'Han Solo Wants to Be Me': Artemis II's Victor Glover on Flying the Orion
By Patrick Holland
Published on April 20, 2026.
The Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years, took place on the Orion spacecraft, which lacked bedrooms for the four-person crew. The mission, which included a sleeping arrangement close to an air conditioning vent, grounded the crew during their historic journey. It was the first time a woman, a black man, or a Canadian has been on the moon since 1970. The crew also traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the previous record set by the 1970 Apollo 13 mission. During the trip, the Orion crew traveled about 4,000 miles beyond the moon, allowing them to see parts of the moon previously unseen. The images taken during the mission were stunning, but lacked detail as to how the speed the spacecraft was moving fast relative to Earth and the speed it was constantly morphing shadows across the surface. Apollo missions flew about 70 miles above the moon to make landings, limiting how much of it could actually be seen.
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