HOUSTON — Four astronauts traveling back to Earth from the far side of the moon on National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Artemis II mission spoke of their emotions as they wrapped up the unprecedented flight and prepared to re-enter the atmosphere in a “fireball,” during their first press conference from space on Wednesday.

The Artemis II crew, flying in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, are due to splash down off the Southern California coast on Friday evening after reaching the moon earlier this week. They cruised along a path that took them past the shadowed, lunar far side to become the farthest-flying humans in history.

On the trip back home, they will reach speeds of up to 23,839 miles per hour (38,365 kilometers per hour) as they enter Earth’s atmosphere, a high-risk phase of the mission that will put Orion’s heat shield to the test as it gets battered by intense atmospheric friction.

“I’ve actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023 when we got assigned to this mission,” said Artemis II mission pilot Victor Glover, when asked how he was feeling about the return.

“There’s so many more pictures, so many more stories, and gosh, I haven’t even begun to process what we’ve been through. We’ve still got two more days, and riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well.”

Mr. Glover and fellow NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are the first wave of astronauts in a multibillion-dollar series of missions under the Artemis program that aims to return humans to the moon’s surface by 2028 before China, and establish a long-term US presence over the next decade, building a moon base for potential future missions to Mars.

Ms. Koch cast the mission series as a relay race, telling reporters: “In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize, physically, that.”

“We plan to hand them to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them in mind,” she said.

That next mission, Artemis III, will involve a docking test in low-Earth orbit between the Orion capsule and both astronaut lunar landers that NASA plans to use to put its astronauts on the moon in later missions.

Artemis IV, targeted for 2028, would be the program’s first crewed lunar landing, and the first since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Back on Earth, dozens of lunar scientists have been packed in rooms adjacent to NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston this week, scribbling down notes and debating a steady stream of both real-time and recorded audio from the Artemis II astronaut crew in their Orion spacecraft.

SPLASHDOWN
The crew is due to return to Earth on Friday around 8 p.m. ET (0000 GMT Saturday), splashing down off the coast of San Diego, California to cap their nearly 10-day mission.

The four astronauts on Monday had reached a record-breaking distance from Earth of roughly 252,000 miles, surpassing by some 4,000 miles the previous record held by the Apollo 13 crew for 56 years.

Mr. Wiseman, Artemis II mission commander, told reporters the crew each had two “very brief” chats with their families during the mission.

“Hearing your crew mates giggling and crying, and just gasping and listening and loving their families from afar — family is so important to all four of us, and that has been amazing,” he said.

In a radio message to mission control in Houston on Monday, as the crew approached their closest distance to the lunar surface, Mr. Hansen suggested naming a fresh crater on the moon in honor of Mr. Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.

Mr. Wiseman told reporters his crewmates approached him with that idea to name the crater Carroll while they were in quarantine before launching to space.

“That was an emotional moment for me,” Mr. Wiseman said. “I said ‘Absolutely, I would love that…’ but I can’t give the speech. I can’t give the talk.”

In the mission’s sixth day, Mr. Hansen choked up as he made the suggestion to mission control in what was a tear-jerking moment for many NASA staff in Houston.

The astronauts broke their distance record during the lunar flyby in which they surveyed the moon’s surface from roughly 4,000 miles above

Advances in lunar science have typically relied on lunar-orbiting satellites and Earth-based observations. But the crew’s six-hour lunar flyby provided a real-time stream of scientific collections from human eyes, allowing rare back-and-forth discussions between teams on the ground and their fellow scientists over 252,000 miles away in deep space.

Scientists see NASA’s Artemis II mission as an important early step in unlocking mysteries about the solar system’s formation. The moon, Artemis II mission specialist Ms. Koch said before launching to space last week, is a “witness plate” to the formation of our solar system. — Reuters

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s parliament should pass a stalled special defense budget to send a signal to China and the world that it is serious about peace through strength, US Senator Jim Banks said during a meeting with President Lai Ching-te in Taipei.

Mr. Lai last year proposed $40 billion in extra defense spending to counter China, which views the island as its own territory.

Parliament, where the opposition has a majority, is continuing to debate the government’s plan and competing, less expensive proposals.

According to a video of the meeting provided by Mr. Lai’s office, Mr. Banks, a Republican who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told him on Wednesday that the Taiwanese president was providing leadership in expanding defense spending similar to that of US President Donald J. Trump, who has proposed $1.5 trillion in defense spending.

“But your Legislative Yuan has to do its part and pass the special budget, and that’s one message that I want to send to your leadership,” Mr. Banks added, using the formal name for Taiwan’s parliament.

“When you pass the special budget in the legislature, that is a signal to China, and to the rest of the world, that Taiwan is serious about peace through strength,” he said. “I appreciate President Lai’s leadership in making that happen.”

Mr. Banks was one of a group of 37 bipartisan US lawmakers who in February wrote to senior Taiwanese politicians expressing concern about parliament stalling defense spending plans.

A separate group of US lawmakers gave a similar message urging parliament to pass the defense spending during a visit to Taipei last week.

Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), is currently on a visit to China where she could meet President Xi Jinping.

The KMT says it supports defense spending but will not sign “blank cheques” and that dialogue with Beijing is equally important.

Mr. Lai told Mr. Banks that Taiwan “loved peace” but only strength could ensure it.

“Taiwan is willing to engage in dialogue, but no engagement can come at the cost of sacrificing democracy, freedom, and national interests,” he added.

China refuses to speak to Mr. Lai, saying he is a “separatist.” He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. — Reuters

TOKYO — Japan is considering a new release of about 20 days’ worth of oil reserves as early as May, Kyodo reported on Thursday, amid uncertainty over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz despite a US-Iran ceasefire.

Japan, dependent on the Middle East for some 95% of its oil supply, began releasing oil from its stockpiles on March 16 in coordination with other nations and on its own.

In total, Japan is making available about 50 days’ worth of oil consumption and has asked the International Energy Agency to consider a coordinated release of a second batch.

It now has enough oil for 230 days in its reserves.

On Tuesday, US President Donald J. Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran on condition that Tehran reopened the Strait of Hormuz, but the vital waterway that normally carries about 20% of the world’s oil supply remains largely shut.

As a resumption of safe navigation in the Strait of Hormuz is uncertain, an additional release of oil is under consideration to stabilize supply, Kyodo quoted an unnamed official as saying.

Asked about the report, Narumi Hosokawa, deputy director-general for immediate crisis management at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), told reporters the ministry continues to examine the situation.

With less crude oil available, Japanese refineries cut utilization rates to 67.7% of designed capacity in the week to April 4, the lowest since June.

To help cope with the energy supply crisis, Japan has started searching for non-Middle Eastern barrels, rolled out gasoline subsidies and stepped up coal-fired generation to reduce the need for liquefied natural gas supplies, which have also been cut due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

While Japan has secured enough crude oil and naphtha for the country as a whole, there are supply imbalances and distribution bottlenecks in some areas, a METI document released on Thursday said. — Reuters