The four Artemis II astronauts said Saturday that they’re “bonded forever” in their first public remarks one day after completing NASA’s first lunar mission in more than 50 years.
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Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and pilot Victor Glover took the stage at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to raucous applause.
“We are bonded forever, and no one down here is ever going to know what the four of us just went through, and it was the most special thing that will ever happen in my life,” Wiseman said.
“Before you launch, it feels like it’s the greatest dream on Earth, and when you’re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends,” Wiseman said. “It’s a special thing to be a human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.”
The four arrived safely back on Earth on Friday, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego in their Orion capsule after their 10 day trip around the moon.
With the completion of their mission, they became the first humans to see the entire far side of the moon, which permanently faces away from Earth, with their own eyes.
“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’s too big to just be in one body,” Glover said.
Koch spoke on the importance of a crew that is “inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked.”
“When we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe,” she paused with emotion.
“I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there’s one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth, you are a crew,” she added.
When it was Hansen’s turn to speak, the Canadian astronaut joked, “this is the furthest I’ve been away from Reid in a long time.”
Hansen said he has gained gratitude, joy and love from the mission. He asked the crew to gather and they put their arms around each other as he spoke on love.
“What you saw was a group of people who loved contributing, having meaningful contribution, and extracting joy out of that. And what we’ve been hearing is that was something special for you to witness,” Hansen said.
“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’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you,” he added, to a standing ovation.
The four astronauts also set a new record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth, 252,756 miles. The previous record of 248,655 miles was set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 during their emergency return to Earth.
There were other historical firsts as well. Koch was the first woman, Glover the first person of color and Hansen the first non-American on a lunar mission.
The four-person crew also became the first to launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule.
The astronauts were able to capture stunning photos of the moon’s far side that were splashed on the cover of newspapers across the country this week. The photos captured never-before-seen features on the lunar surface, including rugged topography, countless craters, ridges, mountains and ancient lava plains.
NASA said these pictures will help researchers understand how the moon formed and how its landscape has changed over time.
NASA aims to launch the next mission, Artemis III, in mid-2027. The space agency plans on sending astronauts to land on the moon in a mission titled Artemis IV in 2028.