With much of the world at war. With a US President threatening to send a country of more than 90 million back to the “stone ages”. With inequality growing as a result of conflict, climate change, technology and the decisions of a tiny number of (mostly) men, it can be hard to give much thought to the NASA Artemis II adventure.
And yet, as the Artemis II astronoauts travelled further from Earth than any human before this morning, and delivered never-before-seen images of our planet, seemingly peaceful and even small in the greater context of our solar system, we had a little reminder of just what humans can achieve when working together on a clear mission.
Hearing the first woman to make a mission to the moon declaring “we will always choose Earth, we will always choose each other” — after just personally sighting the hidden surface of the moon — was also particularly special.
For 40 minutes this morning, the crew of the spacecraft lost connection with Earth as they travelled behind the moon, with the silence broken by astronaut Christina Koch who declared, “It’s so great to hear from Earth again”.
After officially turning to start the journey back home, Koch shared some words for the ages.
“To Asia, Africa and Oceania, we are looking back at you. We hear you. You can look up and see the moon right now. We see you, too. When we burned this burn towards the moon, I said that we do not leave Earth. That is true. We will explore. We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts.
“We will drive rovers, we will do radio astronomy, we will found companies. We will bolster industry, we will inspire.
“But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”
Earlier, Koch declared that she had an overwhelming “sense of being moved by looking at the moon.” She said that she was drawn into the landscape, and everything became real.
“The moon really is its own body in the Universe. It’s not just a post in the sky that goes by. It’s a real place, and when we have that perspective, and we compare it to our home on Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common,” she said.
“Everything we need the Earth provides, and that is in itself truly a miracle.”
Christina Koch becomes the first woman in history to fly to the moon as part of this mission. The 47-year-old astronaut graduated from the NASA Academy in 2001, then worked as an electrical engineer at a laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Centre in Washington, D.C. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 and spent the next decade travelling to the International Space Station on several research missions. She has participated in six spacewalks and spent a record 328 days in space in 2020 — the longest mission of any female astronaut.
While the spacecraft did not land on the moon, it looped around the far side and back again, with the four astronauts inside witnessing a total solar eclipse and declaring the sight as “truly hard to describe”.
They reached a maximum distance from Earth of 406,771km as they flew behind the moon, breaking the previous record for humans travelling the furthest from Earth, set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
The crew includes three NASA astronauts: Christina Koch, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Victor Glover. It also includes Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency.
They all have a “fleet of cameras” to help capture images of their mission, including their observations of the 35-minute solar eclipse, as well as some of the most detailed images ever captured of the Moon’s hidden hemisphere. While viewing around 9000 kilometres of the lunar surface, they have been asked to “read the rocks” to pick out craters, frozen lava flows, and cliffs, and to photograph them in detail.
The astronauts have also been studying “impact flashes”, which are split-second bursts of light when small space rocks slam into the moon so fast they vaporise themselves and part of the lunar surface.
Following their record-breaking achievement today the crew issued a challenge to the current and next generation to ensure their record distance “is not long-lived”.
They are now “Earthbound”, where the threats, personal attacks and bickering of world leaders continue.