Farther away than anyone has gone before.
The Orion spacecraft is now in the lunar sphere of influence, meaning the moon’s gravity has more pull on the vehicle than the Earth. At 1:57 p.m. ET, the crew surpassed the record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth by humans, which was set by the Apollo 13 mission at 248,655 statute miles from Earth. At 2:45 p.m., the crew will begin making observations of the surface of the moon during the flyby.
Pretty good. Fly on!
So cool.
Oh, yes. It is all over the news.
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/science/artemis-crew-reaches-moon-approaches-record-breaking-distance-earth-2026-04-06/
1.656% further, after 56 years. Whoo!
H. sapiens can do that! I guess I was born to the right species. 8-)
@ ^ John Morales :
Yet we are finally retruning to dointhe most impressiveand remarkable thing our species have ever done and going further. Even if by just a bit. Which is awesome and superluminous (beyond merely brilliant) in my view. Am loving seeing this misison and rocket & spacecraft fly and it is giving some hope and showing what Humanity can do at our best.
Live coverage on Aussie ABC here : .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-07/artemis-ii-on-track-break-all-time-distance-record/106534158
Plus watching Ellie inspace live follow along of this here
This is a fantastic commentary:
https://bsky.app/profile/the-astro-stud.bsky.social/post/3miugrmtwwc2b
Clarity fix :
Yet we are finally returning to doing the most impressive and remarkable thing our species have ever done
.***
Er, actually make that please come back and splash down safely here on Earth! ;-)
But hopefully many more missions will fly onwards and land on our Moon and Mars and travel to asteroids and far more.
In some circumstances, advancing by 1.7% is a monumental achievement.
Well, computing power is up a tad more these days. As are telecommunications. As is automation.
As are almost all the sciences such as materials technology or medicine or sensors.
Space toilets aside, obs.
(And by a few to many orders of magnitude, not under 2%; e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer )
—
But sure, almost waking up from many decades of stagnation and loss of competence is monumental, for some.
In some circumstances. ;)
Doing in the 1960s was more impressive.
I am all for sending out probes and putting freaking good telescopes (etc.) in orbit and elsewhere. But the more we learn about how the human body responds to microgravity, the radiation damage, and the intrinsic costs of keeping canned apes alive, the more I think that for the rest of my life – and for several decades afterwards – we should keep crewed launches to visiting the ISS and its successors. Landing on the Moon (particularly with 1960s/1870s technologies) was pretty cool, and eventually humans visiting Mars will be pretty cool….but we should wait to try to go to Mars until we know a lot more about space medicine and have better propulsion and life support technologies. Also, that our robots will have constructed a large and comfortable base for the arriving humans to work out of. Maybe late next century.
(1977’s Voyager 2 is currently 143 AU from the Sun and still in communication with Earth, still doing science. We now return you to your regular programming.)
This time we did it with a budget.
Nixon wanted to rival Kennedy’s ‘moonshot’ with an effort to fight cancer, but the basic science wasn’t there yet. Here is some recent news:
.
Detecting multiple cancers and other diseases from a single blood sample
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-multiple-cancers-diseases-blood-sample.html
Budget indeed, pilgham: https://www.space.com/astronomy/deja-vu-trump-proposes-cutting-nasa-science-funding-by-47-percent-again
Meanwhile, https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/19/congress-braces-for-200b-iran-war-request-00835914
Oh, great, another stupid American measuring unit to obfuscate things. How many metres is a statute mile?
@ ^ bluerizlagirl :
1 Statute mile = 1 609.344 Meter [m]
Source : https://www.convert-measurement-units.com/conversion-calculator.php
@10. larpar : “Doing in the 1960s was more impressive.”
I wasn’t around then. Doing it now is still pretty impressive too – & hopefully we’ll keep going this time and end up going much further.. If Trump doesn’t get us all into WW III soon..
@ 11. Dibwys :
Disagree. I think we do need to work on those areas but we shouldn’t just wait and delay and not try to constantly progress and advance and just wait instead. I think we need to keep going and keep and gain momentum here.
I don’t think procrastinating and saying its too hard so we won’t try doing it now is the right approach at all.
I said nothing about “wait and delay” or not trying to “constantly progress and advance”. Waiting is a matter of being cautious and not wasting lives for the sake of attempting ego satiation. “Scream and leap” is not an effective strategy. I want careful planning, careful and thorough research, and thoughtful consideration of the next action. Doing something ‘because it is exciting’ is a route to tragedy and set-backs. I want humanity to ‘win at space’, not engage is periodic spewing of inadequately equipped victims into space. Note: It does not have to happen in your lifetime in order to be a success for humanity.
Mere distance teaches us nothing. If that is all that Moonshot boosters can come up with, then the whole thing is a waste. OTOH a real moon base and lunar exploration would be good. Wake me when that happens.
I was disappointed with a couple of things.
It’s not going very fast. Yes, I know it’s going to be doing something like 24,000 mph when it hits our atmosphere for re-entry but earlier they were oohing and aahing about it going at one mile a second. That’s just 3,600 mph. It’s not exactly Warp 5, is it? Even Voyager 1 is doing a smidgin over 38.000 mph.
And Integrity, like the ISS, is so cramped and cluttered and messy with bottles of Nutella floating around. Nothing like the spacious and pristine spaceships you have in 2001 or Star Trek or even The Martian. Come on, NASA, you need to look better than that for the cameras.
Good news, everyone!
https://www.reuters.com/science/nasa-artemis-ii-astronauts-speak-lunar-orbit-after-record-setting-flyby-2026-04-08/
↓
Re: unprecedented.
It beat Apollo 13, but that was because an oxygen tank exploded en route to the Moon, forcing the crew to shut down the command module, and making them swing around the Moon on a cold, unplanned free‑return arc.
[commentary]
So true, but ahem. An accident, not a mission goal.
Not exactly a landing, is it? Still, almost 2% further even if not by accident.
(The landing preceded that previous record)
Superluminous photos fromIntegrity here :
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/comment-page-1/#comment-2297818
StevoR, no. That is your comment. Not photos.
This is you quoting your own post, and there is nothing superluminous about it.
Spam in a can.
(beyond shiny, it supposedly is. But no, it’s your own comment linking to a mainstream media OP)
Splashdown!
They’ve landed successfully! Home safe.
Yeah, splashdown.
The Space Shuttle was supposed to be like a spaceplane, up and down.
(It was not really more reusable than usual; the reconditioning more than made up for the reuse_
Now this. None of this landing, majestic doors opening, crew bounding out.
Splashdown! Primitive as fuck.
(Welcome to 2026, recapitulating 1966)
@ ^ John Morales : the Space Shuttle was a spaceplane. I wish they’d kept using it and just updated it as a new model or three to work better and be more reuseable too* but this is still pretty impressive in my view and the Orion spacecraft is larger and a big improvement on the Apollo one. We’re making technological and other progress again at last.
.* Wonder if they could’ve given the Space Shuttle orbiters seaplane style floats instead of landing wheels? Guess that would been pretty pointless since they wanted it to land on runways not oceans & also very rare to have gliders land on water but still..
PS. All astronauts out of their craft and into the boats now. All in good shape.
[citation: https://nss.org/the-space-shuttle-decision-chapter-6/ ]
Having been born after the Apollo era and the original “space race”, I’m just happy to see humans going beyond low earth orbit again. It is disappointing in a way that we haven’t made more progress in human spaceflight, but human spaceflight is very expensive, dangerous, and so far economically unprofitable, so I guess it’s not too surprising that we haven’t done more of it.
Duh. So is war.
Yet, it’s not surprising we’ve done so much of that.
(Clearly, something being pointless and expensive is not such an impediment to us monkey-types)
Imagine being so grumpy you go about harrumphing about the Astronauts returning via a splashdown, because it’s primitive.
They just orbited the moon in a spaceship! Pretty much the opposite of primitive.
KISS is a good basic concept in engineering. A splashdown works just fine, obviously. The space shuttle blowing up was a horrible tragedy that made it difficult to justify the expense of NASA, so a successful landing is a basic requirement for any future successful missions.
Why create unnecessary engineering problems? Keep it simple.
Wondering Tethys:
Grumpy? Not at all. Factual. Amused.
Splashdown! Capsule in a parachute falls into the sea!
Not exactly a mighty ship descending on a point of flame, is it?*
Or even landing like a shuttle.
(Safely! Retrieved!)
Yeah, but so did Apollo 13.
In 1970.
And only by accident — they were gonna land, but it was even more primitive back then and probs happened. There’s even a movie about it.
Why do I land on a runway when I take a flight? ;)
Anyway. Sure. Splashdown.
Here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-11/artemis-ii-splashdown-landing-abc-live-blog-moon-mission/106551526
Three great big parachutes with a capsule dangling far below, which literally splashes.
Pictures in that link. Coulda been 1970.
(Even then, planes landed on runways and people stepped out)
But the enthusings!
Capable of splashdown! Safely, even. Whoo!
—
You did not get my allusion to the Shuttle program, did ya?*
Landed on a runway, absent a great deal of expendables, then was refurbished for reflight at a great cost in time and in money. But it didn’t ‘splash’ down, unlike this latest iteration.
(cf. https://explainingscience.org/2021/06/30/the-space-shuttle-10-years-on/ )
—
*
Then at last, the mighty shipDescending on a point of flame
Made contact with the human race at Mildenhall
Of course I saw your comment about the space shuttle.
It’s long gone and obviously not capable of orbiting the moon.
Landing safely is the crucial thing, and since it’s a capsule of course it had to splashdown.
How ridiculous to expect reality to conform to fiction, or complain that the ‘mighty’ ship needs to descend on a point of flame. (So manly!)
It’s a real spaceship that just completed a trip to space and back safely. Primitive doesn’t apply.
There there, Tethys.
The superlatives speak for themselves no less than the timeline.
Shame it was not a spaceship, landing mightily. Or landing, even.
Well, it’s real and it’s sure what remains of the ‘spaceship’.
The capsule.
Perfect bullseye on the ocean, but.! ;)
—
FWIW: It is this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
or from the horse’s mouth: https://www.nasa.gov/reference/sls-space-launch-system-core-stage/
Honestly, however advanced a series of expendable rocket stages that are thrown away leaving a tiny cabin to splashdown at the end may be, one can conceive of a craft that takes off, flies around, then lands ready to take off again.
Now, in that sense, it’s not the best spaceship ever.
Bit like bits of driftwood falling apart as you go out into the bleachers then barely make it back to shore clinking to a plank.
When I go by plane, it lands and I walk out.
I don’t get into a pod for splashdown and rescue at the destination.
—
Anyway. Very impressive. Heroes and all that.
FWIW Scott Manley on the Orion Heat Shield Saga – Everything You Need To Know here – 15 mins long.
We are discussing rockets and spacecraft, not aircraft.
Basic logic, apples and oranges.
Gravity assisted splashdowns clearly work, so while it would be cool to have spacecraft like the ones in comic books, they don’t actually exist. Harrumphing that real space exploration isn’t impressive enough for your personal preference might indicate that you’re just being a grumpy old man.
Gotta love ya, Tethys. The gift that gives.
The Artemis II flight is what’s under discussion.
Rocket, sure. Spacecraft, well… at the very start, I suppose.
Oooh, gravity-assisted!
Because real spacecraft end up with 0.36% of the mass of the thing that went up splashing down, the rest being wasted.
No more than crowing that it is “impressive enough” for your personal preference indicates you’re a young lass, nor any more than your tut-tutting grumpiness about my alleged lack of gushing praise corresponds to reality.
—
Oh dear. Yes, very categorical of you.
BTW, you remember that Bezos stunt with the not-old women (NS-31)?
Even that did better, landing-wise.
Didn’t need to splash down in the ocean.
(One was an apple, the other an orange)
—
Point being, building a 30-story skyscraper (the rocket) just to throw a “can” (the capsule) into space and have it splash down in the ocean for recovery is not what I think of as think of as a ‘craft’ or a ‘ship’ that lands.
You want to call that being grumpy, go for it.
Makes about as much sense as calling a survival landing capsule a spaceship.