Astronauts highlight teamwork and lessons learned in orbit around the Moon.
On Wednesday, the Artemis II crew said they want to return to Earth to “pass the baton” to the astronauts who will reach the Moon, and shared that the mission reaffirmed their belief that humans should “create together” instead of “destroy.”
“Part of our ethic as a crew and our values from the beginning were that this is a relay race. In fact, to symbolize it physically, we brought batons that we plan to hand over to the next crew,” Christina Koch, a NASA mission specialist, said from the Orion spacecraft.
Pilot Victor Glover said the moment he most looks forward to in the 10-day mission is the return to Earth on Friday, when they will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 8:07 p.m. Eastern time (0007 GMT Saturday).
Glover, of NASA, is eager to share the findings of Artemis II, the first crew to orbit the Moon in more than 50 years, laying the groundwork for a future U.S. base on the natural satellite and the eventual human exploration of Mars.
“There is a lot of information that you have already seen, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There are many more images, so many stories and, God, I haven’t even started to process everything we have gone through. We still have two more days, and traveling in a ball of fire through the atmosphere is also profound,” the pilot said.
We Love Living in the Spacecraft
This is the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which in 2022 launched an uncrewed spacecraft to fly around the Moon, in 2027 will send a crew to orbit Earth and in 2028 will send two groups of astronauts to reach the surface of the natural satellite.
Despite toilet problems, odors and sharing a confined space with three other people at all times, Koch said the crew “has loved living aboard the Orion spacecraft” and that “there is nothing we will not miss” about living in space.
“I will miss the camaraderie. I will miss being so close to so many people and having a shared purpose, a shared mission, working hard on it every day, across hundreds of thousands of miles, with a team on the ground. This sense of teamwork is something you don’t usually experience as an adult,” the astronaut said.
Humans Must Create Together
Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, said the mission reaffirmed that “humans must create solutions together instead of destroying.”
“It has not changed my perspective or the perspective I had at liftoff, which was that we live on a fragile planet in a void, in the vacuum of space. We know that through science. We are very fortunate to live on planet Earth,” he said.
Mission commander Reid Wiseman of NASA said a pivotal moment came when his crewmates proposed naming a lunar crater in honor of his late wife, Carroll, on the most important day of their mission, Monday, when they passed over the far side of the celestial body.
“That was the pinnacle moment of the mission. For me, that was when the four of us were most united, most connected, and we came out of that really focused on the day ahead,” he said.
The astronauts will spend their final full day in space technically preparing the spacecraft for reentry into the atmosphere, while on Earth NASA and the U.S. armed forces prepare for their recovery.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
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