Even when you’re 250,000 miles from Earth, sleep is essential. Nonetheless, for all of the life-sustaining accouterments aboard the Orion spacecraft, the capsule lacked bedrooms, leaving the four-person Artemis II crew with a very weird sleeping association.
“I slept actually near an air con vent. And so I would get up and I simply see this large hunk of metallic,” Glover informed CNET throughout a video name. “And it was like, ‘Oh, I am in house. I’m weightless.'”
Sleep wasn’t only a means for the astronauts to recharge; it additionally grounded them throughout their historic journey. Glover defined, “What actually resonated with me is we’re additionally people. It is like tenting, and this can be a crucial a part of this journey.”
Artemis II was the primary crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years. It follows Artemis I, a 2022 unmanned mission that was the primary for NASA’s new Area Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The purpose for Artemis II was to have a crew check the spacecraft, life assist techniques, the SLS rocket and the procedures wanted for future lunar missions that may contain touchdown on the moon and even constructing a base there.
Glover, the Orion’s pilot, together with commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, made up the Artemis II crew. The mission made lots of historical past. It is the primary time a lady, a black man, or a Canadian has journeyed to the moon. The 4 Artemis II astronauts traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than some other human being, surpassing the earlier report set by the 1970 Apollo 13 mission.
This picture of NASA’s Orion spacecraft was taken with a digicam mounted on its photo voltaic array wings.
This wasn’t Glover’s first time in house. In 2020, utilizing a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff, he piloted the Crew Dragon capsule to and from the Worldwide Area Station for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission, spending over 167 days in house. However Artemis II gave Glover the chance to be the primary to fly the Orion, a brand new automobile designed for Artemis missions. For almost all of the practically 10-day journey, Orion was on autopilot. However Glover had a number of alternatives to take handbook management of the spacecraft to check its dealing with.
“It was such a deal with and a pleasure,” Glover mentioned about flying the Orion. “It was a check pilot’s dream to fly a brand new spaceship for the primary time by hand.”
Even after spending time coaching to fly in a simulator again on Earth, he was shocked by how responsive the Orion’s hand controller was and the way clear the cameras seemed, that are used to maneuver the craft across the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage that holds the gas for the higher stage of liftoff. He mentioned the precise digicam and displays had been like “looking a window.”
Artemis II astronaut and pilot Victor Glover wears an orange flight swimsuit.
After I requested Glover if he felt like Han Solo when piloting the Orion, he retorted, “Han Solo desires to be me when he grows up!” All through my interview, Glover was gracious, passionate and humorous.
“I get to do stuff that is cooler than Han Solo. I imply, simply the truth that it is actual, it is higher.”
Whereas touchdown on the moon wasn’t within the playing cards for this journey, the Orion crew traveled about 4,000 miles past the moon, permitting them to see elements of the moon that had by no means been seen earlier than. For comparability, Apollo missions flew about 70 miles above the moon to make landings, limiting how a lot of it they might really see.
Earthset captured via the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, through the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the moon.
The photographs that Glover and the crew took of the moon had been beautiful. Photographs just like the Earthset had been a reminder of how stunning our planet is and our place inside the photo voltaic system. The astronauts even witnessed a complete photo voltaic eclipse as they rounded the far facet of the moon. However not one of the pictures they took compares to what they noticed, based on Glover.
“I might see the curvature of the moon. Depth is only one facet that you simply can not see within the footage. However here is the opposite factor, the images lack scale.”
When the Artemis II flew over the terminator, the crew mentioned that this boundary between day and night time was “something however a straight line,” based on NASA.
For the lunar flyby, the Orion was transferring quick, 60,863 mph relative to Earth, however solely 3,139 mph relative to the moon, based on NASA. The pace meant the shadows throughout the floor had been consistently morphing into completely different shapes. Glover was notably enamored with the moon’s terminator, the place the sunshine and darkish sides of the moon meet. The terminator is not fastened and relies on the moon’s place relative to the solar. As Orion moved, it reworked into varied shapes that seemed like letters of the alphabet.
“Individuals know, I fell in love with the terminator once I acquired to see the actual one up shut. I watched the terminator go from a letter C to a letter D, which implies there was some extent when the moon was half mild, half darkish. It was pointing proper at me.”
The Artemis II astronauts take a selfie of themselves sporting eclipse glasses utilizing an iPhone 17 Professional Max.
Artemis II’s lunar flyby was a spotlight of the journey for many people on Earth, partly as a result of we might watch it in actual time on streaming providers like Netflix. Almost the complete mission was streamed dwell on NASA’s web site and YouTube channel, making it really feel like a actuality present. One minute you are watching the crew eat, work out, take pictures of the moon; the subsequent, there is a random jar of Nutella floating by one of many cameras. I requested Glover whether or not it felt like he was on a TV present whereas on the Orion.
“It didn’t really feel like a actuality present on my finish,” mentioned Glover. “So that you can see the science and listen to us describing the moon, and to see us flying the spaceship by hand, and to see bedtime and bathtub time and tooth brush time, that is what it is like. The mission was all of these issues.”
Glover was ecstatic to listen to how I and others felt so related to the crew throughout their mission. He mentioned it was essential to NASA to let the world in on every part it took to ship 4 folks 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 miles away.
“I feel that possibly one of many actually, most particular issues about this mission is how a lot you had been capable of see,” Glover mentioned with a smile. “It makes me really feel good that you simply felt such as you had been there.”
Watch this: Getting Private With the Crew of Artemis II | Tech At this time
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