Perspective creates possibility

Artemis II returned safely to earth on Friday. It was the first crewed mission around the Moon in more than 50 years. The crew members included Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen.

The mission launched on April 1st, completed its lunar flyby on April 6th, travelled a record 252,756 miles from Earth, and then splashed down off the coast of San Diego on April 10th. Sometimes I think it’s pretty wild that I can go on a business trip from Canada to Australia for 10 days, but going on a trip around the moon for 10 days is a whole other level of cool.

Along the journey, the Artemis II crew saw both ‘Earthset’ and ‘Earthrise’ from the Moon, passed behind the Moon during a planned communications blackout, and returned with a much more emotional, human tone than the usual technical mission language.

For starters, even being one of a handful of people to ever witness an Earthset is incredible. I mean, sunsets and sunrises are pretty damn special… many of us can only imagine an Earthset. So let’s take a breath to appreciate the most remarkable moments of the mission for their lessons in resilience and life.

1. The Earthset / Earthrise moment
   The crew saw Earthset as Earth dropped below the lunar horizon, then later experienced Earthrise on the other side. The world we think is enormous suddenly becomes small, fragile, and shared. From the vantage point such a huge distance from our home, Christina Koch described Earth as a “tiny lifeboat” and said the mission deepened her sense that humanity is one collective crew. It must have been a strange feeling to see everyone we know and love in one picture frame of a small sphere hovering over the horizon.

2. Breaking the distance record
   The crew became the farthest humans ever from Earth. What a magnificent metaphor for growth! Each day is an opportunity to do something we’ve never done before, constantly pushing boundaries in new ways that we might only dream about today. All it takes is the courage to go a little bit further than we went yesterday.

3. The blackout behind the Moon
   As the crew passed behind the Moon, they entered a planned communications blackout for about 40 minutes. Alone from everyone they knew, it was a poignant moment of separation, but also readiness for the moment of return. Right before they dropped out of range, one of the crew said: “As we prepare to go out of radio communication, we’re still going to feel your love from Earth. We will see you on the other side.” A special moment that demonstrated a sense of calm in uncertainty and trust in the process.

4. The crater-naming moment
   It was an emotional moment when the crew asked permission to provisionally name two craters: one Integrity after their spacecraft, and one Carroll in honour of Reid Wiseman’s late wife. It added a whole new dimension to the mission, evolving it from ‘historic achievement’ to a human moment that included love, grief, and creating a more personal meaning.

5. The splashdown and re-entry tension
   The crew returned through Earth’s atmosphere at blistering speed to splash down safely. At their top speed, they had to endure temperatures around 5000 degrees Fahrenheit (which is roughly half the heat of the sun’s surface!). With this moment coming at the very end of the mission, it was another reminder that we must always prepare until the very end and that the return is often just as intense as the climb.

“It’s a special thing to be a human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.” 
- Reid Wiseman

There’s a lot of different quotes out there from the mission, but this is the one I paid the most attention to. It came from the press conference over the weekend as Wiseman was on stage, trying to describe what he felt seeing Earth from the faraway distance. It’s a line filled with immense perspective and gratitude for who we are and what we have.

And it’s also a highly resilient perspective: when we get far enough away, we can see what is truly precious, what is temporary, and what does not deserve to own so much of our emotional energy.

Here are a few ways to bring these ideas to life this coming week:

1. Is it really a big deal?
   When something spikes our stress, let’s rate it honestly. Is it life-changing, day-changing, or just moment-changing? A lot of what steals our peace is only fleeting, but we treat it like it’s fate. The question I like to ask is “will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 years?” Time is a powerful perspective tool. It helps us stop feeding temporary problems permanent emotion.

2. Find the wider frame.
   Before reacting, we should ask what else might be true. Yes, this is hard, and maybe I am tired, and maybe the other person is under pressure too, and maybe there is still a solution in there somewhere. Resilience grows when we open up the narrow open the whole window to see what’s there. Zoom out and things look much different.

3. Appreciate small things.

   It’s easy to take stuff for granted. Even this world we live in feels like it belongs to us, but when we see it from the vantage point of an ‘Earthrise’ it can feel small and fragile. That perspective helps us find gratitude in the everyday things we might usually dismiss. Things like our health, our family, even the coffee we sip. Time to take a breath and notice what’s in front of us. Right now.

The Artemis II mission is many things, but for me, it’s mostly a reminder that the journeys that matter most are usually the ones that help us see what was here all along.

Have a great week ahead friends. I appreciate you.

Carré at Resilient Minds