'Chills': Artemis II astronauts say lunar flyby still gives them the shivers

(AFP) They took miles of photographs and documented numerous observations during their flight around the Moon, but as they neared home, the Artemis II astronauts said Wednesday they were just beginning to come to grips with the extraordinary experience.

Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA's Artemis II mission, gave an account of how what he experienced pushes the human mind to its limits.

"It's a real gift. And we have a lot to think about, write down and write about. Then we can fully feel what we just experienced," he said during a press conference from space.

The four astronauts, Americans Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Jeremy Hansen, set a record for distance from Earth during their lunar flyby.

The space crews spoke to the media less than two days before they are scheduled to land in the Pacific Ocean at the end of their 10-day odyssey around Earth's natural satellite.

"It didn't even begin to sink in what we've been through," Glover said. "We still have two more days to go, and going through the atmosphere aboard a fireball is also profound."

"I'm going to be thinking and talking about all this stuff for the rest of my life," he assured.

Wiseman said the solar eclipse was particularly poignant: "In fact, right now I have chills just thinking about it, my palms are sweating."

"Fragile planet"

When asked what they will miss about their experience in the vacuum of space, Koch pointed to "the camaraderie."

"I'll miss being so close to so many people and having a common purpose, a common mission, working hard at it every day hundreds of miles away with a team on the ground," he said.

"This sense of teamwork is something you don't often get, you know, as an adult," Koch added. "I mean we're as close as brothers. That's a privilege we'll never have again."

She said that even though they've been sharing a small space, and a malfunctioning toilet, for more than a week now, she doesn't think she's ready "for it to be over."

"This is all a package deal. We can't explore further unless we do some things that are uncomfortable, unless we make some sacrifices, unless we take some risks," she said. "All of those things are worth it."

Koch said the team has "loved living in Orion," their space capsule, even though the enclosure is cramped.

"It's bigger in microgravity," he joked, but "we're bumping into each other 100 percent of the time."

Hansen said he witnessed things "I had never imagined" while flying around the far side of the Moon. And he settled that his perspective on life remains the same: "We live on a fragile planet in the emptiness and nothingness of space."

"Our purpose on the planet as human beings is to find joy (...) and to encourage each other by creating solutions together instead of destroying," Hansen told reporters.

"When you see it from up here, that doesn't change. It just confirms it," he stressed.