Artemis Two Crew Reaches Moon's Orbit

On April 4th, the Artemis II crew just hit the halfway mark to the moon, over 150,000

miles from Earth, racing toward the first, crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a 50-year-old former fighter pilot on his first space trip,

shared wild details from a video call with a Canadian Space Agency.

During the key Transluner injection burn, there a Ryan spacecraft dipped super close to

Earth before swinging out toward the moon.

Hansen said it felt like they were plummeting straight back down, so near he thought they

might crash into the planet.

Crewmates Victor Glover and Reed Weisman were right there with him as Earth shrank to a

distant marble after a quick nap.

Hansen called the views extraordinary, soaking in how they barely missed Earth on that

tight path.

He's set to become the first non-American flying around the moon, pumped for day five

when they enter the lunar gravity zone.

That means epic sights like the far side of the moon, and a solar eclipse with the moon

blocking the sun.

Big missions like this take massive teens, Hansen reminds us, just like chasing dreams

in everyday life.

Now they're locked in for the rest of this, 10 day ride.

That's the story for today, US News Today, Driven by AI