Artemis II crew recalls their 'unbelievable' experience in space

[0:00] The crew of Artemis II, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. [0:05] Just wonderful to speak to you, Reid. You know, you said after landing, [0:09] we are bonded forever and no one down here is ever going to know what the four of us just went [0:14] through. I mean, now you've had a few days back on Earth to process maybe just a small bit of it. [0:20] Do you have words to try to explain to us what you just went through? [0:25] We were 250,000 miles away from our home planet. We saw the far side of the moon. We saw the sun [0:34] go behind the moon and create this unbelievable eclipse with a halo. At that moment, I turned [0:40] to Victor in the spacecraft and I said, I don't think the human mind has evolved to the point [0:44] of being able to understand what we are looking at. And he fully agreed. We were living in such [0:49] close quarters that we would just, I would say, crawl all over each other, but we would utilize [0:55] each other as a single entity to get the job done at all times. And then we would just hand [1:00] the baton across. Whoever had the operational lead would take it, they would run with it, [1:04] and then we would come back together as a crew. It was the most fluid and well-supported thing [1:09] you could ever imagine. And the reason that I say people just won't ever understand is I think [1:14] people can look at the video and they can see four humans and they can see them living. [1:17] But there's always that latent fear that one false move, one wrong thing, we're 250,000 miles [1:23] away from our families and our home. You always have this thing that is underneath the surface [1:29] that is keeping you focused and keeping you alive and really making sure that you don't [1:33] let your crew down and you don't let your families and the folks on Earth down. And maybe that's [1:37] the best I can do. But I haven't had too much time to reflect on that yet. We've been pretty [1:40] busy here back in Houston. [1:42] Christina, with what Reid said, you saw things that no human has ever seen before, parts of [1:48] the moon. And I know you took a lot of photographs that showed the Earth and the moon in ways [1:52] that we've never before seen. Do you see now, I guess, what do you see now, Christina, in [1:59] your mind's eye the most? And, you know, when you're asleep and you're dreaming, maybe still [2:04] thinking you're floating, what goes before your eyes that you just saw? [2:08] I think the thing I see the most out the window is planet Earth. We saw it in so many different [2:15] phases. We saw it in different sizes. We were close in proximity. We used its gravity to propel [2:23] ourselves along with our translunar injection burn to the moon. We saw it as a crescent as [2:28] it set behind the moon and rose behind the moon. And the idea that every human experience [2:35] that we've invented, that we've gone through, that means something to us as people, everything [2:41] that keeps us alive, that's the same, is all in that small orb that's hanging like a lifeboat [2:51] in so much blackness. And the unifying power of that, the perspective of seeing the Earth [2:57] as one of many places, one of many existences when it's next to the moon in your perspective, [3:05] when it's not an absolute, but it's just one of many in the universe. That is something that [3:14] you can only see when you look out the window. And it's what I take with me every day. When I go to the [3:19] beach, I look up and I see the blue sky and I think about what it looks like from the other side [3:25] against the blackness of space. [3:27] Victor, you know, it was during our show when you had the lunar flyby, so we were watching you [3:33] all live. Anybody watching the show, they were watching you guys that night. What was it like [3:38] in that moment? You know, all of a sudden your feed breaks up and you're completely cut off [3:42] from mission control for 40 minutes. I mean, I'll be honest, we were sitting here on set and [3:47] we were nervous, you know, and it felt like a miracle when communications resumed. And I [3:51] understand it's science, right? But it felt like a miracle. What was the silence like when it was [3:56] truly just the four of you and you're hundreds of thousands of miles away and you have 40 minutes [4:01] alone? You know, it was it was silence between our spaceship and spaceship Earth, but it wasn't [4:09] silence on board. We had a few human moments, some levity. We shared a cookie and and some some [4:14] choice words. And then I said a prayer and I was back into the window describing the pieces of the [4:19] moon that we could see out the window. And and, you know, I'm a big fan of the Terminator. And it was [4:23] just such an amazing and captivating scene to try and describe that we we went right back to it. It [4:30] was very busy. But, you know, I think the moment was more leading up to it when we had a chance to [4:36] speak to Earth and just to say, hey, we're getting ready to go into the blackout and we look forward to [4:41] talking to you on the other side. And I actually thought of saying something else that just when I [4:46] spoke spoke about love, I almost wanted to make a comparison to physics, quantum entanglement and how [4:53] it doesn't make sense that I can feel the love from here, but I can. And we want you to feel the [4:58] love from the moon. And so I you know that this spooky action at a distance maybe muddied the picture. [5:04] And so I just said something that's very familiar to me about love and then went right back to work. [5:08] And it was quite quite active in that in that capsule. But we were very excited to hear from [5:14] from Earth when we initiated that comm check on the other side. Your extraordinary accomplishment and [5:20] who you are is inspiring to so many for all of you. So it's hard to imagine being any of you. But, [5:26] Jeremy, perhaps some of us could imagine seeing this through your eyes best because it was your first [5:31] time in space. What was most unexpected for you, even though obviously you were trained, [5:38] you were prepared for everything. What was most unexpected for sure? Seeing the eclipsed moon when [5:46] the sun went behind the moon. We had prepped with science. We'd seen some images of what we thought it [5:51] was going to look like, but it just it was close, but it was not like that. And it was weird and it was [5:55] eerie and the blackness. I've seen some of the pictures that you saw here and they that's not [6:00] what it looked like exactly to my eyes. It was different. And it was sort of like how sometimes [6:05] movies try to portray a black hole and but it was also three dimensional. It wasn't just a disc and it [6:11] wasn't flat. And it was it was just a crazy thing to behold. That definitely surprised me. And then also [6:18] just how much fun it is in space. I was hoping it would be fun in space, but it was so much fun in [6:24] space. I loved every moment of that journey. Reid, one of the most emotional moments of the mission [6:29] was when we heard, you know, the crater dedicated. Jeremy dedicating the crater to Carol. And your two [6:36] daughters were watching that dedication from Earth. Your brother Bill was here with us the night that [6:41] that happened. What do you think Carol would have thought about this mission and knowing that you [6:47] had accomplished this? It's when she was starting to get trying to get through this when she was [7:00] starting to get sick, I wanted to get her up to her family in Virginia. And that was the most [7:04] important thing to me to make sure she was comfortable and well cared for. And she just wasn't [7:08] having it. I mean, she that that woman loved her children more than anything on planet Earth. [7:14] And she wanted those two girls to stay here to stay in their school system and their friends and [7:18] where they were comfortable. And and she also knew how much this meant to me. And at that point, [7:23] in time, this meant nothing to me. Like being an astronaut meant nothing to me. All I cared about [7:27] was her and our two kids and keeping it as stable as humanly possible. But she did not want us to [7:33] leave this area. And she wanted me to continue continue down this path and to just see where this [7:38] journey journey took. And I don't know if she felt like she was responsible and therefore she didn't [7:43] want me to leave. But that was definitely her desire. And then her family really turned two and my [7:49] family turned two and they kept me on this on this train. It took a lot of support because this is [7:53] not where I expected to be at the end of 2020. I just wanted to run and hide, to be quite honest. [7:58] But they all just kept me pointed in the right direction. And and then to to know that that Ellie [8:03] and Katie were in the back of mission control. And that was not planned. That was completely accidental [8:08] that they were there that morning when Jeremy made that made that talk. And when he spelled out her [8:12] name, C-A-R-R-O-L-L, I know that that was really something special for me. But to be quite honest, [8:18] to speak for the crew, that that bonded us right there, right then in a very, very emotional and [8:23] significant way. And we will never forget that. Victor, we also, you know, what is the bond like? [8:31] I mean, the four of you, you were together in such a small space. I mean, even sleeping, [8:36] you would have had to be sort of bumping into each other essentially the whole time. [8:41] How do you describe the human bond that you have to be stuck in a little tiny space together [8:45] for 10 days and and you're still best friends? It was a feature of the mission. You know, [8:53] I think it's we worked really hard technically, engineering, operationally, procedurally. [9:00] We also worked really hard as humans to understand our limitations and also as a team to understand [9:08] our team's capability and strengths. And I think each of us knows we couldn't have done this alone. [9:13] And we really had to lean on that because you couldn't do anything alone in that spacecraft. [9:17] Everything was a group activity. And we just got used to passing each other water or cleaning up [9:23] the water. We spilled a lot of water we wanted to drink. And so it just became natural. And I would say [9:29] it wasn't learning to accept. I think we embraced it and it became fun. I could crawl on Jeremy and, [9:36] you know, he could just crawl under my leg and get in his suitcase and I didn't have to move. And [9:40] we just learned to work with it instead of working against it. [9:44] Christina, you know, the moment when the capsule came back and it separated, it was like a champagne [9:49] cork almost. And we're just looking at it. And then afterwards, you know, when it's charred on [9:54] the outside, you're inside. Communications go away. It's a burning ball of flame. You've got, [10:00] what, a few inches here separating you from that. What was it like? [10:06] Well, reentry is the most spectacular part of any human space flight. It is truly in every way [10:16] coming back to a plane. It is not landing a plane. Windows on Orion and Integrity did not char over. [10:22] We watched the entire reentry and it was spectacular. The plasma ball that we were inside of got as bright [10:29] as an arc welder to the point where you couldn't even look at it. We were rumbling. We were feeling the [10:34] G's. We were hearing it in each other's voices and just trying to take in every single sight, [10:38] every sound, every sense to be able to carry it back to earth with us because what it taught us is [10:45] about ourselves. Nothing is more precious than human life. And we all feel that. [10:50] We are so grateful that you're taking the time to try to explain to us the the unexplainable, [10:55] I know, to try to put words on it and to share it.