SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
As early as next spring, NASA hopes to send astronauts back to the moon - to orbit the moon, at least - the next step in a long plan to return to lunar landings and eventually to set foot on Mars. Commander Reid Wiseman and the rest of the crew of Artemis II have been training for years.
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REID WISEMAN: When we leave Planet Earth, we're 0 miles an hour, and then when we come back in the atmosphere, we're doing 39 times the speed of sound.
DETROW: We profiled the Artemis II astronauts on the show about a year ago, but on a mission like theirs, the people in space are just one part of a massive operation. In fact, right now, NASA is recruiting volunteers here on Earth to help track the spacecraft as it makes its way to the moon and back. Volunteers like Scott Chapman helped NASA keep tabs on the automated uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022.
SCOTT CHAPMAN: After the spacecraft was no longer in site, I assembled all those numbers into the format NASA asked for and uploaded it to their computer.
DETROW: Chapman is an IT specialist in Virginia, and he mainly helps small businesses with computer issues. But briefly in 2022, he got to moonlight as a spacecraft tracker.
CHAPMAN: The spacecraft is transmitting at a fixed frequency. However, when a transmitter and receiver are moving in relation to each other - either getting farther apart or coming closer together - the received frequency changes. Coming toward you, the frequency seems to be getting higher, and then as it goes away from you, the frequency of what you hear gets lower as it goes past you. And radio signals do the exact same thing.
DETROW: Chapman is widely known in the amateur radio community, and over the radio waves, he goes by his FCC-issued handle, K4KDR.
CHAPMAN: Much in the way the local television might be designated as whatever the call sign of that local station is, in the amateur radio hobby, that is essentially your name on the radio.
DETROW: With his antenna up, he learned NASA was looking for operators to assist in navigating Artemis I. He wanted in.
CHAPMAN: At first glance, it seems overwhelming. Certainly a person living in a rural area of Virginia isn't going to be capable of monitoring the signals and reporting the data that they are looking for. But I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if this project had one participant who had a very small system? So I went ahead and replied and, much to my surprise, was selected for the program.
DETROW: Chapman's job - tracking the signals beamed down from the automated spacecraft as it orbited the Earth. As a hobbyist, he had the tools - good enough for NASA.
CHAPMAN: I did have a 1-meter dish, which you can hold in your hands, and that was mounted on a rotator on my roof. So in the eyes of the people managing that program, they determined that I was maybe capable of receiving the signal, and ultimately, I did.
DETROW: Applications to help track the next mission - one filled with astronauts traveling further from Earth than any human has in 50 years - are due in late October.
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