For the first time since 1970, humans have traveled farther from Earth than any people before them. NASA’s Artemis II crew made history on April 6 by flying their Orion spacecraft to a record-breaking distance of 252,757 miles from Earth during a stunning lunar flyby, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 by more than 4,100 miles. Koch made her own piece of history as the first woman ever to travel beyond Earth orbit. The crew spent nearly seven hours observing the Moon’s far side, including parts of the lunar surface that no human eyes had ever seen directly, capturing thousands of photographs and relaying observations to Mission Control in Houston. They also became the first humans to witness a solar eclipse from the Moon. “Moon joy,” said science lead Kelsey Young from Mission Control, a phrase that became the team’s instant motto.
The mission is the first crewed journey to the vicinity of the Moon in more than 50 years and a critical test flight for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface and eventually establish a permanent Moon presence as a stepping stone to Mars. The crew observed the massive Orientale Basin which is a 600-mile impact crater never fully seen by human eyes, as well as Apollo landing sites from 1969 and 1971. “It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the Moon right now,” Hansen radioed. The spacecraft is now heading home, with splashdown off the coast of San Diego scheduled for April 10.
Source: https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/04/artemis-breaks-human-distance-record/
