their health checks. And, uh, you know, they're obviously figuring out now this is gonna be a debriefing session. What did you learn? What did you see? And how are you feeling?

Kiran 10:36

coming from space, splashing down on water. Water is one of the main things that we're gonna be talking about next, and this is the Iran conflict.

Debkanya 10:45

Yes.

Kiran 10:46

water? Because the straight of Hormuz the main point of contention right now in this war. It's been going on for like, what, 40 days

Debkanya 10:55

Mm-hmm.

Kiran 10:56

Um, and there's been a ceasefire, which basically means all parties have agreed to stop, shooting out missiles, attacking each other. So there's a ceasefire, right? You stop.

Debkanya 11:09

For those of you who are joining us today and have not listened to any previous episodes, I'll give you a quick, quick, quick re recap. So there's been a war that's been.

Kiran 11:17

listen to the previous episodes.

Debkanya 11:18

I would recommend that highly, we go into a lot of detail, but for you right now, Iran and the US have been fighting. They were basically fighting because the US said Iran has too much nuclear power and we cannot let that happen. We cannot trust them with nuclear power. So then. The US decided to go in and attack. They attacked their country and Iran then decided to fight back and they retaliated. Iran controls, like Kiran mentioned, the Strait of Hormuz. Go look it up on the map. The Strait of Hormuz is a very nice, pretty little channel of water that carries an extremely important load, which is it carries a lot of tankers that carry fuel to many different other countries. When you control the Strait of Hormuz you control the ships that carry oil and fuel. And when you control that, you control the world's economy to a large extent. And that's exactly what's happened. Iran said, Strait of Hormuz is ours. We control it, it the US keeps fighting with us. Then we are going to make sure that nobody gets this oil and fuel right? Only the

Kiran 12:18

Yeah.

Debkanya 12:19

we select.

Kiran 12:19

Iran also went down the path of saying any ship that needs to cross the STrait of Hormuz now needs to pay them a million dollars.

Debkanya 12:28

Wow.

Kiran 12:29

That

Debkanya 12:29

they need money, right? Iran needs money. Yes. When fighting a war is expensive. So that's, I guess, their way of, you know, blackmailing people.

Kiran 12:38

way of saying, yeah, exactly. Of saying, you know, we control this and if you don't pay us, we're not gonna let you through. It is, uh, a classic bully, uh, in the playground, sort of, you know, methodology

Debkanya 12:49

It's interesting though to see the. Who the bully is in a fight depends on who's telling the story. So always remember whenever you are hearing a story about a conflict or a war or people disagreeing with each other, when you talk to either party, they will have their own version of events, right? So Iran has their own version. Of what they think is true, the US believes that they are doing the right thing because they think what they think is right. Right. So you have that. So you have to always make sure that you know who your source of news is and try and balance out all the information that you're getting. That's what we are trying to do here at Takaro as well. We try and make sure that we are giving you a balanced view of what is happening.

Kiran 13:28

Know, the, the key thing that, um, we have to consider over here is also there's a ceasefire, which is happening, which is, uh, something that Israel, iran and the US have agreed to. But what's interesting is Israel has come back immediately after the ceasefire and said, Hey, this does not include Lebanon, we are gonna keep attacking Lebanon. Because Lebanon is where the Hezbollah are. And if you remember, we've talked in the past a lot about the whole Israel Palestine conflict and the Hezbollah support the Palestinians, but going against Israel. And so Israel is using this as an opportunity to go after those groups of, um, what they call militia, they call terrorists Hezbollah. And so they have said that the ceasefire will not include Lebanon because we are gonna keep attacking the Hezbollah in Lebanon, but we are not gonna attack Iran for now. You know, that's where it starts becoming a little interesting because, uh, yeah, it's because you, how do you say there's a cease five, but only this one part? I'm not going to

Debkanya 14:36

Yeah. Because that was the thing, the attacks are not just happening in Iran itself, it's happening in the neighboring areas, and Iran is attacking back. They're attacking Israel, and they're also attacking other Gulf countries, which are in the, which are where there are US bases.

Kiran 14:50

They're attacking Qatar, the UAE, all of those regions,

Debkanya 14:54

So negotiations are of course now going on during the ceasefire time. They're happening in Islamabad Pakistan, which is really, again, an interesting choice of location. Pakistan has, come forward and said, we will be your partners in this, meeting where we will try and help both of you find something that. You know, we can both be happy with. So that's, that's a very important role. The negotiator role, the diplomacy role that Pakistan is going to play today, April 11th is when there's a huge meeting, in fact happening in Pakistan. JD Vance, who's the vice president of the of the United States, is going to be there. So, like you said, this story is not going to end anytime soon. We will keep getting you updates from there. That's pretty much where we are at for this episode.

Kiran 15:40

now that we've covered space story. We've covered the water story.

Debkanya 15:47

I mean water slash fuel story.

Kiran 15:50

water slash fuel slash war. Yeah. Um, it is time for the quiz question. It's been two weeks since we asked a quiz question, Debbie. So what is this week's quiz question?

Debkanya 16:03

Well, I came prepared. It's a good one. It's to do with the space story, not the Iran story. The question we are asking this week on Takaro Kids is where did the, Artemis two mission take off from. Very, very simple. Correct, correct answer. Kiran wins this week's quiz. We are done.

Kiran 16:21

Yes. Yes.

Debkanya 16:24

Yes it is Earth, but I want to know specific, specific location, right? So I'm gonna give you options. You can pick one, which is the correct answer. Option one is Cape Hope, option two, Cape Canaveral, option three, Batman's Cape and option four, the Kennedy Space Center. Okay?

Kiran 16:48

Interesting. I thought the last option was gonna be different. Kennedy Space Center, I think. Yeah. I think in our script we had said it would be SpaceX.

Debkanya 16:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But then you don't control the quiz. Kiran, let's make that very clear. Kids, I am your quiz master, not Kiran. So listen to me. The options I give, those are the ones.

Kiran 17:11

Cape Hope. Cape Canaveral, Batman's Cape or Kennedy Space Center. What is the right answer? Send us your answer and you could be the lucky winner. Don't have to be the first person. Don't have to be the last person. You don't have to send it 15 times. But send it to Takarokids.com or on our Instagram, get your parents to DM us with the answer. And one lucky winner wins gift certificate and some other goodies like. The winner for last week, not last week, but last episodes question. The last episode's question was, what is that famous movie about a killer whale who was released from captivity and released into the ocean? The options were Free Billy, Free Willy, Jaws, or Julia and the whale. Free Willie is the right answer. This week's winner is leela Krishnamurthy. Congratulations. Leela.

Debkanya 18:18

Yeah, yeah. Send in your answers www.takarokids.com or you can send it to us on Instagram, get an adult to help you, send us a dm, uh, with the correct answer as many times as you wish, and we will pick a winner.

Kiran 18:35

Congratulations, Leela, your gift certificate and your goodies are gonna reach you fairly soon. Keep listening, keep spreading the word about the Takaro so that all your friends can also listen in. And of course, participate, uh, but they'll listen in and learn about the world a little bit more. Until next week, bye-bye