Updated on: April 4, 2026 / 8:38 PM EDT / CBS News
Despite recurring toilet troubles, the Artemis II astronauts said Saturday they were struck by the sight of Earth shrinking behind them and the moon growing ahead — a view only a tiny number of people have ever had.
Pilot Victor Glover said approaching the moon over the Easter weekend made him reflect on “the beauty of creation,” and on Earth as an “oasis” in an otherwise vast emptiness. He told CBS News that being far from home highlights how special Earth is. “You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe,” Glover said. He urged people to recognize their value within the cosmos: “You are special in all of this emptiness.”
Commander Reid Wiseman, Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen joined hands as they absorbed the moment while continuing toward the moon. Koch said seeing Earth alone in the window brought a deep sense of gratitude. “When I saw Earth for the first time on its own out the window, I was struck by the blackness around it,” she said. Wiseman later reported high morale aboard and described sunlight streaming into the windows and a thin crescent Earth glinting with ocean and clouds.
Spacecraft communicator Jacki Mahaffey at Johnson Space Center told the crew early Saturday that, as of 30 seconds earlier, they were closer to the moon than to Earth. The crew noted telemetry showing they were roughly 118,000 nautical miles from the moon and were enjoying views through Orion’s docking hatch.
The spacecraft is scheduled to loop behind the far side of the moon Monday evening before beginning the return trip. On the far side they will pass at an altitude of about 4,100 miles, with close approach expected at 7:03 p.m. EDT. Although satellites have mapped the lunar far side in detail, the Artemis II crew will have a rare opportunity for human-led observation. Kelsey Young, a lunar researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the crew’s months of training should enable them to collect scientifically valuable observations as they near the moon.
Orion is performing well overall, and a planned trajectory correction firing was canceled for a second day in a row after analysis showed the spacecraft remained on a near-perfect path. Wiseman and Glover planned to take turns manually piloting Orion to help engineers assess in-flight handling and provide feedback for future Artemis missions. The crew also planned to review video and camera mapping plans for the lunar far side.
The mission’s most publicized hiccup has been intermittent problems with the onboard toilet. Flight controllers have occasionally instructed the crew to use contingency collapsible urinals (CCUs) — reusable, sealable plastic containers for urine that can be vented to space later — instead of the toilet. Early Saturday, controllers could not dump stored urine overboard, possibly because a vent line had frozen, and the crew were told to use their CCUs.
Later, controllers reoriented Orion so sunlight could warm the vent line in a “bake out” designed to thaw any ice. That effort was partially successful: the vent warmed but the tank did not fully empty. Flight Director Judd Frieling said the toilet can handle urine (“number one”) at the moment, but the team is keeping tanks only half full until the vent issue is resolved; “it’s still go for number two,” he added.
Mission Management Team Chairman John Honeycutt said the public focus on the toilet is natural. “Everybody knows how important that is to us here on Earth, and it’s harder to manage in space,” he said, adding that the crew are trained to manage such situations. Veteran astronaut Don Pettit explained on X that a CCU works by controlling the urine-air interface with capillary forces and replaces what would otherwise be about 25 pounds of diapers on a mission.
Aside from the plumbing challenge, the Artemis II crew reported high spirits, spectacular views and meaningful scientific and human milestones as they continue the lunar-bound journey.