Weeks after touching back down on Earth from a historic mission, Artemis II crew Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen joined “Morning Joe” on Friday to discuss NASA’s first manned trip around the moon in more than five decades.
Koch, who was the first woman to complete such a journey, described the April 1 launch as a culmination of “years of work” and a “lifetime of dreams.”
“Much of it is just like everything we’ve practiced for three years: the sights and the sounds, the displays for you, the things that we’re going to hear from the ground teams,” she recalled. “And then the engine’s light — we have our main engines light about six seconds before our big solid rocket motors light — and the moment they light, we just start moving. And, of course, you know that it’s real.”
Koch’s crewmate, Glover, also reflected on the decades of work it took to reach that moment. “People ask me how long it took to become an astronaut. I was 37 when I selected, so I say 37 years. That same thing applies to this mission,” he explained.
Glover, who made history as the first Black astronaut to orbit the moon, noted the thousands of scientists, engineers and researchers at NASA who contributed to the mission. “Some of this has been people’s life’s work, and we’re grateful to them for all they do,” he said.
Koch also highlighted the international collaboration that went into the mission. Her crewmate Hansen became the first Canadian to orbit the moon. “It really just taught us that what we have is special, that it’s our world, our choice, and that we can come together to do things on a global scale,” she said.
The mission’s commander, Wiseman, said the historic nature of the trip was not lost on his crew. “It’s wonderful when you’re out there on the far side of the moon,” he told MS NOW. “You’re experiencing things that few, if any, humans have ever experienced, and we’re doing it together as a crew of four.”
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“We just accomplished something very unique and very great,” he added. “And I think it was best highlighted for me [when] my daughter went outside on about the fourth day of the mission. She looked at the moon rise, and the first thought she had was, ‘My dad and his friends are there right now.’”
While the astronauts were able to share some of their experience by sending photos of the awe-inspiring views back down to Earth, Glover said they pale in comparison to what he witnessed. “It’s way better than those images, he said. “There were moments where the only thing that was appropriate to say was, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was truly a spiritual moment.”
Hansen said that it was only once the crew returned home that the magnitude of the journey fully dawned on them.
“When we got back and we started to absorb … the fact that the world paused and looked at this and were inspired by it, was really warming for us,” he said. “Because we as humans, we have a choice, what we pay attention to, what we use our energy for, and it just reminded us that, man, people want positivity. They want to create together versus destroy. That gives me hope.”
You can watch the crew’s full interview on “Morning Joe” in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”