Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Final Preparations Ahead of NASA's Historic Moon Mission; Artemis II Astronauts to Head to the Launch Pad Soon; Trump Watches Birthright Citizenship Arguments at Supreme Court. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 01, 2026 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going back to the freaking moon, that's why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": These are images from moments ago of the crew of Artemis II gathering together, playing some cards, a ritual, a tradition, just before getting ready to board a vehicle that will drive them to the launch pad of Artemis II.

A special moment for these four astronauts as they embark on a journey unlike any other. Let's go to CNN's Randi Kaye, who is outside the operations building where the Artemis II crew is gathered right now. Randi, walk us through what they are doing right now. They just got suited up and where they're headed next.

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, they did just get suited up and we're just moments away from them walking out of this door right there where you can see that microphone is set up behind me.

[13:35:00]

And then they will see their family which will be gathered right here. They've been in quarantine, so they haven't really had a lot of quality time with their family. They'll be able to send them off at a distance of course. They won't be able to hug them. And then they will make their way into that van there that is waiting for them.

It says Artemis II on it and they will make their way to Launch Pad 39B from there where they expect to take off for space. They will launch from there. The window opens about 6:24 p.m. tonight. So the crew members are Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and two mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch.

Jeremy Hansen is the first Canadian to take part in a NASA lunar mission, and Christina Koch is the first woman to go to deep space, and Victor Glover, the pilot, is the first person of color to do so. Their families will be here as I said. There's a lot of excitement, but there's also a lot of emotion. You can see there, they are starting to gather right here behind me.

Families will be coming in and this will be their last moment until 10 days from now, if all goes well, to see their loved ones. They're bringing with them some mementos, a note card for Reid Wiseman to write some notes, a Bible for Victor Glover, some handwritten notes from her loved ones for Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen is bringing some moon pendants that he had given to his family.

I did just speak with Senator Mark Kelly here, former astronaut himself, and I asked him if he has any advice for the astronauts today. He said he had given a call to Reid Wiseman and also Victor Glover, and he offered to go in their place. He said he would love to if he could. Boris?

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: What an incredible journey it is going to be. A view that literally no one has seen before from the dark side of the moon. Let's bring in CNN Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean and former astronaut, Jerry Linenger.

First to you, Jerry, what card game were they playing there? Were you part of that ritual? Is it superstitious, that game that's played before heading out to the launch pad?

JERRY LINENGER, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: You know, I think the key thing is you just want to say, hey, let's relax. We've been training for two years. Kind of again, the back, the two Navy captains are back on aircraft carrier. When you're doing a night mission, for example, trying to land, you just want to say, OK, I am trained. I am ready to go. Let's just relax and then use our brainpower here.

So I think it's more a relaxation thing and I think they choose. I would choose Euchre. I'm a Midwesterner. All of Midwesterners play a bit of Euchre.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Pete, obviously there are a number of checks that still have to be done, but this is a huge step in the process of actually getting these four crew members out onto the launch pad.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We have never been this close before during the wet dress rehearsal and during other previous attempts here, we have not gotten this far. Only four hours, 46 minutes, 57 seconds until launch.

We are standing by and we have seen a lot of activity here with the NASA helicopters flying over, looking for folks who may have snuck in along the route that astronauts will take from the operations building, essentially bias here and then onto Launch Pad 39B. This is really starting to feel real for me as somebody who is kind of a new space geek.

The merch line is long.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Yes, it actually is. (inaudible). MUNTEAN: There are a lot of journalists here, not only from across the U.S. and around the world, and really the weight of this moment is starting to really set in. Still, obviously, a lot of regimented checks that NASA needs to do to get to this point.

And so, they will go to essentially a clean room that is on top, they call it the white room, on the tower next to the Orion capsule. That is sort of the next big step before the astronauts, who have been seemingly pretty casual in the O&C room there as they prepare to sort of close out and move on to the next step.

SANCHEZ: We often hear that they're the calmest people, the calmest part of the team, a team of thousands that have helped get to this point.

MUNTEAN: And you have to consider the fact that this is probably the most advanced test flight of all time.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

MUNTEAN: This paves the way for our return to the moon. And even though one might say, well, yes, it's only a flyby of the moon, it's only going past the moon, this is huge, because never before have humans donned the Orion capsule.

There was an uncrewed mission before in Orion 1 that took it around the moon, but never have humans flown behind the SLS rocket here. This will be setting benchmark after benchmark, first after first, and it seems that NASA feels very confident, but not too confident.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, and a lot of tests that are going to be done once they're up there to make sure that everything is go for those future Artemis missions.

Jerry, share with us what it means for the United States to return to the moon and to return to this kind of space exploration, because in the last 50 years or so, the focus has mostly been on near-Earth orbit and missions to the ISS, et cetera.

[13:40:00]

LINENGER: So I'll tell you, I was 13-years-old, looking up at the moon and I said, our guys are up there and I want to do that someday. So that inspiration to me as a young man, and then I went to the U.S. Naval Academy, more astronauts graduated from the Naval Academy. I sort of structured my life so that I could become an astronaut.

And I'll tell you, someone just said, space geeks, we're all space geeks. We're going to the moon, man. I hope the whole nation understands the gravity of this. It's unreal.

And let me say one other thing, back to the emotional part of things. I think you try to relax when you're in the building, when you walk out, at least where it hit me the most, you come out of the building, you get into the Astrovan and you head to the pad and your families are there, people are cheering. And I'm getting emotional just talking about it. Man, that's where the emotions hit. You say, I am going, in this case, I am going to the moon. And you see your families and everyone cheering and you realize you're the tip of the iceberg and you want to represent all those people well. There's tens of thousands of people that made it happen. And now, you start locking in and you say, I'm going to do my job. I'm going to make humanity proud.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, another step following after so many that have come before like yourself, Jerry. Thank you so much for being with us.

We have plenty more to come this afternoon, not only from here in the Space Coast in Florida, but all over the world with correspondents in Tel Aviv, in the Middle East, as well as Brianna Keilar outside of the Supreme Court where major arguments were happening today.

Let's actually go back to Randi Kaye right now because, Randi, I understand that you are seeing some movement where you are, this operations center where we're anticipating that the astronauts are soon to walk out.

KAYE: Yes, Boris. And it sounds like they're going to walk out a little earlier than we originally told. Now at 1:49, we're told, so in about --

SEN. MARK KELLY, (D-AZ) RETIRED ASTRONAUT: Eight minutes.

KAYE: Eight minutes. And I'm here with a guy who knows all about this, Senator Mark Kelly. What are they going through right now? And thank you for joining us.

KELLY: They're pretty excited. They're all suited up. They've done pressure checks of their suits. So they put their gloves on, their helmet, close the visor, make sure that there's no leaks in their suit. They'll stand there and play a little bit of a game of poker as a tradition. And you can't leave until the commander loses the poker game.

(LAUGH)

KELLY: It's a little odd.

KAYE: It doesn't seem fair.

(LAUGH)

KELLY: And it's not a regular poker game either. It's like low ball, which is the worst hand. Anyway, they got to do that. Then they'll come down the elevator and jump in the vehicle.

KAYE: What's the emotion like for them? I mean, this is obviously exciting, but certainly very emotional. Their families are here. Talk about that.

KELLY: Yeah, it's a combination of a bunch of different things. You know, certainly excitement. I mean, these guys are going to the moon in like, what, like four hours. So they're really excited. They also do have their family members right there.

KAYE: Yeah. Does this feel --

KELLY: And this is a risky mission. And they've got kids. You know, many of them have children --

KAYE: Yeah.

KELLY: -- that are going to be here watching. So, you know, it's a combination of excitement, but also nervousness about climbing into a rocket and you've got 8.5 million pounds of thrust right on your back. You're going from zero to 17,500 miles an hour in like eight minutes.

KAYE: Why do you think this mission is so important?

KELLY: I think it's a time in our country where we need some positive news. We've got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of challenges, a lot of division, a lot of partisanship. Our country is at war. And I think there are a lot of folks out there that really don't know why we're doing this.

KAYE: But this is some good news.

KELLY: But this is a positive thing.

KAYE: And I know you joked earlier that you called a couple of them yesterday and you said you'd go in their place. So you'd offer that.

KELLY: One hundred percent.

KAYE: All right.

KELLY: In a second, get off this planet for a little bit --

(LAUGH)

KELLY: Go to the moon. Maybe when you get back, things are better.

KAYE: Thank you, Senator Kelly. Appreciate it.

We'll take a quick break. Be back after this.

KELLY: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: We're not going to go to break. We're going to watch these four astronauts as they walk out of the operations center, a historic moment here at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They're boarding an elevator now. Soon they will walk out to be greeted by family and friends and an enormous team, tens of thousands of people that have helped put this mission together.

A historic mission, Pete. And we can't say that enough because in having conversations with friends and seeing some of the chatter online about this, a lot of folks have said, well, I mean, we went to the moon 50 years ago, but this is different. We're actually going around the moon further than even Apollo 13, which used the moon essentially as a slingshot to get back to earth.

MUNTEAN: And this mission will essentially do the very same type of maneuvering to get us back to earth.

[13:45:00]

But this is more akin to the Apollo 8 mission, which is so historic because it was coined as saving 1968 and to piggyback on what Senator Kelly said, there has been so many things that is happening on earth when it comes to strife in the streets and --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

MUNTEAN: -- riots and ICE and just thing after thing --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

MUNTEAN: -- a war. You have to think that you would want to look to the stars to really sort of get a perspective and some hope. And so I think this is a very unifying moment.

SANCHEZ: A unifying moment that I think people draw inspiration from. We just heard Jerry Linenger there get emotional talking about being 13-years-old, watching the Apollo missions and being inspired. I spoke to NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, yesterday, and I asked him specifically about, why prioritize expensive missions like this, billions of dollars, to essentially recreate and re-establish efforts that the United States largely shelved some 50 years ago?

His argument was that what NASA uses, the finances that NASA uses to put on a mission like this is a fraction of the cost of what's gained from the science that's tested, the ingenuity that is put together in one place, and further, what it means for younger generations of people that will be inspired by a mission like this. I thought that was a salient point there as we await the crew of Artemis to emerging from the operations center to the large crowd outside.

MUNTEAN: And boarding the Astrovan that they will take, essentially, from the Operations Center, just by us here on the press mound, and out to Launch Pad 39B. This is truly where the rubber meets the road and they will go up the tower and see the final folks that they will see on earth before this 10-day voyage. Get strapped in to the rocket on what is arguably the most advanced and highly technical test flight of all time.

Begs mentioning that some of the crew has a background in test flying, I'd say this, some as a pilot. This is something that is unproven. We have only seen the SLS, the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule fly without humans on board up to this point. And so, they will do some checks up in the top of the tower. Once they essentially on board the rocket, they will do a comms check. They'll do some pressurization checks. They will make sure that all of the crucial life support systems and their communication systems are working.

And then it is the long wait until 6:24 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time when this launch window does open. I mean it also begs mentioning that there is potentially a bit of weather moving through here.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. It's a bit of overpass (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: At Cape Canaveral.

SANCHEZ: We've seen a few showers.

MUNTEAN: And we heard from the launch director earlier that there was some concern about that, but it seems that that will not thwart this.

SANCHEZ: Let's actually bring Jerry Linenger back with us. He's still with us. Jerry, what is it like when you go through all of this preparation and then you're essentially strapped in to this enormous rocket, but then you're waiting to find out if clouds or lightning or just a bit of a rainstorm might actually force you to scrap the entire operation?

LINENGER: Well, I think part, the lightning is the concern, the rain you can handle but the lightning strikes and all the electronics, you don't want to be in the middle of that. I'll tell you what, when you get off that Astrovan and take that elevator up and go to the white room and about to crawl in, when you get up there and you're sitting on top of this thing that's taller than a football field, you say, oh my God, this is a massive rocket that is going to blast me off into space.

And so that's the point where you just have this realization like, wow, we are doing something that is incredible. The innovations, the technology, all the things have to come together and man, what a privilege, and that's what I always thought, any astronaut I ever known, you just think it's a privilege to go out there, sit on that 8.8 million pounds of thrust, risk your life for something, you know, the greater good and advancing humankind, and I never felt nervous going out there. I actually felt just proud to be representing humankind.

(CROWD CHEERING)

SANCHEZ: And you can hear the cheers for the crew of Artemis II. The entire team is there. Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, basking in a moment that history will remember. Let's go ahead and actually listen in to what they're saying.

[13:50:00]

Said this is a great day. So indeed it is for this crew.

(CROWD CHEERING)

SANCHEZ: As you hear more cheers from the crowd.

MUNTEAN: A lot of these folks are NASA employees and the tens or hundreds of thousands that have been involved with this process up to this point, cheering them on as they make their way to Launch Pad 39B. A couple words from Reid here.

SANCHEZ: Let's see if we can hear what they're saying, what they're sharing with the crowd.

The microphones are perhaps a little bit too far away, but I wonder, Jerry, as you're watching this, do you remember what words you shared as you were about to board for your voyages to space?

LINENGER: That's that emotional time I'm talking about. You're looking at those tens -- you know, representatives of those tens of thousands of people that made this all happen. And again, you're the tip of the iceberg. So it's just pure pride, pure joy.

I'm looking at the feed right now. They just look happy and, again, proud to be representing mankind, heading up into space and going to the moon. But it's a great moment coming out of that building, getting in that band.

And then, again, once you get to the pad and look up at that beast, it's just, wow, what a privilege for me to be doing this.

SANCHEZ: So amazing. Jerry, I also wonder if you could speak to the, what I imagine, are tens of thousands of hours of training on everything from safety equipment to what Pilot Victor Glover joked that he would have to do on board the plane, and that is plumbing.

You've got to know how to make the toilets work. Talk to us about all the effort that they've put in to get to this point.

LINENGER: It's every, even the shuttle missions, there was a couple of years of planning, dedication, working, training, repeating the training. You just want to almost have, in sports terms, sort of muscle memory. You want to be able to just do things, especially those emergency situations, rapid decompression, fire, things of that nature. You've got to be automatic at it.

And so they've got all that knowledge. They have the confidence. And I think it starts even before astronaut training. Again, I mentioned the pilot and the commander, both naval aviators. They've flown off aircraft carriers. I know Reid flew the F-14 and the F-18 Super Hornet. So they've been in those situations before where they know how to compartmentalize any of the fear, any of the danger, and just focus on the task at hand.

And I guess what kept going through my mind is, I'm part of this great team. We've been training for two years. We are ready to go, and I am not going to let my teammates down. So once they get in that rocket line, they're going to be focused, concentrating. They're not playing poker at that point.

I guess they're doing a bit of rolling dice with chance.

(LAUGH) LINENGER: But they've mitigated the risk as best as can be, and you go out there with confidence, and you go out there saying this is worth my life if that's what happens.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, it is the culmination of so much work as we see some hand hearts being made, some kisses blown, some waves. The crew of Artemis II now getting ready to board the Astrovan to head over to the launch pad on what is the most ambitious mission that NASA has launched in a half a century, a return to the moon.

They are going to see, Pete Muntean, a view that literally no one has really ever seen from that angle. They're going to the dark side of the moon. They're going to lose comms with earth for almost an hour.

MUNTEAN: As is the case with many of the Apollo missions, to be on the far side of the moon. It's line of sight. You cannot communicate quickly and easily through the surface of the moon, as they say goodbye to their immediate family members, as the crew of Artemis II gets on to the Astrovan.

SANCHEZ: We're going to stay on top of their travels as they head over to the launch pad. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back with this historic mission, Back to the Moon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:59:03]

SANCHEZ: I'm Boris Sanchez, coming to you live from Kennedy Space Center where we just watched the four astronauts of the Artemis II crew board this Astrovan. They are a 10-minute drive now away from a launch pad. Well, they will strap in to a shuttle that is roughly the size of the Statue of Liberty. It weighs six million pounds. It'll take them 17,000-plus miles an hour to the dark side of the moon.

We have all angles of this story covered, but we'll go to my colleague, Brianna Keilar in the nation's capital because it's a big day at the Supreme Court as well, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Boris, that's right. I'm outside of the Supreme Court in Washington where President Trump has become the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court as justices heard the birthright citizenship case.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SANCHEZ: Breaking News to CNN --