NASA’s Artemis II astronauts, the first mission to reach the orbit of the Moon in more than half a century, They highlighted that they are shocked by the support they have received upon their return to Earth and that they have fulfilled their wish of “trying to do something that would unite the world.”.
The four members of the crew They offered a press conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, on Thursday, April 17, 2026.
“When we returned home, we were shocked for the global outpouring of support, for that feeling of pride and belonging towards this mission. I think at first that’s what the four of us wanted. We wanted to go out and try to do something that would bring the world together.“said mission commander Astronaut Reid Wiseman, surrounded by his three space travel companions.
Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover of NASA, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), They recalled the most outstanding parts of their expedition, which made them the first humans since 1972 to orbit the Moon.
Some They admitted that they still have difficulties processing what they experienced in the ten days of missionwhich landed last Friday in the Pacific Ocean.
Glover said that, since returning to Earth, he has been trying to live disconnected from social networks and the news, while Koch also confessed that he still thinks he is floating in space when he wakes up..
Reconditioning usually takes 45 daysaccording to Glover, a process that he explained is identical to that experienced by astronauts returning from the International Space Station.
The astronaut also recalled one of the moments of greatest adrenaline: re-entry into the atmosphere, which lasted almost fourteen minutes and during which They reached speeds close to 40,000 kilometers per hour in free fall.
“That moment when the parachutes were released braking and then the pilot parachutes are fired and the main ones come out (…) It felt like you were jumping backwards from a skyscraper for five seconds.“Glover said.
Hansen, for his part, is the only one who will experience this stage of reconditioning for the first time, since Artemis II was his first experience in space. The Canadian stressed that the mission “went very well” thanks to the close trust between the crew and NASA’s control center on Earth.
Artemis II had the objective of promoting the next missions of the Artemis Programwhich seeks to land on the moon twice in 2028while the US space agency is simultaneously advancing plans to build a base on the Moon.
“It is important that we exhaust these processes, because we are still making changes and learning ways in which we are going to support the 30- and 45-day missions of Artemis III, IV and V,” Wiseman said.
One of the main challenges of the mission was the reliability of the heat shield, a key piece for re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, which suffered damage above what was expected during Artemis I, but which the astronauts said was resolved on this occasion.