Their visit\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0followed a long-standing tradition\u00a0\u2013\u00a0cosmonauts\u00a0and astronauts have been coming to the UN for decades to speak about peace, international cooperation, and our shared\u00a0global\u00a0future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The four-person crew carried out the farthest human spaceflight in history, travelling beyond the\u00a0far\u00a0side of the Moon and safely returning to Earth after 10 intense, demanding, and inspiring days.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that\u00a0short time, as noted during the event, they \u201ccaptured the imagination of billions\u201d and rekindled a sense of shared human participation in the exploration of space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tradition and continuity\u00a0<\/p>\n
The General Assembly building\u00a0has long welcomed pioneers of the space age, starting with Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the\u00a0first man and woman in space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their October 1963 visit symbolised not only technological progress but also the idea that\u00a0cosmos\u00a0is a domain where humanity can be united.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since then, representatives of many nations have repeatedly addressed the international community, emphasising that space exploration is impossible without cooperation and shared responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UN Photo\/YN
\n The first man and woman in space, Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin (right) and Valentina Tereshkova (left), were guests of United Nations Secretary-General U Thant (centre) at United Nations Headquarters in New York<\/p>\n
Artemis II continues that legacy. The mission\u00a0represents\u00a0not only a technological breakthrough but also a model of international partnership, involving multiple countries and institutions, including the European Space Agency, with scientific instruments and systems developed by specialists from around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the opportunity to talk to everyone on the way here\u00a0\u2013\u00a0I\u00a0mean to these three pretty normal but pretty overachieving Americans and a Canadian,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0US Ambassador Mike Waltz, who hosted the\u00a0evening\u00a0discussion\u00a0in front of an invited audience of excited earthlings\u00a0with the astronauts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The crew stressed that their task was not only to test a spacecraft, but also to remind people on\u00a0the ground\u00a0that humanity can achieve\u00a0great things\u00a0when it works together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earth from deep space\u00a0<\/p>\n
For all the astronauts, the most powerful experience was seeing Earth from deep space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
From hundreds of thousands of miles away, the planet appeared small, fragile, almost weightless against the vast darkness\u00a0–\u00a0an image that underscored both Earth\u2019s uniqueness and the rarity of life itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI always felt urged to just be grateful for what we were seeing and to be grateful for what we were eventually going back to,\u201d said pilot Victor Glover.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Astronaut Christina Koch described a sudden awareness of humanity\u2019s scale within the boundless universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou realize that actually there\u2019s nothing absolute or guaranteed about this,\u00a0and that actually there is such thing as a global scale\u2026this scale is our world and what we do with it is our choice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a9 NASA
\n Artemis II astronauts give the thumbs up as they journey to the Moon.<\/p>\n
Life on board\u00a0<\/p>\n
Life inside the spacecraft was highly demanding. The crew had to balance experiments, navigation, system monitoring, and constant adaptation to microgravity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day, I was\u00a0opening up\u00a0some granola with berries. Victor was floating\u00a0kind of beside\u00a0me, and just when I ripped the package, it just went too fast and it flung stuff flying across the spacecraft, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0like dotting his shirt.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0like, \u2018Oh, don\u2019t worry, I got this\u2019.\u00a0And he takes a spoon and he just starts eating it\u00a0off of\u00a0his shirt,\u201d recalled Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a9 NASA
\n Earth rises behind the Moon as pictured from the Artemis II mission.<\/p>\n
A return to the Moon\u00a0<\/p>\n
Artemis II is only the beginning of a broader effort. The programme aims to return humans to the Moon,\u00a0establish\u00a0a sustained presence on its surface, and build infrastructure\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including\u00a0a lunar base\u00a0\u2013\u00a0to\u00a0support long-term exploration. These plans are grounded in the Artemis Accords, a set of international principles already endorsed by dozens of countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking from the UN platform, the astronauts also addressed young people, encouraging them not to be afraid to ask questions and to listen carefully to the answers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In closing, the crew emphasized that Artemis II was measured not only in distance or technological achievement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Space offers a perspective that allows us to see Earth as it truly\u00a0is:\u00a0unique, shared, in need of care\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and\u00a0capable of bringing people together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone asks what the Earth looks like from space, and most of the time I reply, the tiny Earth is an incredible place,\u201d Reid Wiseman concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reaching for the stars<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a NASA aerospace engineer who grew up in Tanzania dreaming of becoming an astronaut, used to think that this was practically impossible.<\/p>\n
Today, Alinda Mashiku is a Program Manager with the US space agency, where she helps ensure that satellites avoid collisions in orbit, contributing to the safety and sustainability of pioneering space missions such as Artemis II.<\/p>\n
In this interview we recorded a few days ago, Ms. Mashiku told us how she encourages girls to reach for the stars:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Their visit\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0followed a long-standing tradition\u00a0\u2013\u00a0cosmonauts\u00a0and astronauts have been coming to the UN for decades to speak about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-407372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}