Back from the Moon and Lost for Words
Four astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on Friday evening, completing a ten-day mission that marked the first time humans had traveled to the Moon in more than fifty years. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch from NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) , and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen rode their Orion spacecraft around the far side of the Moon, traveling 252,000 miles from Earth— farther than any previous crewed spaceflight. The capsule reentered the atmosphere at roughly 25,000 miles per hour, endured exterior temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and slowed to just 20 miles per hour using eleven parachutes before landing at 5:07 p.m. Pacific Time.
At their first press conference since returning, the crew described an experience that went far beyond technical achievement. Wiseman recalled watching a solar eclipse from 250,000 miles away and being so overwhelmed that he sought the ship's chaplain afterward. I don't think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we're looking at, he said. During the mission, the crew lost all contact with Earth for forty minutes as the spacecraft passed behind the far side of the Moon— a moment Hansen called both humbling and awe-inspiring. Koch grew emotional recounting how her husband told her the mission had united people across divisions. Glover, who became the first Black astronaut to reach deep space, spoke of gazing back at Earth and being struck by its beauty, while Hansen, the first Canadian beyond low Earth orbit, described feeling infinitesimally small, but yet this very powerful feeling as a human being.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman declared the agency was back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon. He confirmed that Artemis III, planned for 2028, aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972 and establish a permanent base. Wiseman hinted the crew was ready, saying that if given a lander, we would have taken it down and landed on that Moon. The mission also set historic firsts: Koch became the first woman and Glover the first Black person to journey to lunar distance, milestones the crew said they hoped would inspire a new generation.