The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission contacted Earth via video on Thursday (April 2) to talk about their experience just after completing the translunar injection burn that is leading them towards the moon.

Mission Commander Reid Wiseman described watching the Earth from pole to pole, pausing "all four of us in our tracks."

Mission Specialist Christina Koch declared herself the "space plumber," after dealing with a minor issue with the toilet onboard.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said his first time in space had made him feel "like a little kid."

Pilot Victor Glover offered a message of unity, saying Earth from space looks "like one thing." Glover praised the mission as a testament of putting differences aside and bringing differences together.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

IN SPACE (AIRED APRIL 2, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only)

1. ARTEMIS II CREW MEMBERS INSIDE ORION SPACECRAFT

2. WHITE FLASH

3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MISSION COMMANDER, REID WISEMAN, SAYING:

"Well, first and foremost, we all wanted to give a shout out to our families first, because we are pretty far from Earth and we have not gotten to say “hi” to them yet. But there was a moment about an hour ago where Mission Control Houston reoriented our spacecraft as the sun was setting behind the earth. And I don't know what we all expected to see in that moment, but you can see the entire globe from pole to pole. You can see Africa, Europe and if you looked really close, you could see the Northern Lights. It was the most spectacular moment. And it paused all four of us in our tracks."

4. WHITE FLASH

5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MISSION SPECIALIST CHRISTINA KOCH, SAYING:

"One of the biggest surprises was how smooth riding those solids was. We all expected a really just dynamic ride, a lot of emotion. We were prepared to potentially not being able to see telemetry. So maybe even not being able to, you know, touch switches and it was very smooth. There was a definite difference when they separated and we were just on the main engines, but just a steady rumble and a great ride."

6. WHITE FLASH

7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MISSION SPECIALIST, JEREMY HANSEN, SAYING:

"There has been a tremendous amount of disbelief. For me, it's just so extraordinary. I just kept saying to them yesterday, like, I really like it up here. I wish I could have got here sooner. It's just such a tremendous place to be. The views are extraordinary. It's really fun to be floating around and it just makes me feel like a little kid."

8. WHITE FLASH

9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MISSION COMMANDER, REID WISEMAN, SAYING:

"We just got done our translator injection burn and it was pretty tense moments there. It was pretty tense moments there for a second. And when we got to that burn, we just kind of looked at each other as a crew. We had been to the moon before in 1969, 1968 through 1972. It's been a long time since we've been back. And I got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this ending for humans. 250,000 miles away is a Herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that."

10.WHITE FLASH

11. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PILOT, VICTOR GLOVER, SAYING:

"Well, the first thing I would say is, trust us. You look amazing. You look beautiful. And from up here, you also look like one thing. You know, Homo sapiens is all of us, no matter where you're from or or you know what you look like. We're all one people. And so, you know, this mission, one of the things that's amazing about being around and just being an astronaut, you know, serving our countries at this time, is that we get to give ourselves a mission that we can hold on to, to say, hey, look at what we did for for for the rest of our lives. You know, we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason, because it's brought us together and showed us what we can do when we put not just putting our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great."

12. WHITE FLASH

13 . (SOUNDBITE) (English) MISSION SPECIALIST CHRISTINA KOCH, SAYING:

"I'm the space plumber. I'm proud to call myself the space plumber. I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board. So we were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine. It was just an issue, I think, of sitting for a long time and needing a little time to warm up a priming issue. But we did originally think that there could have been potentially something fouling up the motor and luckily we are all systems go."

14. WHITE FLASH

15. KOCH TURNING UPSIDE DOWN AND WAVING