SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Here's what the moon looked like today.
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REID WISEMAN: The moon is about three to four times the size of the Earth, and it is almost full. And the Earth is just a small crescent out there.
DETROW: It was a close-up view. The crew of Artemis II has now traveled farther from Earth than anyone else in the history of humanity.
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JEREMY HANSEN: But we, most importantly, choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long lived.
DETROW: That is mission specialist Jeremy Hansen speaking just before 2 p.m. this afternoon - that's Earth time to be clear - on the East Coast. Soon after, Hansen and the three other astronauts on board Artemis II began the core part of their mission, the approximately seven-hour period when their spacecraft slingshots around the far side of the moon and they look out their port windows, take photographs and note what they're seeing.
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KELSEY YOUNG: So we couldn't be more excited for a full day of lunar and planetary observations today. How do you hear me?
UNIDENTIFIED ASTRONAUT: We hear you loud and clear. And, Kelsey, you just got to know you're pulling us away from the moon right now. So let's go.
DETROW: Now, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are not the first humans to look down upon the lunar surface with their own eyes. At the end of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 had that honor. It was a test run for Apollo 11, which landed on the moon the next year. The Apollo 8 astronauts got to see the Earth rising above the lunar horizon.
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BILL ANDERS: Oh, my God. Look at that picture over there. There's the Earth coming up. Wow, that's pretty.
DETROW: And up until today, the astronauts who had flown farthest from the Earth were the crew members on board Apollo 13. Apollo 13's slingshot around the moon wasn't planned. It was an emergency maneuver to get the crew of the damaged spacecraft home alive.
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UNIDENTIFIED NASA OFFICIAL: We've had loss of signal with Apollo 13 as it passes above the back side of the moon.
DETROW: To be clear, today's flyby was planned. But just like Apollo 13, Artemis II still lost communications with Earth for about 45 minutes as it went behind the moon.
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CHRISTINA KOCH: That'll be our alone time with the moon.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes.
DETROW: I spoke with Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch in 2024 about what she thought this moment would be like.
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KOCH: I think the primary task is to not fight over who has the window seats.
DETROW: The Artemis crew has been training for this moment for years. They studied moon maps. They trained in Iceland with geologists and other experts, learning the words they will need to use to actually describe what they're seeing.
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KOCH: Our job is to tell the scientists back home the things that lunar probes can't see.
DETROW: These brand-new observations will help scientists plan the next step of human space exploration, especially since the astronauts will be seeing parts of the moon that no Apollo mission ever did. But before all the hard work started today, the crew had one more announcement.
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HANSEN: A couple of relatively fresh craters on the moon that have not been previously named.
DETROW: That's Jeremy Hansen again, the mission specialist.
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HANSEN: And so at certain times of the moon's transit around Earth, we will be able to see this from Earth. And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll. The spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie.
DETROW: Commander Reid Wiseman's family was watching from NASA's observation room. His wife Carroll died in 2020.
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HANSEN: And if you want to find this one, you look at Glushko and it's just to the northwest of that. And it's a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call it Carroll. And you spell that C-A-R-R-O-L-L.
DETROW: The four crew members embraced in their Orion capsule and shed some tears. Then they dimmed the lights, got into position and began their observations.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG, "STARMAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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