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i'm here with jim garvin chief scientist

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from goddard space flight center where

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you've been involved with the lro

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mission for a while

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andy goes way back in fact before we

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even had a vision for space exploration

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a group of us were thinking what do we

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need to do with the moon and lro came to

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mind and

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starting in 2004 we've been on the path

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to doing the moon right with lro and

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we're getting close now huh really close

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i mean geez we just can't wait and in

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the next couple months watching this

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mission finally fly you know it's like a

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lifelong dream for a lot of folks

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thinking that that dream really started

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way back 40 years ago when we first

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landed people on the moon

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so what's the sort of historical

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importance of of this mission well 40

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years ago we sent humans to the moon

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we're commemorating that now and back

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then we realized there was something

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many things we needed to know and we

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didn't have the time in the sequence of

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apollo missions to do that historically

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we're going back now with our eyes wide

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open with measurements like really like

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none we've ever done for a planet so by

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the end of august we'll be mapping the

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moon as never done before and lro is the

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gateway to the new era of human

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exploration that your generation will

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get to populate and do it's going to be

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cool

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and the other one is l cross tell me uh

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why this is such a cool mission and how

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they're doing something really different

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here well l cross is really a big bang

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experiment where we use something left

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over the upper stage that carries and

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pushes lro to the moon to come back

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around and impact the moon to basically

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try to energize the surface to look for

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what could be lurking within it's an

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ultimate collisional digging mission and

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lro earth-based telescopes and the

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shepherding satellite on lcross will all

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examine what these permanently shadowed

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regions at the lunar poles are like

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what's in the what's in the soil there

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could it contain frozen water or other

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things

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what goes into putting together a

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satellite like this and getting it to

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the point it's at now sitting out on the

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launch pad well to build a satellite

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like lro and the instruments on it and

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the the ground systems to support it and

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the vehicle it's it's like building a

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cathedral it's a lot of work really it's

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like the ultimate jigsaw puzzle and it

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all has to play together talk together

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in fact electrical tests are going on

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now as the as the launch vehicle is

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getting ready for its liftoff so it's

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it's kind of like building a super bowl

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team you start with the building blocks

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you got an idea the how it's going to

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work the strategy as john madden would

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say we're not john madden we're anyway

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but anyway

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so that's what we've done and over the

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last you know

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really four years four and a half years

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that's what the goddard team with all of

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its partners uh really across the world

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has done we even have an instrument from

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russia yeah five years from the

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president's mouth to a launch pad and

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like custom made yep and now lro is is

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on the pad and the vehicle rolled out um

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this morning and it's getting close and

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we can all feel you know feel the rocket

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motors starting to uh to rumble as we

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get back to the road absolutely

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anything else that people should know

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about this launch that we're getting

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ready for here well i think people

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should think of lro you know as the

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people's mission to the moon it's going

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to open the lunar frontier

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scientifically and for engineering so

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that we can design the systems to get

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people back and so i

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i can't i'm tingling in excitement over

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the discoveries it can make it certainly

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well with its instruments from the

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lasers to the cameras to the

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temperatures but it's also the gateway

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to designing the flight systems that

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will carry young people back

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is really bringing the moon up close as

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if you were there and while we're not

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walking there you're going to be flying

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over the moon as if you're in an

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airplane with the data sets the the

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images the maps that lro makes so

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forever gonna bring the people back into

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this wonderful moon that we barely

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understand i think lro is is that

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mission so you know get involved

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love lro

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go lro all right all right well thanks

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for uh talking to me here sure andy it's

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my pleasure i hope you get to go to the

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too so the countdown has begun to the

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launch of lro and l cross nasa's return

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to the moon but remember just because

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that atlas has left the launch pad

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doesn't mean it's over in only four days

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lro will reach orbit around the moon

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four months after that l cross will make

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impact with the lunar surface and all

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through this time we'll be sending back

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images topography and cool stuff for you