Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the Middle East conflict, return of the Artemis II mission

Home-base preparations ahead of Artemis II's crew splash down off California's coast on Saturday afternoon. 

The four astronauts are on the return trip to Earth after their historic lunar flyby.  

NASA landing and recovery director, Liliana Villarreal says a ship's heading towards the capsule landing zone.  

The crew will then be helicoptered to dry land, for post-flight medical checks. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking the ship will pierce the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of just over 40,000 kilometres an hour – seven times the speed of sound.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the search Richard Arnald, morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Right, where are we at with Pakistan, the weekend, the ceasefire, etc.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, her new diplomatic tests is looming for the Sunday
your time. After the ceasefire that wasn't the day old
supposed deal between the US and Iran divulged that we
saw into chaos with I Ran mostly locking down the
Strait of Hormu's oil channel. After the Israeli slashed out
with one of their most violent attacks in Lebanon, striking
sites in Beirut with at least one hundred and eighty
two people killed in hundreds of more wounded. So this

(00:28):
was their biggest assault, just as Trump was trying to
draw a line on the war and get out. Netta
Yahu now has authorized direct talks with Lebanon, presumably under
US pressure, but the Lebanese are saying they will not
negotiate under fire, so we'll see what happens on that score.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
JD.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Vance now is heading to Pakistan for talks with the
running officials, talks that will not be easy. Steve Whitcoff
and Trump's son in lawd Jared Kushner also will be
along but already Vans is criticizing Iran's parliamentary speaker Hammond Gallabath.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I actually wonder how good he is at understanding English,
because there are things that he said that frankly didn't
make sense in some of in the context of the
negotiations that we've had.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So challenging the Iranians, intelligence might not be the best
of As for the straight of Full Moves, it has
mostly shut down. Only eleven ships, including just three tankers,
have passed through since the ceasefire. That compares to an
average of one hundred and thirty eight ships a day
before the war. And I run is policing the straight
something they did not do previously. As Richard Hasse, foreign
policy advisors of both Republicans and Democrats, who says, Gulf

(01:31):
states are very concerned.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
After five weeks of war, we are objectively and arguably
worse off. They are worried that at the end of
the day they're going to have to face this angry,
capable Iran and they've learned we can't defend them. They're
learning the hard that they can't depend on us.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So that's his view. While retired General David Petraeus and
military a chief and former head of the CIA, says
the idea that Run now will start running the Strait
as a multi million dollar toll booth is disturbing itself.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
If it's two million dollars per vessel, which is reportedly
what some companies have been paying to transit, and you
multiply that times one hundred or more ships a day,
that is a very substantial amount of hard currency to
enable Iran to repair the extraordinary damage that has been done.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
There has been a lot of dispute over what the
initial supposed ceasefire plan was meant to cover. Is Iran's
and rich uranium stock approximately four hundred and forty kilos
of uranium and riched up to sixty percent purity to
be handed over or kept by the empowered Iranian regime,
are all sanctions on arounderview lifted and US forces to
get out. Trump now says the actual ceasefire issues are

(02:38):
not those being talked about publicly. Fair enough, still, there
are clearly wide differences in The meeting in Pakistan is
expected to be the first of several intense negotiations before
there is any real agreement. Meantime, First American born Pope
le Oh the fourteenth unlikely to visit the US for
its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrations this year after
what was a train wreck of a meeting between Trump

(02:58):
officials and a Vatican dipplay. That meeting in January described
now as being a quote bitter lecture warning that the
US has the military power to do whatever it wants
and that the Church had better take its side. Tense then,
Pope Leo has been taking issue with US policy, calling
on world leaders to drop the quote desire to dominate others,
and then adding over Easter that it was quote truly

(03:19):
unacceptable to threaten to wipe out a run's whole civilization.
So White House and Vatican on the outs, and.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Then we look up and see if she comes back
home nice and safe.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, tomorrow around midday your time is the moment when
the four member crew of the Orion space capsule scheduled
to ride a fireball back to the s orbit. That's
how astronaut Victor Glover describes it anyway, As the atom's
two mission team is preparing for their homecoming after the
history making flight around the Moon, they have traveled further

(03:50):
from the Earth than any humans before this They will
pierce the Earth's atmosphere at speed of just over forty
thousand kilometers per hour. That is said to be some
seven times the speed of sea so generates quite a
lot of heat around the campsule. Says pilot Glover.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Of this entry thing. I'll be honest and say I've
actually been thinking about entry since April third, twenty twenty three,
when we got as signed to this mission, and one
of the first press conferences we were asked what are
we looking forward to, and I said, splash down. And
it's kind of humorous, but it's literal.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, that re entry heat can top twenty seven hundred
degrees celsius. So they seal the camp shire with special
heat resistant materials. So when they tested this during the
Atomous one flight in twenty twenty two, which was uncrude,
the heat shield had some big chunks that broke off.
NASA's saying they fixed this now, and astronaut Glover says.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
We have to get back. There's so much data that
you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming
back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many
more stories.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, those photos I lose the photos bike and of
course the astronauts there a brave crew.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
So you're Monday. Richard Arnold stit saw other thing in
the America's at the moment. Is Anthropica been in court
because of course the Pentagon hig Seth said, we're not
going to deal with you. You you you give us
what we want with your chat GBT, your AI, your Claude,
all that sort of stuff, and unless you do, you're out.
So they were out, at which point Anthropics sued them,
and yesterday they lost. So one for hickseeth zero four Anthropic.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
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