Artemis II sets new human distance record as Fred Haise reflects on Apollo 13

Artemis II has set a new record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, reaching 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from the planet during its circumlunar flight. The mission surpassed the previous record set by Apollo 13 in April 1970, when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise reached 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) from Earth.

The new milestone comes as NASA moves closer to returning astronauts to the Moon. Between 1968 and 1972, 24 astronauts visited the Moon on Apollo missions, and 12 walked on its surface. Five of those Moon travelers are still alive, all now in their 90s. Artemis II adds four new names to the list of lunar explorers, although its crew did not land.

The Artemis II astronauts, all in their 40s or 50s, flew a little more than 4,000 miles from the Moon, higher above the surface than the Apollo lunar missions. NASA officials, astronauts, and space enthusiasts hope the Artemis II distance record will not stand as long as Apollo 13's did.

Whether the record will soon be broken is unclear. Artemis II followed a free-return trajectory, using the Moon's gravity to send the Orion capsule back toward Earth for reentry. Future lunar landing missions may not travel as far from Earth because they are expected to rendezvous with landers closer to the Moon.

The Moon's orbit around Earth complicates any prediction. It is not circular, and the distance between the centers of the Earth and Moon varies between about 225,800 and 252,000 miles (363,400 to 405,500 kilometers). The Sun's gravity continually alters the orbit. At times, the Moon's apogee stretches as far as 252,727 miles (406,725 kilometers), although that extreme only occurs about once every 5,000 years. The orbit does, however, come close to that distance more regularly.

NASA had planned to use the Gateway mini-space station in a near-rectilinear halo orbit ranging from about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) to 43,500 miles (70,000 kilometers) from the Moon. That architecture could have allowed astronauts to travel farther from Earth than Artemis II. NASA has now canceled Gateway and is shifting its focus toward building a base on the lunar surface, where astronauts could harvest resources such as water, live in partial gravity, and test technologies for future Mars expeditions.

NASA has not yet selected a new orbit for Artemis crews and Orion to rendezvous with human-rated landers, but the meeting point is expected to be closer to the Moon. Orion's service module does not have the performance needed to enter a low lunar orbit like those used by Apollo and still return safely to Earth. NASA's decision will depend on Orion's capabilities, the performance of the Space Launch System upper stage, and the ability of Human Landing System vehicles from SpaceX or Blue Origin to travel between that orbit and the lunar surface.

The article's conclusion is that astronauts probably will not exceed Artemis II's distance from Earth on most future lunar landing missions. Still, in some cases orbital circumstances might align to send a crew slightly beyond the 252,756-mile mark. A Mars mission would be the more certain way to set a new record.

Fred Haise, now 92 and the only living Apollo 13 astronaut, said the old distance record held little meaning for him. Apollo 13's record, he said, was largely a byproduct of the Moon being farther from Earth at the time of the mission and of his crew passing only slightly above a normal lunar orbit.

"Somebody figured out how to get it in Guinness to make us feel better because we didn’t land. That was the big disappointment," Haise said. "I hoped to walk on the Moon, and that went away."

Haise said he had not closely followed Artemis II in real time, noting that he had just returned from his great-grandson's baseball game when speaking with Ars. He said he had seen the crew's photographs and praised their quality, saying Artemis II had better cameras and equipment than Apollo.

He also reflected on the timing of the mission's return. "When they splash down Friday, if you go to the next day, Saturday, the 11th, that’s when I launched, 56 years ago," he said.

Asked whether he was surprised the Apollo 13 record had lasted so long, Haise pointed to inconsistent US government support for human spaceflight. He said many citizens mistakenly assume NASA can simply choose to pursue any mission it wants, without recognizing that space programs depend on congressional funding and annual budget cycles.

Haise noted that NASA spent nearly 25 or 30 years developing Orion and that Artemis I flew two-and-a-half years ago without a crew. He contrasted that with Apollo, which he described as the only program fully funded from presidential approval through Congress until it reached its goal of landing on the Moon before the end of the decade.

He recalled the pace of Apollo launches, saying NASA launched every two months from Apollo 7 through Apollo 11. After the first lunar landing, schedules began slipping. Apollo 12 moved from September to November, and Apollo 13 was delayed until the following April because of budget cuts.

On the subject of Artemis, Haise said faster progress would be possible if the program were fully planned and funded. "If you fund it, you can go accomplish it," he said. "There’s no magic to it. It’s just you need to apply the money and the resources, the right people, the right engineering, and you can do it."

Haise also reflected on Apollo 13's passage around the Moon after the spacecraft's in-flight explosion. He said the crew had to use the Lunar Module engine to redirect their path home, first to loop around the Moon and then to shorten the return trip by 10 to 12 hours because the Lunar Module did not have enough power to remain fully active for the full journey.

After one of those burns, Haise said he and Jack Swigert took photographs while Jim Lovell, already having orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, was less interested. Haise expressed hope that Artemis II obtained good images near the lunar south pole, where NASA hopes astronauts will one day land and build a base near water ice deposits.

Haise said he had previously met several Artemis II astronauts, including Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch. He recounted meeting Koch at a memorial event for Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden and later at an event hosted by Jeffrey Lovell to support the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

He also mentioned that Jim Lovell, before his death last year, had recorded a message for the Artemis II crew with his children Jeffrey and Susan. That message was read to the astronauts during the mission.

For Haise, the central value of Artemis II was not its imagery or even its record-setting distance, but its role as a test flight. He emphasized that no one had previously flown on the rocket and no human had ridden in that capsule before.

"This was a test flight," Haise said. "Who rode the rocket before? Nobody. How many humans have ridden in that capsule? Nobody. So they tested the capsule … to make sure it’s OK, testing all its variety of systems and making sure everything is working. To me, it was a great test pilot mission."

Haise said Apollo 13 now resonates with younger generations as a survival story. "Apollo 13, to young people, when they hear a little bit about the story in school, it’s like a folktale, a survival folktale," he said. "Apollo 13 has gotten to be in the same class as that. That makes it interesting."