After months of anticipation, the monumental 10-day Artemis II mission, which sent four astronauts on a record-breaking flyby of the moon, has concluded. It’s a “mission well accomplished,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman just after splashdown.The Orion spacecraft, carrying NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 8:07 p.m. ET Friday.The mission has provided unprecedented images of the moon and a special solar eclipse from space — and afforded unique windows into what it’s like to live inside a campervan-size capsule for a week and a half with three of your closest friends.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe crewmates have shared plenty of live views from inside Orion while working out and enjoying their meals, as well as candid thoughts on what they might bring next time, such as warmer sleeping bags and a spare computer (since one of theirs hasn’t been working properly).The Artemis II crew (clockwise from left), Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover, takes time out for a group hug inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home. – NASAEloquent words of wisdom, as well as “moon joy,” moments of silliness and extreme poignancy, such as naming a lunar crater after Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, have also drawn people around the world to connect with this spaceflight in a way that just feels different than any other mission.As the astronauts often repeated, this was a test flight, and everything they did was an experiment to prepare for future missions. As NASA reviews the data and sets its sights toward Artemis III, here are five takeaways from the 10-day journey that carried Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen farther into space than any other human before.Orion still needs some fine-tuningAs would be expected, this test flight turned up several issues that need to be addressed — including the unserious and the potentially detrimental.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe toilet has been one sticking point that’s left the astronauts dismaye …
