Artemis II Crew Returns to KSC

The Artemis II crew NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen spoke to members of the media and answered questions inside the John Holliman Auditorium of the NASA News Center during a visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, July 8, 2026.

What is said in the film

We're going to start off with some words from rise. Profound. We're we are happy to be here. I'll just make a few remarks and then we'll get right into the questions. But really it is it's really fun for the four of us to come back to Kennedy.

Like, for us, this is kind of mission completion. Now. We launched from 39 B. We went to 142,756 miles away from planet Earth, the farthest for humans have ever gone. And getting getting to be back here to thank the work for us to see the vehicle.

We were just right outside integrity a few hours ago. Very emotional to see our spacecraft there in post-processing, but really to get to see all the men and women that put this thing together is something that's very special for us. And then this is our last event here today before we head back to Houston and then on to Europe. And we just really wanted to say thank you all. Thank you for getting the word out on Artemis.

Thank you for all the press conferences for bringing the entire world, not just the nation, but the entire world, along on this journey with us. People really showed up and it was profoundly impactful for all of us. So with that, we'll we'll turn it over to you. Hello? Hello.

All right. Thank you again for for the words from from the crew, for you all here. We'll go ahead and start with our question and answer. Yes. Please raise your hand.

We've got microphones on either side of the room. So we do ask that you let us get you a mic so we can hear everybody. We're going to record this and we'll put this out on images gov later on. And then once we finished with our questions we're going to ask you guys to stay put for just a moment. And then we're going to move the crew over to the photo opportunity which will be up here on the mound just for everybody's awareness with VAB as a backdrop.

But give us just a second to get the crew situated and then we'll bring you all over. All right Anthony go ahead. Hello. Thank you so much for coming out here. Today is Artemis II.

Is is still winding down the segments. That's still there. I took a place that you have for the III one there announced it was a it's like a never ending parade of this. You know that's happening with the moon missions. What advice would you give the Artemis III crew now that you've had a chance to reflect on your journey?

Well, you know, thank you for that. I do think there's some interesting things that we're going to do together between the Artemis II and III crew. But the very first thing I just want to share was celebrating. I don't think there was anybody more excited than them, except for the four of us, that the Artemis III crew is finally named in public. And so the first thing, and I think it's just very important we we just wanted to celebrate them and that crew.

Yeah. We handed the red button off to tyranny. I handed that over to him. And that was that was deeper than we expected it to be. It was it was a really good moment.

I think the one one specific thing that I was trying to relayed to, to that crew and to Randy in particular is, you know, we we were the ultimate integrators here. And we really got to look across all of NASA, our international partners. At the end of the day, we climbed on the rocket. And one thing that we were we were trying to instill in the next crew is you. You really are ambassadors.

You really have to take ownership and encourage these teams to all work together. It's very powerful if you can stand up there and not direct, not lead, not mandate, but to bring people together in this agency. We we got a lot of value out of that. I think one other thing, one other thing we're mindful of is not to be advice monsters. This is their mission, and they are going to take it farther than we took it.

Because if we presuppose that the challenges we had are the same challenges they're going to have, or that the solutions to those that we had are going to be what they have, we're holding them back. They are going to innovate. They are going to take it with their frame of mind. And I can't wait to see what they do. Okay.

And just when you're asking your question, please identify yourself and your outlet as well. Well see how that same side. Hi Will Robinson Smith of Spaceflight Now. Good to see you all again. We know that in a couple of months, Jeremy, you're stepping away from the Canadian Space Agency.

But you know and congratulations. Best of luck in your next chapter. I wonder for the rest of the crew. And, you know, I'm sure, Jeremy, you'll still have words for the Artemis III and beyond crew as well. But what's going to be your role within the astronaut Office?

You know, from from here to Artemis III and beyond? It's hard to say. We have a lot of this left. I mean, we're we're, you know, on the calendar, we propose four months of this. So going until late August, early September, really.

But we've got events piling up after September. So I think this is what our lives are going to be like until the end of this year. And then we'll have to adjust, and you'll have to ask that question to six months from now. Victor. But it's hard to say.

And, you know, professionally, but also personally, you know, there's a lot swirling around right now. And so who knows. Right now I'm just focused on getting through the end of this interview and getting on an airplane. And we'll talk about and we'll talk about later. Later, I would add the back of the Astronaut Office coin.

There's a there's a couple words on the back of that Astronaut Office coin. But one of those to me that really resonates right now is lifelong commitment. You know, we we got to do something that we truly cherish. And we owe it to the astronauts, to NASA, to the international community, Canadian Space Agency to just always be ambassadors, to always give back, to have a lifelong commitment to the core values of our office and to our mission. I wouldn't mind just reframing that a little bit.

I know that's some of the language that is out there, but I wouldn't phrase it as stepping back. I retirement is administrative process, leaving the military as a regular force member, but I'm very seized by what we are doing here as an international collaboration. I think the administrators vision is extraordinary, and what I'm very seized with is ensuring that I use the platform that I have to bring all of Canada's brilliance to that vision in a way that is doing something that is good for the country. And to me, it is just low hanging fruit. It is just so simply and clearly obvious the opportunity in front of us.

And that is what I want to be focused on. And the best way I can do that, I think, is to move home, you know, set down some of my duties of astronaut training for a little bit and focus on that. And that door is wide open, and I'm making sure people know that I'm ready to keep growing and contributing. All right. Marcia.

Marcia, associated press for you. Christina, you've inspired so many girls and women everywhere, but how disappointed or surprised are you that there are no women on Artemis III? And should there be? It is such an honor to be in this position I'm in as someone who is inspired by so many, and I've really just found that my role is to validate the people that I see that are inspired, and to just talk about how this isn't any one person's individual achievement. This is the achievement that we made a decision a long time ago to have an astronaut office that looks like what it does.

And to me, I am nothing but excited and surprise for the Artemis III crew. And I can only envision a worse situation where we had someone as close as possible to the mission, the chief of the Astronaut Office and their advisors making a decision about who would be this crew and someone else changing it to make it look a certain way. And I'm so glad and so proud that that's not the situation we have. Megan. Hi Megan Moriarty, I'm with Wesh to the local NBC affiliate here.

I know that none of you do this for the recognition. You do this because you're passionate about the mission. But all around the world, so many people were celebrating you and celebrating Artemis to what does it feel like? And I'm sure you hope that this momentum carries for the next few missions. But what does it feel like that it almost has reignited this interest and excitement over space travel and space exploration, as we have these really exciting missions coming up.

I'll start. It is absolutely awesome. I'll just share a very quick story from my perspective. I was leaving France about a week and a half ago, and I was in line boarding my airplane in a foreign country. Don't speak the language.

And this lady walks up to me with her boarding pass. I mean, who even carries a boarding pass anymore? She walks up to me, the boarding passes flipped upside down, and it just got a handwritten note on it, and she hands it to me and it just said, thank you for reminding us about joy and hope in the universe again. And like and Jeremy is hit on this while we've been here at Kennedy. And I just want to stress that to you all is the four of us got to go do this.

That note really meant a lot to me. But as we look at the workforce here, it's their hands that created all of this. Like they are a part of all this. When people come together to do something so great that the whole world stops and pays attention, that's something that you can feel a lot of honor in your life over. And another piece of the feeling.

It's multifaceted, but one of the feelings is urgency to understand what happened. Because as much as people want to make this about the four of us, it's not. And so thank you all for sharing this with the world, but also thank you for not just promoting the fact that if it bleeds, it leads. If it loved, it led as well. And people responded to that.

So so now my challenge to you all, like the viewers, your audience is, but you also as professional journalists to to think about what happened and why we were doing that. It was not the four personality sitting up here. There was a moment and we decided to do something. Young content creators decided to do something. NASA Public Affairs decided to do something very different than we've done before.

And if there's anything we can learn from the fact that Apollo eight saved 1968, but we still ended the mission after we beat Russia to the moon, is there's an opportunity for us to think about that. What was different and now use that intentionally to keep this going. Great, Richard. Richard Orlando Sentinel this is the first time you guys have been back here, at least officially, since you took off and set a different record. That's the most powerful rocket that's ever sent humans to space.

I've been wanting to ask each one of you what you did to prepare, not knowing what your efficiency. III of you have some experience only one of you has ever launched from here. And you're. That was your first trip, man. So what did they tease you?

Did they gird you up? I mean, I want to know each one of you. What? What the ride was like, what you did to prepare and your thoughts on that things. Thank you.

You mentioned the record. And I have to say, being here has impressed upon us. That was not our record. That record belongs to all the people we've had the chance to thank and congratulate in the days that we've been here. Those folks have an amazing record to be proud of.

And I have to tell you, Reed's been saying it was a silky smooth ride. I almost asked for my money back. There was no shaking, no vibrating, no teeth shattering. You could read the displays quite easily. We were ready for all kinds of things that we had heard from Apollo astronauts shuttle astronauts.

But really, the construction of our rocket and the way it stacked, we just didn't have those crazy vibrations underneath the solids. And when when the solids came off, that ride just said silky smooth and continued up pressed into our seats, just performing perfectly. You guys were announcing everything and all the telemetry. Jeremy and I were just kind of looking at each other thinking, this is so cool. And, you know, you were following along with with your display.

We had some we had a knee board that was that was giving us some information in telemetry. And just I was watching out the hatch window, watching the blue sky go all the way to black through steely blue. It was phenomenal. It was a great ride, you know, to prepare. We did all the Sims, all the standard stuff.

You know, there's there's getting reps, there's no substitute. But then you get out there and it's real. And there are things that are similar, but there are so many things that are different. And going into that difference is a part of why we prepare so much. However, there is also something I think is key to doing our job well and that is getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

We knew we were going to step out into this place that people had never been before, and you just have to be okay. Sometimes not being okay, not being prepared for everything. That rumble was slightly different and that lasted throughout this entire mission. So being able to just be fully present, but also know that we don't know everything that's coming was a big part of how I prepared. I think we all did a lot of that visualization, meditation and accepting.

One thing I can add is we, you know, to a person, you know, we just acknowledge the risk. We had a lot of faith and trust in this team, a lot of faith and trust in the vehicle. Extremely optimistic that we were going to come back, but also knew that this was a this was ten days, that there was a significant risk throughout the entire thing. We needed to stay mindful. And so that mental preparation of really being ready to not come back, if that's if that's what happens, because there are just some things that this team and we can't control.

And by getting to that mental state, I found, you know, all four of us were very Zen like and really able to just observe and take in the experience. Like I really remember launch and that was pretty extraordinary ride. Yeah. It was no, we've joked a lot while we were here. No one was more surprised that the solid split than the four of us.

11 minutes into the first launch window, where we put humans on SLS and Orion. That is just awesome. That is a true testament to the team right there. It's so cool. We spent a lot of time with Charlie Blackwell Thompson, our launch director, and just that takes courage to let that rocket leave the pad with four friends on on board.

The only other thing I'll add to what my amazing crew just said is, for me personally, as we're going through this mission, especially the first few days, just like there was, there was almost maybe, maybe it's a mental protection mechanism. We were all at peace when we launched. But I also went into this just thinking each step was not going to work the way we expected. So each time we would get to a race burn that would commit us to yet another thing in orbit. I was always going into that burn thinking, we're going to go home after this burn.

I was always thinking like, this mission is going to end after this burn. And and then we would do the burn. And now it's like, okay, well, shockingly, now we're going to head out to 38,000 miles and do another one of these. And then I'd be ready to go home there. And then once we did TLI, I was like, well, we're not going home for eight days now, so let's get comfortable.

And there was always just that element. I think that was just my brain protecting for for anything that could go wrong. But it was always there in the back of my mind that at any moment in time, this mission could drastically change. But it went I mean, it went flawless. It was amazing.

Bill. Yeah. Hi, Bill Harwood with CBS. I know you've been asked this before since you've gotten back, and I know you're not going to answer it again today, but I'll ask it anyway. Could some of you guys talk about any of you have any desire to walk on the moon?

I mean, you're young enough that you could make that rotation down the road. I just wonder what y'all think about that. I want to I want to start because I was just we were just reviewing some National Geographic video that I think Victor or Jeremy and I shot while Christina and Victor were doing science in the windows. And in that video, I said, when I look at the moon, all I can think about is just going there, like landing there. We're so close to it.

You really could extrapolate in your mind out there that the hard part was actually done landing on the moon from where we were, that vantage point that we were perched above it at 3000 miles, I really felt like if we had a lander, we could hop in it and go down to the surface of the moon. So I'm going to tell you unequivocally, I wish I could walk on the moon, but I'm also going to tell you that I can't wait to watch my friends walk on the moon. I've never been alive when that has happened, and I'm going to be cheering the loudest out of 9 billion people. You will hear me cheering when we do that. Nailed it.

What he said. Melanie Holt WFTV, Orlando I would like to know if any of you, and I'm sure you did learned anything during this mission, whether it be with the Orion spacecraft or anything else that you think will help the next team that are that are launching on Artemis III. You know, people keep asking us about favorites and or most profound, most scary. But all this and something I've been trying to get folks to do, is to think about the integration of all of it. When you add up every little thing, that is also something very special.

And so this entire experience to me is a testament. It is a reflection of, but also a motivating force for a change in culture. When we go back to the moon, it is not going to be like controlling an International Space Station mission. As good as we have gotten at that in 30 years, we we are going to have to do some things differently. One of the Apollo spacewalkers, Harrison Schmitt, who we just saw this week, last week used to say something to the classes going through training.

And Christina and I were together when he came over and said, you know, the crews that we send back to the moon, we're going to have to train them, trust them and turn them loose. And I will never forget that. And that is something we're moving towards with this mission. This taught us about ourselves, and it gave us context for how we're going to get to the surface of the moon and then get crew members walking at the South Pole. That is a very challenging mission set.

And we've got time for one final question. But we want to keep you guys on schedule. Of course. So. Well, the whole world follow your oh Alexis starting from Telemundo.

The whole world follow your journey around the moon. Right. And you're inspired. And a lot of people and the whole world celebrates you. So if Artemis is to is remembered for only one thing beyond go around the moon.

What do you hope that legacy will be? Togetherness. A-L a two going for all and by all. Perfect. See, we have time for one more.

Hi. Thanks for allowing a follow up. Will Robinson Smith again with Spaceflight Now tacking on to Mel's question of things, learning and passing on, one of the benefits of this mission was you got to take control of Orion, really experience it very tactfully. Can you speak to the importance of that, not only for this mission, but as you look forward to passing on the knowledge of manual control for the future crews that are going to be landing on the moon with these fantastical new landers. Thanks.

Well, you know, you're already like, my favorite reporter because you always give me these, like, nuggets. I love talking about flying this spaceship, and I actually have not done that a lot. So thanks for for tugging at that. I think this is only the second time I've spoken about it in post, or definitely this week. It was a fantastic vehicle to fly.

Often you develop sims and models and you build ops and it's over. Overestimated the capability. The the SIM is too powerful. It just. And then you fly the real thing and you start to find, you know, the cracks in the armor, you find the discontinuities.

And this was the inverse of that. The SIM was great to train the procedures. You saw how it was a four person activity. My hands were on the RHC, the rotational and translational controllers, but the entire crew was deeply engaged. In fact, the most stunning thing was a video Christina took on her iPhone that blew me away, that we were flying that close and it flew so much better than the SIM or in the areas where it was important.

The sim nailed it. It actually moved like the sim, but it sounded and felt differently. But in a positive sense, it was much more smooth. And so the the overall experience was actually fantastic. But my favorite thing about manual control of Orion on this mission was how important it is on our mission.

It was a developmental test objective, but on the next missions, it'll be a critical capability for NASA. Getting comfortable with that's actually docking to something you may not manually dock, but you might have to manually interrupt and stop it, like Butch and Sonny did on the CFT mission. And so the ability to interrupt is very important. And that capability, to me, if we had launched only done that and then come back to Earth, I would have considered it a full mission. Success.

Lunar science is super important. I'm so glad we moved the needle there, but this capability enables directly going to the surface of the moon. There was. I want to add one more thing. There was there were some interesting nuances on the Space Launch System, because we had an interim cryogenic propulsion stage on top of it that was almost kind of a commercial off the shelf stage, didn't really have any fancy bells and whistles, and then were on the European service module in Orion, which everyone flew, put their hands on the controls and really felt what the spacecraft feels like.

But we went through this with human ratings requirements in a slightly novel way, and I really hope NASA takes a second to look at that and move forward with that interim cryogenic propulsion stage. We had no control over it at all. Zero. We couldn't start it. We couldn't change its direction.

We couldn't tell it a new place to go. But if we needed to, we could get off of it. We could. We could shut down the motor and abort off of that upper stage. And I don't think for even one second any of us were uncomfortable with that philosophy.

It was a fine philosophy for that stage. And so really, if we want to go do these challenging things like landing on the moon, we we need to be able to accept a little bit more risk here, a little bit more risk of mission success here, and take some new novel ways to actually invoke manual control and manual flying, because it is going to take some novel approaches to get this job done. All right. Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Have a seat. Hang out for a second. Thank you again to the crew. We'll get you squared away and bring you all out for a group photo in just a moment.

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