I followed the journey of the 4 astronauts on the Artemis II mission, from their moments in space to the splashdown on Earth at exactly 5:07:27 PT. right through to their extraction and I’ve been sitting with what it stirred in me.
Seven things stayed with me:
🩷First, a deeper reverence for God.
I found myself in awe. Sir, I marvel at the work of Your hands. The Universe. Galaxies. Our Galaxy. The Solar System. The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, Earth, the planets, and yet, You know me by name. We learn about these things by Science, Physics, Engineering, yes. but ultimately, all sustained by God.
💙 Second, a renewed understanding of the order of creation. Everything has a role. The sun shows up. The moon stays in its place. Space holds its structure. No noise or competition, just quiet consistency.
💜Thirdly, perspective.
We see the Moon almost every night, yet it sits about 384,400 km away. A spacecraft would take about 3 days to get there. A commercial airplane would take 18–20 days of nonstop flight. It puts into perspective how vast and how intentional creation is.
💚 Fourth, the people.
The courage of those who give their lives to advancing science. These astronauts understand the risks to launch, orbit, re-entry, and still, they go. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch. Jeremy Hansen; 50, 49, 47, 50. A reminder that age is not a limitation, it’s a badge of honour. A call to do even greater things.
💙Fifth, priorities.
No country is perfect, but there are higher things to commit to. Beyond noise, beyond handouts, distractions, there is meaningful work that moves humanity forward.
💙 Sixth, collaboration.
The precision, preparation, the people.
Teams trained hard, ground crew, engineers, recovery team, all working in sync. Excellence is never accidental. It is built, layer by layer, by many hands, and credit is shared.
💛 Seventh, awareness.
This is happening in my lifetime.
Not a story I read in a book, but a journey I followed in real time. And now, I don’t see the moon the same way. Or the sky. Or even the Earth.
Grateful for their safe return & perspective.
Let’s make the world a better place.
For the first time in over 50 years, humans are Moonbound.
At 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 UTC) NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft lifted off from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending four astronauts on a planned test flight around the Moon and back. https://t.co/0Q9ZB4IWVI
Last night, NASA launched a 10-day moonbound mission called Artemis II.
This mission is a journey of 1 MILLION KILOMETERS. It is a figure-eight trajectory, looping out from Earth, around the Moon, and back again.
It is a test mission for the next lunar exploration by Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, which will be conducted by a SpaceX spaceship.
The last lunar exploration (Apollo 17) happened 53 years ago (December 1972).
You can track the 10-day Artemis II Mission here:
https://t.co/Rf3ybxssUr
Godspeed.