A month ago today, the Artemis II crew in their capsule, Orion, launched off Earth to the Moon and splashed down 10 days after. The crew and mission took social media by storm, connecting humanity even though they were hundreds of thousands of miles away. Artemis II was one of the most impactful on humanity through the camaraderie shown by the crew and the preparation for the next lunar missions.

Recap

Though the mission is still fresh on people’s minds, many didn’t know about it before it launched. According to The Planetary Society, the engineers and scientists working on the mission agreed that “Artemis II would come as a surprise to a large portion of the public,” with Lisa Carnell, the director of the Biological and Physical Sciences Division at NASA, becoming a “one-woman advertisement for the mission.”

To juxtapose the unawareness of the mission, this was the first lunar mission in 50 years. It was also extremely record-breaking with every member breaking some sort of record and the mission itself being to explore the dark side of the Moon.

Connecting humanity

Though the distance was great, the Artemis II crew managed to do something no one has ever done before – connect humanity from more than 250,000 miles away. With their own videos, pictures and interviews reaching Earth, they “brought with them something the world had been quietly starving for: proof that we can still do hard things, together,” according to the National Space Society.

On April 6, 2026, the crew took six hours to observe the Moon from their capsule windows, being the first in 50 years to do so. Then there was the solar eclipse. Their capsule, Orion, aligned perfectly so that the Moon blocked the Sun, with the crew observing six meteorite impact flashes on the lunar surface. The “brief pinpricks of light lasting only milliseconds. Scientists on the ground had not expected the crew to see even one. They saw six.” Though this is mostly connecting the group of scientists in charge of the mission, it still connected them and space lovers across the world.

Naming craters is a hard process, the name having to go through many channels before being given to the landform officially. One of the impactful moments was the period of time when the Artemis II crew gave two unofficial names to craters they could see with the naked eye. One they named Integrity, after the name they gave the spacecraft and the other they named Carroll – in memory of Mission Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who passed in 2020. Though it was a quiet moment, it carried a loud impact as it was one of the most human moments of the mission, reflecting the great feelings of love and grief humans will always carry – even to space.

One of the most defining traits of the Artemis II mission was the crew, more specifically Christina Koch and Victor Glover. Both connected humanity through their statements aboard the Orion spacecraft. Glover stated before their flyby that “as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still going to feel your love from Earth. And to all of you on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the Moon.” He appealed to quite literally everyone. He connected every single person on Earth and those in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS) through the love and hope each person feels. Koch connected humanity through her statement of, “when we burned toward the Moon, I said that we do not leave Earth – but we choose it. We will build ships and visit again. But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.” Koch’s words inspired many, rekindling astronaut dreams they had long buried. Both captured the hearts of all keeping up with the mission and inspired countless others.

Lessons learned

On paper, this mission was a test flight, especially for the Orion capsule – namely that it was fit for sustaining life for astronauts on longer missions. While it proved the capsule’s capabilities, it also proved that “we can once again send humans safely to lunar distance,” according to The National Space Society.

I stated in my previous article about Artemis II that NASA had many goals for this mission, and many of those goals were achieved. The Orion capsule is capable of sustaining life and the crew is capable of anything space can throw at them, even if they’re working in a cramped capsule.

My thoughts

Artemis II created a rekindled hope for the future many lost with the current political state of the world and is paving the way for future lunar missions.

Before they had taken off in a rocket to slingshot around the Moon, I saw online that many had many worries that they would end up like Challenger or Columbia, and then, I saw those worries turn into relief and uncontainable joy when the splashdown was confirmed with no injuries. It also made me ecstatic to see the many photos and videos taken from the capsule and seeing the trends as a result of them, like Commander Wiseman’s “copy heart, copy bracelet” and NASA’s “moon joy,” the term used to describe the intense happiness, excitement, and awe experienced by the Artemis II crew while orbiting the Moon.  

The crew of Artemis II are incredibly talented and capable people who have defied expectations and captured the hearts of many, including mine. They’ve connected the world together through their companionship and humanity – even when they were hundreds of thousands of miles away from their planet.