Ten days that may change humanity ended this afternoon, with the successful splashdown of the Orion capsule carrying the valiant crew of Artemis II. I was a junior high school student the last time humans traveled to the moon and back (December 1972). Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have gone where no one has since.
Hansen comes from the Canadian Space Agency, and he is the first of his countrymen to go to the moon. The other three crewmembers are longstanding NASA astronauts—2009 for Wiseman; 2013 for Glover and Koch. All four are heroes tonight.
The spacecraft entered the atmosphere over Hawaii, making its splashdown in Pacific waters off the coast of San Diego. In theory, those of us living closer to the coast should have had a front-row seat, so to speak. My apartment is about 12 km (8 miles) from the ocean, and maybe less as the crow flies. I gathered with neighbors looking for some sign of the spacecraft. We saw nothing.
The first problem: Time of day and looking southwesterly into the late-day sun. The second: Construction obstruction. Over the past five years, high-rise apartments have come to dominate the horizon, which obscured our direct view westwardly. There are lookouts in the neighborhood with cleaner view. I should have gone to one of them.
The Featured Image is courtesy of NASA. Vitals: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1000mm, 1/4000 sec, -1/3 EV compensation; 5:07 p.m. PDT; Nikon D9.
Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls