Kaleidoscope of Randomness

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

The moon’s not white! It’s concrete-gray! It only looks so shiny when compared to the void of space!

…The satellite also provides early warning of bad “space weather” and does much other specialized weather-oriented stuff. Here’s the NOAA’s info page about it.

How far ar they? As of Monday, April 6, 2026, the Artemis II crew has officially broken the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth. 

The milestone was reached at approximately 1:57 p.m. ET as the Orion spacecraft, carrying astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, surpassed the long-standing record set by the Apollo 13 crew 56 years ago. 

The Numbers

The Artemis II mission is utilizing a "free-return trajectory" that takes them significantly deeper into space than the Apollo missions.

Apollo 13 reached distance of 248,655 miles (400,171 km) in 1970.

Artemis II reached distance of ~252,760 miles (406,770 km).

Why is this happening now?

While the Apollo 13 crew held the record for over five decades, they only achieved it because their aborted moon landing forced them into a wide loop around the far side of the moon to return home. 

The Artemis II crew is deliberately following a similar high-altitude flyby. At their peak distance—which occurred earlier today—they were roughly 4,100 miles (6,600 km) further from Earth than Jim Lovell and his crew were in 1970. 

A Quick Perspective

To put that distance in perspective, the astronauts are currently.

More than 1,000 times farther away than the International Space Station (ISS).

Far enough away that the Earth appears as a small, fragile "marble" in the blackness, and the Moon looks like a basketball held at arm's length. 

As Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed back shortly before hitting the mark: "It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye... I challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived."

Credit: Brave Artemis crew, NASA

"Copy. Moon joy."

"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”

"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon."

"We just went sci fi."

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”

"Amaze amaze amaze."

"I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true."

"Christina has been sleeping head down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat"

"It's really fun to be floatin' around, it just makes me feel like a little kid."

"Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful."

"'Homo Sapiens' is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people."

"I'm proud to call myself the Space Plumber."

"We were all eagerly awaiting the chorus."

"Copy heart. Copy bracelet."

“Welcome back. We are still here. They are in space.”

"Copy. Bubble wrap nominal."

"We have rediscovered the chocolate snacks."

But yeah that seems very obvious.

It's probably already been spread around here enough already, but in case anyone's missed it; 7 hours after launch, commander Reid Wiseman, dealing with tech issues, uttered the generational quote "I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working."

After fixing the issues that were afflicting the onboard toilet, mission specialist Christina Koch (who has quickly become my favourite of the four) laughingly said “I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”

On Easter Sunday, the Artemis II crew hosted a makeshift egg hunt, by hiding packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs around their Orion capsule.

The way the crew always makes sure to make it very clear they're in space when doing interviews. From stuff like Wiseman just hanging out floating sideways on screen or Koch letting her hair loose so it can freely span out flowing around her.

While in transit, the crew decided to record a parody of those bad 80s sitcom intros where everyone turns and smiles at the camera.

When the crew reached the furthest point from Earth in the mission, they jokingly clambored over each other in an effort to get to the far side of the capsule, so that they could individually claim to be the furthest person from earth.

At the same time, on the ISS which was at the time on the other side of earth, the 7 astronauts onboard had a light-hearted race to the far side of the station, making jokes about being the furthest humans from Artemis.

On the way back to earth, NASA actually managed to establish an audio call between the crews of the ISS and Artemis II (where they shared the above info), and Koch called one member of the ISS crew, Jessica Meir, her "astro-sister" as the two of them previously spacewalker together in 2019. Meir then responded I'm so happy that we are back in space together, even if we are a few miles apart" (a few here being 230,000).