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A week after returning home from their 10 day mission, the Artemis II crew is sharing insight into the life-changing experience
Although crew members said they haven’t had a moment to decompress from the journey, they described it as surreal
“The sense I had was the sense of fragility and feeling small, infinitesimally small, but yet this very powerful feeling as a human being,” Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen said
It’s been a week since astronauts aboard Artemis II returned home from space, and now the crew is sharing deeper insight into their history-making journey.
On April 1, four astronauts launched into space from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center aboard Artemis II in the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
During their 10 day trip, the crew — pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and commander Reid Wiseman from NASA, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — did not land on the moon; instead they were part of a test flight in hopes that in the next two years, humans could return to the moon’s surface.
During the mission, the Artemis II crew set a record for farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, surpassing the record of 248,655 miles previously set by the Apollo 13 flight crew in 1970, according to NASA.
After splashing down off the coast of San Diego, California on Friday, April 10 the crew is finally beginning to process what they witnessed.
For Hansen, he said the galaxy had a depth like no other, telling the Orlando Sentinel in an article published Friday, April 17, “Where I keep coming back to is what kept grabbing my attention when the lighting was right and we were looking at the window.”
During a press conference on Thursday, April 16, Wiseman, Glover and Koch, talked about their roller coaster of emotions since coming home.
The crew flew around the far side of the moon and, on their way home, saw a solar eclipse from space.
Hansen described his experience as profound, with space’s vastness leaving him at a loss for words.
“The sense I had was the sense of fragility and feeling small, infinitesimally small, but yet this very powerful feeling as a human being,” he said. “Small and powerless, but yet powerful together.”
Wiseman, although not religious, said there was no other way to explain what he had seen.
“I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute,” Wiseman said, referring to the first hours after returning to Earth.
“When that man walked in, I’d never met him before in my life, but I saw the cross on his collar, and I just, I broke down in tears. It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through,” Wiseman continued.
Wiseman said the crew hasn’t had time to reflect on what they witnessed in space, but called the experience surreal.
“I turned to Victor and I said, ‘I don’t think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we’re looking at right now,’ because it was otherworldly and it was amazing,” he continued.
Artemis II and its crew splashing down off the coast of San Diego, California on Friday, April 10
Credit: NASA
Glover, who is religious, agreed, but hasn’t been able to give the mission its much-deserved time for reflection just yet.
“I haven’t had a chance to really unpack it all yet,” he said.
Koch gave insight into the crew’s worries before the mission, saying the astronauts grappled with the idea that the mission wouldn’t make much of a difference.
It wasn’t until her husband assured her during a video call in space that she was paving the way for future research, leaving her in tears.
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Although the crew is still experiencing a whirlwind of emotions, Koch said one silver lining is their ability to sleep in any time zone that offers some shut-eye.
However, Koch said her body might not be up to speed with the fact that she’s no longer orbiting on Artemis II.
“I thought I was floating,” she said about her sleep. “I truly thought I was floating, and I had to convince myself I wasn’t.”
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