to us, so as we ve pointed out earlier, a lot of excitement. ma am, back to you. a lot for good reason. rachel crane, thanks so much. earlier this evening, i spoke with retired nasa astronaut leroy chou. well, it s always exciting when there s a launch of a new vehicle, and this has been a long time coming this. rocket actually has more thrust, generates more thrust at liftoff than the saturn 5 moon rockets though it carries a little less payload into orbit. nonetheless, it s an exciting thing, a long time coming. the first iteration of this program, if you will, was around 2004, 2005, got redesigned by the obama administration in part because of the committee that i was a part of, the review of u.s. human space flight plans committee in 08- 09, and so this rocket has been in development since 10, 2010, and finally here were 2022 getting red for its mayden flight. getting back to the moon is, you know, we haven t been there for
too bad about this morning, but we ll see it soon. thanks very much. and we ll bring it to you as we learn about the next steps. today s launch was meant to be the first step towards sending humans back to the moon for a permanent presence and even beyond, to mars as well. right. although there were no people on board of this one, the spacecraft not empty at all. cnn innovation and space correspondent rachel crane is live at the kennedy space center with more. good morning. i know it s got to be disappointing for you and for everyone there, but it will happen soon. talk to us about who nasa was planning to bring along for the ride. reporter: that s right, poppy. you know, while there were no crew on board, there were actually a few living organisms on board. that s because inside of this capsule there s several scientific experiments. also, they have ten cubesats on
about 280,000 miles to the moon and then will go beyond it by 40,000 miles. so this is an incredibly ambitious mission and all to kick off the artemis program which is intended to land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon in 2025, but of course that all is, you k know hinges on today and a successful launch today as i pointed out if today s launch is not a go there are some backup windows but everybody here at the kennedy space center we are crossing our fingers hoping for a launch, but, you know, jury is out on that one. all right. rachel, keep your fingers crossed down there and please keep us posted with all the latest developments. joining me is brian green professor of physics at columbia university. just first your reaction to what we re seeing and what appears to be happening. look, it s not particularly surprising. this is an incredibly
first time since apollo 17. ultimately nasa hopes to someday land the first humans on mars. there is no crew for the flight, there are several objectives. scientists hope to accomplish. rachel crane has a preview. reporter: the weather is 80% favorable for launch. the window opens at a:33 eastern. it is a two hour window. mother nature is on our side. folks are not just keeping an eye on the weather. the rocket behind me has never flown before. several rehearsals didn t go exactly as planned. three wet dress rehearsals had many issues involving valves and leaks. the vehicle has never flown before. it is a really important part of the artemis program that
rachel crane you re going to have a lot of fun today, i know you will and you ll be bringing it to us. thank you very much. all the stars were out last night for the mtv video music awards. the night included taylor swift ma winning the director of the year award. and a show stopping performance from nicki minaj. you get to stay up late for your job to watch these things, it s too late for me. but taylor swift making history, teasing a new album. looked good. what s your take? diamond mini dress she came out to play on this red carpet. for taylor swift she doesn t go to all the award shows, the red carpets. so the second she came out, fans were so excited, talking all about it on twitter. you mentioned that album,