Out past the silence

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next, a new record in space flight.

The astronauts on the Artemis II mission traveled farther into space on Monday than any other humans have gone. They snapped pictures of the moon and scoped out a place for NASA to land a spacecraft in the future.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: The four astronauts on the newly christened Integrity spacecraft dimmed the lights and aimed their cameras at the moon as they waited to break the record.

Then mission control came on the radio again:

MISSION CONTROL: Integrity crew, on April 15, 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission, three explorers set the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet… Today, for all humanity, you're pushing beyond that frontier. Integrity, over to you.

CAPTIAN WISEMAN: From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors… but we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.

The crew planned to travel over 250,000 miles away from Earth. That’s about two thousand miles past Apollo 13’s record. As of last evening, NASA had not confirmed the exact distance traveled.

For the next few hours, the Integrity crew took pictures of the moon from about 4,000 miles away.

ASTRONAUT: It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye on the moon right now, it's just unbelievable.

NASA says the human eyes of the astronauts may be able to pick up different aspects of the moon’s surface than their cameras can. So they documented everything they saw.

At 6:44 Eastern Time, the Astronauts approached the far side of the moon and entered a zone where they couldn’t communicate with Mission Control.

MISSION CONTROL: From all of us, it's a privilege to witness you carrying the fire past our farthest reach. Thank you. Godspeed.

ASTRONAUT: Thank you for that, Jenny… Christ said in response to what was the greatest command, that it was to love God with all that you are, and He also said the second is equal to it, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself. And so, as we prepare to go out of radio communication, we're still able to feel your love from Earth. And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you from the moon.

For about 40 minutes, the astronauts were completely cut off. They could not communicate with—or even see their home planet.

During that time, they reached their farthest point away from Earth and their closest point to the moon.

And at around 7:25 pm, as the astronauts gazed out the windows of their Orion capsule, Earth emerged from behind the moon.

ASTRONAUT: Houston, Integrity. Com check.

MISSION CONTROL: Integrity, we have you loud and clear.

ASTRONAUT: Houston, we have you the same, and it is so great to hear from Earth again.

On Sunday, the four celebrated Easter. Pilot Victor Glover is a Christian and shared a message from space.

GLOVER: I'm trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special in all of this emptiness...

He said seeing Earth from space made him realize how few differences there are between nations and cultures, and that living together on one planet is special.

GLOVER: This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call The Universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.

The crew now heads back toward Earth with plans to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday off the coast of San Diego.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.