«All this is worth it». The Artemis crew returns to Earth and held a press conference in space

Photo: NASA / Getty Images

On Wednesday, the Artemis-2 mission astronauts held a press conference in space. This was the first opportunity to speak with the crew after orbiting the Moon, during which the astronauts moved away from Earth to a record distance.

Speaking to reporters, mission pilot Victor Glover said the crew was looking forward to sharing what they had seen with the world: "There are still so many pictures, so many stories, and, my goodness, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through. We still have two days ahead, and the [upcoming] fiery ball flight through the atmosphere is also an unforgettable experience."

During a virtual press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the astronauts reappeared live, with the microphone floating between them.

Each of them took turns answering journalists' questions, albeit with a noticeable delay.

A Los Angeles Times reporter asked the crew about the 40 minutes of "deep loneliness" when they lost communication with Earth.

Commander Reid Wiseman said the crew had a lot of scientific work, and these were "perhaps the most important lunar observations for our geological team."

"But the four of us took a moment, enjoyed some maple syrup cookies that Jeremy brought, and spent three or four minutes, just as a crew, to really take in where we were," he said.

For Glover, the "greatest gift" of the mission was observing a lunar eclipse from the far side of the Moon.

For Wiseman, the "culminating moment" was when his team named a lunar crater after his late wife, Carol, who died of cancer in 2020.

"I think when Jeremy said Carol's name… I think that's the moment I was overwhelmed with emotion, and I looked at Christina — she was crying," Reid said. "Personally, for me, that was sort of the culminating moment of the mission."

The crew also said they received news from Earth from their relatives.

"They were our source of information about how the mission was being perceived by the public," Wiseman said. "Although, of course, they are all biased."

BBC science editor Rebecca Morelle asked what the astronauts would miss most when they returned from space, and Christina Koch replied that she would miss the "spirit of camaraderie."

"We can't do deeper exploration unless we do some uncomfortable things, unless we make some sacrifices, unless we take some risks. And it's all worth it," she said.

Return to Earth

Orion did not plan to land on the Moon, but circled it, seeing its far side, which is never visible from Earth. Satellites had photographed the far side before, but the astronauts were the first humans to see some areas of the far side's surface, its enormous craters and lava plains, with their own eyes.

On Monday, the four astronauts reached a record distance from Earth — approximately 405,550 km, exceeding the previous record held by the Apollo 13 team for 56 years by about 6,000 km.

Achievements in lunar science have typically relied on satellites passing the Moon and observations from Earth. But the six-hour lunar flyby performed by the crew provided a real-time stream of scientific data.

Now the crew will have several quiet days of checks and experiments before the final test — high-speed atmospheric re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

On the return journey, upon entering Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft will reach a speed of 38,365 km/h — a risky phase of the mission that will test Orion's heat shield.

"Actually, I've been thinking about atmospheric re-entry since April 3, 2023, when we were assigned to this mission," pilot Victor Glover said when asked what he thought about returning.

Glover and his NASA colleagues, astronauts Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — are the first wave of astronauts in the multi-billion dollar Artemis program mission series, which aims to return humans to the Moon's surface by 2028, ahead of China, and establish a long-term US presence on the Moon over the next decade, building a lunar base for potential future missions to Mars.

Koch compared the series of missions to a relay race, telling reporters: "We even bought relay batons to have a tangible symbol of this."

"We plan to pass them to the next crew, and everything we do, we do with them in mind," she said.

The next mission, Artemis-3, will include a low-Earth orbit docking test between the Orion capsule and both lunar landers that NASA plans to use to deliver astronauts to the Moon in future missions.

Artemis-4, planned for 2028, will be the first crewed Moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

• 6
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0