President Donald Trump praised the crew of the Artemis II for their journey to the far side of the Moon as he suggested they may soon voyage to Mars, after the four-person team described what happened amid a roughly 40-minute planned communication outage with NASA.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, completed the six-hour flyby on Monday after soaring behind the Moon.
The space travelers became the first humans in more than half a century to witness the distant hemisphere with the naked eye, recording their observations for the future.
Trump said the crew ‘really inspired the entire world’ with their epic mission.
‘Everyone’s watching it. They find it incredible,’ he told the astronauts. ‘I just watched you go to the back of the moon, and people haven’t been there in a long time, we can say.’
‘But it’s going to be more and more prevalent because we’re going to be doing a lot of traveling,’ the president said, outlining his plans for the future of space exploration.
‘Then you’re ultimately going to do the whole big trip to Mars – and that’s going to be very exciting.’
The astronauts had to complete the mission without any real-time guidance from Mission Control – relying instead entirely on their onboard systems before contact was restored after about 40 minutes when their spacecraft reappeared from behind the Moon.
As part of the journey, the astronauts set a new record for traveling 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than any humans in history.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen successfully re-emerged from the far side of the moon on Monday
President Donald Trump called to congratulate them – and invited them to voyage to Mars
After communication was restored on Monday night, the president called the crew to congratulate them and ask how they were feeling when they had no communication.
‘I said a little prayer, but then I had to keep rolling,’ Glover responded. ‘I was actually recording scientific observations of the far side of the moon.
‘We were busy up here working really hard, and I must say, it was actually quite nice,’ the astronaut continued.
He later told the Artemis crew that their work ‘paves the way for America’s return to the lunar surface, very soon.
‘We’re going all out. We’re doing everything we can,’ Trump said. ‘We’ll plant our flag once again – and this time we won’t just leave footprints, we’ll establish a presence on the moon and we’ll push onto Mars.’
‘It’ll be very exciting,’ he noted. ‘I’m waiting for that so much.’
The president vowed in his inauguration speech last year to plant an American flag on Mars.
‘We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars’ and ‘plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars,’ he said at the time, adding that ‘ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation.’
Then-ally Elon Musk was seen giving the president a thumbs up, as he had long pushed for NASA to send humans to the Red Planet and shelve its efforts to return to the moon.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the Daily Mail last month that it is important to return to the moon, partially to reemphasize that the United States can do it
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is pictured with the Artemis II crew
Musk even wrote on X ahead of Trump’s inauguration that ‘we’re going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction.’
Yet NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the Daily Mail last month that it is important to return to the moon, partially to reemphasize that the United States can do it.
‘We owe it to every one of the pioneers during the 1960s, every one of the astronauts that what they did was just the start and not the end of a great journey,’ Isaacman said in an exclusive interview at NASA’s JFK center in Florida.
He went on to say that the president is emphatic about pushing past the bounds set by the Apollo missions of the 1960s.
‘Don’t just go back to the moon to plant the flag and bring back rocks,’ he said, detailing the mission to build a moon base and pursue ‘big, bold endeavors’ in space.
He also argued that there was ‘no question’ that the US was in a new space race with China, which he said has a ‘very robust’ space program that should not be underestimated.
‘They don’t have what I would describe even, you know, a lot of the baggage right now,’ he said. ‘They are starting their program from scratch, and they’re resourcing it. They have the expertise and the will, and they are pursuing those goals.’
But the US hit a major milestone with the Artemis II’s journey on Monday, when Glover shared his observations of the far side of the Moon.
Wiseman is seen looking out the window at the Moon ahead of the flyby on Monday
The Artemis II team captured stunning images of the Moon with a crescent Earth hanging in the background
He told Mission Control that they saw ‘an island of terrain completely surrounded by darkness.’
‘Up to the north, there is a very nice double crater. It looks like a snowman just sitting there,’ he continued.
‘On the southern edge, there is a hole. Just blackness and a wall of brightness. It looks like there is a gigantic hole right there.’
While observing one large impact basin, Glover noted a striking contrast between its outer and inner rings.
‘When you look at the interior ring and the external ring, it’s almost as if the edges are starting to dry up,’ Glover said, comparing the formation to a wet spot that dries first around the edges.
He also highlighted several surface features that appeared to resemble mountain peaks ‘dusted with snow’ or chalk, a visual comparison rather than a literal description of the lunar terrain.
The mission on Monday shattered the Apollo 13 record in 1970, which saw the crew reach 248,655 miles from Earth.
The four astronauts made history on Monday after seeing the far side of the Moon with the human eye. During the flyby, the snapped images of the lunar surface
As part of the journey, the four-person crew shattered the Apollo 13 record in 1970, which saw the crew reach 248,655 miles from Earth
Trump touted the new records as he congratulated the Artemis II crew Monday night.
‘We have a lot of things to be proud of lately, but there’s nothing like what you’re doing – circling around the moon for the first time in more than a half a century and breaking the all-time record for the farthest distance from Planet Earth,’ he told the crew.
‘Humans have really never seen anything quite like what you’re doing in a manned spaceship. It’s really special,’ he continued, noting that no astronaut has been back to the moon since the Apollo missions.
Speaking of their accomplishments, Trump noted that the crew ‘flew in the most powerful rocket NASA has ever made, ever launched, traveled over a quarter of a million miles, broke the distance record set by the legendary Apollo 13 and America is a frontier nation.
‘The four brave astronauts of Artemis II are a modern-day, you really are, modern-day pioneers,’ Trump said, after declaring that ‘America is back and America is back in many ways stronger than ever before.’
NASA Administrator Isaacman also congratulated the team on social media.
‘On the far side of the Moon, 252,756 miles away, Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history and now begin their journey home,’ he said in a statement on X.
‘Before they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.’
Isaacman added that the mission ‘isn’t over until they’re under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific’ on Friday.
