man has never been this far in space

Apollo 13’s record was broken by the crew of the Artemis II mission: a person has never been as far from planet Earth as now, reported the The New York Times. The record setting took place a few minutes before 8:00 PM Hungarian time, as the Orion spacecraft carrying the four astronauts was at that time more than 248,655 miles away from the Earth – this is how far the 1970 Apollo mission was from the planet.

Today you are crossing this border, for the benefit of all humanity.

Jenni Gibson, who is managing the mission from Earth, told the astronauts. Commander Reid Wiseman, who led the crew, paid his respects to the former astronauts who made a lasting impact on space exploration after the record breaking.

We continue our journey into even further space before Mother Earth pulls us back to all that is dear to us.

– said Wiseman, who also challenged the next generation to break the newly set record as soon as possible and travel even further in space.

NASA’s latest lunar mission began last week, Thursday night Hungarian time. The crew of four – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch ⁠and Jeremy Hansen – will approach and circle the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, and then return to Earth in four days.

https://hvg.hu/360/20260401_artemis-ii-holdprogram-orion-urhajo-start-aprilisban

Opening image: Handout / NASA / AFP.