OH. MY. GOD.
THIS IS THE MILKY WAY SHOT BY THE ARTEMIS II CREW. LOOK AT ALL THOSE STARS!!!!— Jasmine ???? (@astrojaz.bsky.social) April 7, 2026 at 10:48 PM
"I think we as a species need largely symbolic and inspirational projects like this from time to time, to keep us sane and optimistic and in touch with our humanity." defector.com/artemis-moon…
— Defector (@defector.com) April 8, 2026 at 5:21 PM
Barry Petchesky, at Defector:
It was a lovely day above the Moon. The Artemis astronauts did some science, took lots of pictures, didn’t die or get replaced by bodysnatchers, and perhaps most importantly, made me bawl a couple of times. One was when Orion came back into communications range after 40 nerve-wracking minutes behind the Moon. Mission specialist Christina Koch, after confirming that she and mission control could hear each other loud and clear, gave a stirring little speech. Artemis isn’t the culmination of anything—it’s meant to be just the start of the exploration of the wider cosmos. But, Koch said, no matter where humans go, home is still home.
“We will explore,” Koch said. “We will build. We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers. We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies. We will bolster industry. We will inspire. But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”…
“As we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still able to feel your love from Earth,” pilot Victor Glover said. “And to all of you down there on Earth, and around Earth, we love you from the Moon.”
NASA struck gold with these astronauts, who have endeared themselves with their emergent idiosyncrasies—Wiseman’s quiet, no-nonsense competence; Glover’s gentle faith; Koch’s playfulness; Hansen’s, uh, Canadianness—to anyone watching for any real length of time. We mostly send scientists to space now instead of test pilots, but personality is a big part of the astronaut selection process. That’s not just the ability to get along with each other in a confined space, or to solve problems in an emergency, but how easily viewers back on Earth can connect with them and root for them. This is because Artemis has to sell itself…
I am sympathetic to the view that space exploration is a luxury. I don’t disagree, even. But NASA’s budget is not the reason gas costs $6 a gallon, or why we don’t have universal healthcare or pre-K. We don’t have those because those in charge, and the people who voted for them, have chosen for us not to have those. It is a false binary that we even have to choose at all. The U.S. is the richest polity that has ever existed; there is more than enough money to go around to satisfy basic human services while still funding spaceflight. The people denying us those basic services would very much like for you to identify NASA as the culprit for its $24.4 billion budget, which represents 0.35 percent of all government spending, at the same time a pointless and purposeless war costs us a billion dollars a day, and the government seeks a $1.5 trillion defense budget.
We can afford to go to space. We can, as a technical matter, build the rockets and spacecraft necessary to get us there. Why we go is simply because we can. I think we as a species need largely symbolic and inspirational projects like this from time to time, to keep us sane and optimistic and in touch with our humanity. That’s our big, beautiful Earth, I think when I see the photos from Artemis, and whatever the hell is going on down there. It’s not just four men and women circling the Moon. They’re backed by a crew of thousands around the world, from many countries and cultures, all pulling in the same direction for the greater good. They’re building upon thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. It takes an entire species to do this, and only one species we know of is capable. Yes, we could turn away from the stars, and retreat into our own rivalries and hatreds and selfishness. But when given the choice, as Koch said, “we will always choose each other.”