When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.Credit: Inset crew images: NASA, graphic created in Canva ProWhat do astronauts near the moon do when it’s time to talk to their colleagues orbiting the Earth on a livestream?They talk a lot about the view and food, apparently.Astronauts aboard Artemis 2 and International Space Station (ISS) astronauts shared in a call broadcast live (audio only) on April 7, spanning the vast distance between Earth and the moon distance. NASA later released the video version with edits to align the audio with the video and remove pauses, highlighting the first-ever ship-to-ship call between crews so far apart.ISS crew (top): Christopher Williams, Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot. Artemis 2 crew (bottom): Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman. | Credit: NASAIt’s hard to translate into metaphors just how far the crews were from each other. But looking at the Artemis 2 and Earth distance alone, it was the equivalent distance of sailing between Boston and the Panama Canal, a mind-blowing 92 times, based on distances provided by NOAA. That’s roughly 232,141 miles (373,595 km) apart, according to the crew during the livestream.AdvertisementAdvertisementBut even from so far away, the crews shared companionship.”It’s fun to be up in space with you at the same time,” said the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, who waited 17 years for his spaceflight (or should we say, moonflight?) aboard Artemis 2.”We know how fortunate all of us are as humans, to come up here and look down at the Earth from above,” answered NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, on her second long-term ISS stay as a part of Expedition 74. “We really wanted to hear what that felt like — how different that felt — now from your new perspective around the moon.”Next at the mic, moonside, was NASA’s Christina Koch, who performed the first, second and third all-woman spacewalks with Meir at the ISS in 2019, during Expedition 61. “We do miss the ISS,” said Koch, speaking also on behalf of Artemis 2’s Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, who flew to the orbiting complex on separate NASA missions in 2014 and 2020-21, respectively.AdvertisementAdvertisement”The views there [at the ISS] are awesome. Being able to see specific places, being able to see your home, specifically … I miss them every day, almost,” Koch continued. “The thing that changed for me, looking back at Earth, was that I found myself noticing not only the beauty of the Earth, but how much blackness there was around it — and how it just made it even more special.”It truly emphasized how alike we are,” she said, “how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive. We evolved on the same planet. We have some shared things about how we love and live that are just universal, and the specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized when you notice how much else there is around it.”The crew of Artemis 2 share a group hug on Flight Day 7 of their 10-day journey. | Credit: NASATo a follow-up about how ISS experience comes in useful at the moon, Koch first shared that she had “sat console” at NASA’s mission control in March, while Meir and Christopher Williams were getting ready to do a solar array prep spacewalk on March 18. (Artemis 2’s astronauts had completed their training at this point, and the crew was awaiting their delayed mission liftoff on April 1, which is presumably how Koch found the time.)”I was just filled with pride,” Koch said of watching the suit-up, as Meir and Williams exchanged a high-five on camera. “But it also really re-instilled in me those flight operations principles that we live by, in a real-time, high-dynamic and risky environment. So having that kind of impression in my mind right before this [Artemis 2] flight was huge, and basically, every single thing that we learned on ISS is up here. And then, of course, there’s the funny and practical: how to eat, how to do silly things with water, how to flip around. We’re bringing that with us, too.”AdvertisementAdvertisementWith Koch’s comments finished, Wiseman quickly grabbed the mic to speak with Williams. “I’ve just got to add, C, that just before you launched, you said you can’t wait to talk to us on the space-to-ground [loop]. And it is happening, brother. I cannot believe it.””Face to face, we said,” Meir responded, referring to the video between the astronauts, before she handed the mic to Williams.”Yeah, I can’t believe it,” Williams said. “I me …
