The Artemis II Crew Is on Their Way Home
The Artemis II crew is returning to Earth after completing humanity’s first crewed journey to the vicinity of the Moon since 1972. The mission sent four astronauts on a lunar flyby — no landing, but a free-return trajectory that took them closer to the Moon than any human has been in over fifty years.
The crew has been reflecting publicly on the experience. The descriptions follow a familiar pattern from Apollo-era astronauts: the scale of the Moon at close range, the sight of Earth as a small object in a very large emptiness, the particular silence of deep space. There is a reason people keep describing it the same way. It tends to affect people similarly.
Artemis II is the proof-of-concept for Artemis III, which is planned to put humans on the lunar surface. The technology worked. The crew is intact. The program is on track.
Splashdown is expected shortly. After fifty-plus years of watching the Moon from the surface, humans are relearning how it looks from the other direction.