Wow. It was an amazing thing that happened! The Artemis crew went off into space, circled the moon, and returned safely. They were at a fairly high altitude from the lunar surface, so in completing their mission, they became the humans that went the farthest from Earth - ever. The Apollo 13 astronauts were much closer to the lunar surface, so Artemis now holds the distinction.
They had a bit of a side mission to catalog as much of the moon as they could see, documeting, and taking photos and videos. Many of the photos were beamed back to Earth in near-real time, so we could see them before the crew landed. They also took a now 50-year-old tradition, which was started with the first Apollo mission to the moon, and had the opportunity to name a crater. Commander Reid's wife had died somewhat recently. and the other three crew decided that the crater would be named after his late wife. Which was simply heartwarming.
We now have most of the moon captured in images, which is pretty cool. We also got some amazing views of Earth - and in somei, the sun was eclipsed by the Earth!
But the one thing that got me was how spoiled we've become. We had real time video and audio coming back from the crew (in actuality, its delayed by about 1.5 seconds each way, but that's less than the delay on terrestrial TV broadcasts which is about 7 seconds). We lost contact with the crew as they went behind the moon, because the transmission waves follow a straight line, and the moon was blocking those waves. That was totally expected.
What was more surprising was that the transmission cut out as the spacecraft re-entered Earth's atmosphere. That's due to the plasma buildup on the vehicle. But, with SpaceX missions, we have a constant live view and can see the plasma buildup. And the reason for that is because SpaceX is using its starlink satellites to receive the transmission and beam that to Earth. NASA doesn't have that capability. And I admit I missed it.
In fact, the entirety of the return and recovery felt very much like the Apollo missions. You had grainy footage (with terrible white balance) from aircraft in the area. You had "visualizations" that showed us what was happening (rather than the real thing). You had a distant view from a ship when it splashed down. And when they recovered the crew, they sent helicopters to fish them off of what amounts to a life raft, and hoisted them up and took them to a waiting ship. Compare that with the SpaceX returns that have a recovery ship that quickly goes to retrieve the capsule and haul it onboard; astronauts then are helped onto the ship without the extra steps involved.
Anyway, it was totally amazing. And to the science deniers who say we've never left Earth, I say: suck it.
