The bottom line: Astronauts likely won’t exceed Artemis II’s distance from Earth on lunar landing missions, but in some cases it’s conceivable that conditions will align to take the crew just beyond the 252,756-mile mark. A sure bet will come when someone finally targets Mars.
“Big disappointment”
Haise, the only surviving Apollo 13 astronaut, didn’t care much about the record he and his crewmates set in 1970. It was a consolation prize of sorts for Haise. You probably know The story of the Apollo 13 lunar landing abort and the round-the-clock, high-cost effort to bring the crew home.
Still, of the more than 100 billion people who have roamed the Earth in human history, the Artemis II astronauts fared the most from the cradle. Sure, it’s not walking on the moon, but it’s more than a piece of trivia.
Hayse II Artemis, 92, spoke to Ars earlier this month while returning to Earth. Below is our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
Ars: How closely did you follow the Artemis II mission?
Fred Haise: Not real close. I haven’t seen anything today. I just got home from my grandson’s baseball game. From their projected flight plan, I saw that they passed the Moon, sort of headed back to Earth for re-entry. I’ve seen their pictures, they’re great. They have better cameras and better equipment than we had on Apollo, because really, they seem to have gotten much higher quality pictures than we were able to get from that altitude.
Ars: I guess this all brings back some memories for you.
Smell: Uncertain. When they jump on Friday, if you jump to the next day, Saturday, 11, that’s when I launched 56 years ago. So, yeah, I’ve had a couple of lifetimes, the Shuttle program, then the business world. It was a long time ago.
