Minutes before boarding the rocket, the Artemis II crew paused for one last ritual: a quick card game. They played “highest card wins” with NASA’s chief astronaut, Scott Tingle, following a long-standing astronaut tradition meant to shift attention away from anxiety and ward off bad luck.
By tradition the group keeps dealing until the chief astronaut loses a round, symbolically accepting the bad luck so the crew can head to the pad with a positive vibe. The moment is small and playful, but it helps create calm and camaraderie in the final minutes before launch.
Retired NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Cassidy—who flew three missions, logged 378 days in space and performed 10 spacewalks—told reporters the ritual has an important human purpose: it lets crews set aside nerves and superstition and leave Earth together as a cohesive team. Cassidy, who knows several members of the Artemis II team, praised their preparation and temperament and singled out Jeremy Hansen, who waited 17 years for this mission.
Cassidy offered a direct reminder to the crew: “Savor every moment.” He noted that views and experiences during a lunar test flight are rare and unforgettable, and that the pictures, descriptions and feelings the astronauts return with will shape how the public remembers the mission.
Beyond the ritual, Cassidy explained a key technical safeguard in Artemis II’s plan: the mission uses a free-return trajectory. After the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn that sends Orion out of Earth orbit, the spacecraft is placed on a path that uses the Moon’s gravity to bring it back toward Earth without requiring a large, immediate engine burn. That TLI burn provides the bulk of the energy needed to return; crews will still perform correction burns and mission tests, but the trajectory adds an extra margin of safety.
The card game sits at the intersection of superstition and tradition—a quiet, human moment before a highly technical operation. It helps crews bond and focus on the shared adventure rather than the uncertainty of launch.
For astronauts and spectators alike, those small rituals and the mission’s safeguards are part of what makes exploration meaningful: a mix of preparation, human connection and careful engineering that together carry people beyond Earth and back.