Traveling at 39 times the speed of sound, NASA’s Orion spacecraft carrying the Artemis II crew became what mission commander Reed Wiseman called “a literal plasma ball” upon re-entry, flames visible through every window, the hull hot to the touch during the crew’s appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadians to fly on the Moon, remained in the compact Orion capsule aboard the NASA Artemis II spacecraft for ten days before landing back on Earth 10 days later. While everyone talks about the excitement during launch, all the astronauts agreed that landing was the real challenge.
“You’re going six miles a second,” Wiseman told the audience, “and you don’t really realize that speed until you get into the atmosphere.” Hansen, who shared his first space flight experience, said that a “prevention plan” had been prepared in advance; Should he struggle, he didn’t need to.
When asked, the Dark Side of the Moon astronauts shared that on the third day, they began calling their planet “Little Earth”, a joke about the Earth’s size that could be seen even at the Moon’s distance from the Orion window.
The far side of the Moon had already been visited during the mission, with the crew observing the unusual geometry of the Moon’s surface from a distance before arriving on the other side. Hansen recalled the excitement that occurred as crew members crowded near the window: “We’re seeing something no one has seen.”
He shared that the most emotional event for the crew occurred when they unanimously decided to name a lunar crater in memory of Wiseman’s wife, Carol.
Wiseman also told Fallon that his two daughters, watching from Mission Control, had no prior knowledge of the gesture. “It strengthened us as a team,” Wiseman said. “We are connected to each other forever.”
The Orion capsule, which the crew compared to the space of two minivans, housed all four for the entire mission duration. Three years of training together meant few surprises, although the coaches emerged as the approved Nite Owl, while Glover was quietly voted best in-cabin dancer. “We gave each other a lot of grace,” the coach said.
