Artemis II crew back on Earth. Crew speaks out at welcome home event

The four astronauts who flew around the moon and back again on the Artemis II mission made their way back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston on April 11 after safely splashing back down on Earth the evening before.

And on Saturday night, they had stories to share during NASA's event welcoming the crew back to Houston.

"Twenty-four hours ago, the Earth was that big outside the window and we were doing Mach 39," Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman told the crowd of family, public officials and NASA personnel, holding his hands up to the size of a basketball. "And here we are, back [at home]," he said, slapping high fives on stage with fellow Artemis crewmembers: Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen.

"Victor, Christina and Jeremy, we are bonded forever and no one down here is ever going to know what the four of us just went through and it was the most special thing that will ever happen in my life," Wiseman said.

Thanking the families for their support, he added, "no one knows what the families when through. This was not easy, being 200,000-plus miles away from home. Before you launch it feels like it's the greatest dream on Earth. And when you are out there you just want to get back to your families and your friends."

Wiseman closed with the first of what would be several group hugs for the crew.

Next to speak, Glover said, "I have not processed what we just did and I'm afraid to start even trying. When this started on April 3, I wanted to thank God in public and I want to thank God again. … The gratitude of seeing what we saw, doing what we did and being with who I was with, it's too big to just be in one body."

For her, Koch said the mission helped define "what makes a crew [and] what is different about a crew than a team."

A crew, she said, "is willing to sacrifice ..., that gives grace, that holds [each other] accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs and a crew is inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked."

So when the Artemis II crew could see "tiny Earth" from space and were asked what their impressions were, "honestly what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it," Koch said. "Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe."

She added, "I may have not learned ... everything this journey has yet to teach me, but there's one new thing I know and that is: Planet Earth, you are a crew."

Hansen, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, related another lesson for followers of their mission after asking his fellow crew to stand up and lock arms.

"What you saw was a group of people who loved contributing, having meaningful contribution and extracting joy out of that," Hansen said. "And what we have been hearing is that was something special for you to witness. And the reason I had them form up here with me is because, what I would suggest to you, is when you look up here you are not looking at us, we are a mirror reflecting you. If you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you."

Earlier in the day, Wiseman said in social media posts that he was on a helicopter leaving the USS John P. Murtha, the ship where the crew underwent a medical evaluation after their landing off the coast of San Diego.

"This planet is impossibly beautiful from every altitude I’ve seen it … surface to 250,000 miles," Wiseman said, sharing a photo of his view from the helicopter on April 11.

After splashing down after 8 p.m. on April 10, the Artemis II crew was taken to the Murtha via HSC-23 helicopter. The astronauts underwent medical evaluations before helicopters transported them back to shore.

Once they arrived in Houston, the crew was set to be "promptly" reunited with family members, Artemis II Flight Director Rick Henfling said during a news conference on April 10.

"I'm sure each of the crew members has something special planned with their families, and that'll be the priority is for them to take some time and spend with their loved ones," Henfling said.

They have also been invited to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House, though it's not clear when that might happen. Trump told the astronauts he's "pretty busy" but would "absolutely find the time."

The Orion spacecraft, which shuttled the astronauts a record-breaking 252,756 miles from Earth, will undergo a barrage of testing and analysis. After splashdown, Orion was secured in the well deck of the USS John P. Murtha. It will be returned to the U.S. Naval Base San Diego and eventually to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for inspection.

NASA scientists will "thoroughly examine the spacecraft, retrieve onboard data, remove payloads, and conduct additional post-flight check."

Preparations for future lunar missions have already begun, including next year's Artemis III, and Artemis IV, which plans to make a moon landing in 2028 for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

"With Artemis II complete, focus now turns confidently toward assembling Artemis III and preparing to return to the lunar surface, build the base, and never give up the moon again," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said.

Artemis III, slated for a 2027 launch, will send another crew of astronauts on the Orion spacecraft to Earth's orbit, where they will dock with at least one commercial lunar lander. All this will prepare a crew to eventually land on the moon in 2028.