Artemis II astronaut reveals he feared his crew would be lost in space 'after straying too far from Earth'

The Commander of the Artemis II mission has revealed he feared he and his crew would be lost in space after their shuttle strayed too far from Earth.

Reid Wiseman, 50, and his three fellow astronauts were charged with performing a lunar flyby, before being slingshotting back to our planet. 

But as they flew over the dark side of the Moon to what NASA had said would be their maximum distance, the number of nautical miles on the odometer continued ticking upwards.  

In total the Artemis II crew travelled 219,669 nautical miles - 252,756 standard miles - from Earth, setting a new distance for the furthest distance ever travelled by humans, smashing the record previously set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

Speaking at the Starmus Festival in Tenerife on Saturday, Wiseman said: 'Mission control in Houston had told us our maximum distance, the furthest we were supposed to be from Earth, was 219,667 [nautical miles].

'I was watching this number, and I saw it hit 219,667, and I thought, "Great, this is the farthest we will be from Earth, and the next number I will see will be 219,666, we'll be going home", but about three minutes later, I saw 219,668. It went up. I was like, "Huh, that's weird".

'And then about three minutes later, it goes to 219,669, and that was the moment that I felt real fear because I thought we had just gone too far. We're never going to come home, and so I was very scared.'

After a tense three-minute wait, with the astronauts' eyes glued to the odometer, the number finally started to go down - meaning they were on their way back to Earth.

The crew cheered. Mr Wiseman said: 'I knew there was a good chance we might make it.'

But the possibility of not making it home was a scenario the Artemis II crew had given their full attention to.  

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen admitted the astronauts had talked two days before takeoff about what they would do in the event of a catastrophic error - and said the group was 'at peace' with the risk involved in their journey. 

'Like, if Reid's number had just kept growing and we knew we weren't coming home, but we were going to be alive for a while, how do you sit comfortably, not knowing what the future is going to be?' he said.

'And by launch the crew was at peace, not because we're brave, it's not bravado, it's because we had an acceptance of whatever came, we would do the best, or our time would end.'

Commander Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, 2026. 

In all, the astronauts travelled 700,237 miles before splashing down in the Pacific off San Diego exactly as scheduled at 5.07pm local time on April 10. 

All four were presented with Stephen Hawking medals for science communication at the Starmus Festival, founded by Queen guitarist Sir Brian May - who has a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London. 

In the crew's first press conference after splashing down, Wiseman spoke about the spiritual impact of his time spent in space following a question from Kristin Fisher, host of the space-related YouTube channel The Endless Void. 

'I'm not really a religious person but there was really no other avenue for me to explain anything or experience anything, so I asked for the [ship's] chaplain to just come visit us for a minute,' he said. 

'I'd never met him before in my life, but I saw the cross on his collar and I just broke down in tears.

'It's very hard to fully grasp what we just went through….when the sun eclipsed behind the moon, I think all four of us…I turned to Victor [Glover, the Artemis pilot] and I said, "I don't think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we are looking at right now," because it was otherworldly and it was amazing.'

Wiseman told The Telegraph that he experienced 'Earthsickness' during the voyage, which was the first manned mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.  

'You're looking at an Earth that is so tiny it can fit underneath your thumb, and around it is total blackness, it's just complete, infinite black space, and that little tiny dot down there is our home.

'And the feeling I mostly had was, I want to see my kids again, I want to be reunited with my friends, I want to sit on green grass and eat fresh salad, and just experience life on that planet again. It was overwhelming. Instead of homesickness, it was Earthsickness.'

The Artemis II astronauts experienced deceleration forces four times stronger than gravity as they re–entered Earth's atmosphere during their final 13–minute descent into the Pacific.

The Orion crew capsule containing the astronauts separated from Artemis II's cylindrical service module 34 minutes before splashdown. 

At 22,000ft, Orion's small parachutes known as drogues deployed before the main parachutes opened a minute later allowing it to touchdown in the Pacific at 20 miles per hour.

After more than an hour's delay because of strong ocean currents, the four astronauts clambered into a dinghy and were hoisted into helicopters which flew them to the USS John P. Murtha.