splashed down in the Orion spacecraft<\/a> Integrity off the coast of California on Friday night. The quartet had launched April 1 from Kennedy Space Center on the first crewed mission of the Artemis program as part of NASA\u2019s efforts to return humans back to the surface of the moon. While Artemis II was just a lunar flyby, the astronauts became the first humans to fly out of low-Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.<\/p>\nWiseman thanked the spouses, parents and children of all four.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knows what the families went through,\u201d he said. \u201cMan, this was not easy. Being 200,000-plus miles away from home like before you launch, it feels like it\u2019s the greatest dream on Earth, [but] when you\u2019re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It\u2019s a special thing to be a human, and it\u2019s a special thing to be on planet Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crew had been introduced by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome home Artemis II,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter a brief 53-year intermission, the show goes on and NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them home safely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The quartet then ventured onto a stage, getting hugs and handshakes, and greeted the cheering crowd with massive grins, waves, thank you clasps and raised, victorious fists.<\/p>\n
Isaacman referenced a statement Wiseman made during an interview back in February when the mission\u2019s commander had said he hoped the crew would be \u201cforgotten, overshadowed by all that was to come after.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very sorry to disappoint you all. Artemis II will always be remembered,\u201d Isaacman said. \u201cIt was the moment we all saw the moon again where childhood dreams became missions, you helped the world start believing again, and this is something no one\u2019s ever going to forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
The four then shared a group hug on stage, and joked how they were going to follow Wiseman\u2019s emotional opening statement.<\/p>\n
Glover joked, \u201cnow we\u2019re ready for questions,\u201d but then recentered to give his feelings about the mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to thank God in public, and I want to thank God again,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause even bigger than my challenge trying to describe what we went through, the gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did, and being with who I was with, it\u2019s too big to just be in one body, and I wanted to thank our families for everything that he just said. So great words, great words, great words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koch gave her impressions of what overcame her has she saw \u201ctiny Earth\u201d and the meaning behind the word, \u201ccrew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat struck me wasn\u2019t necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe,\u201d she said. \u201cI know I haven\u2019t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there\u2019s one new thing I know, And that is planet Earth, you are a crew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hansen opened joking that this was the farthest he had been from Wiseman in a long time, so the Wiseman took the queue, stood up, crossed the stage, sat in Hansen\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n
Hansen delved into three human experiences the crew shared: science, joy and love, having all four stand arms draped over one another\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you saw was a group of people who loved contributing, having meaningful contribution and extracting joy out of that. And what we\u2019ve been hearing is that was something special for you to witness. And the reason I had them form up here with me is because I would suggest to you that when you look up here, you\u2019re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After hurtling to the moon and back, the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission were welcomed home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16924,114,11969,115,139,141,140,554,109,76686,1769],"class_list":["post-231053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-artemis","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nasa","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}