What began as a mission to land on the moon became history’s most harrowing space rescue after a technical failure forced the crew of Apollo 13 into a 200,000-mile race for survival.

The longtime Lake Forest resident and restaurant operator recorded a message before his death last year for the astronauts, cheering their achievement. During their lunar flyby, the Artemis II crew broke Lovell's Apollo 13 record for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth.

In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. In NASA history, the Apollo 8 mission laid much of the groundwork for the upcoming Artemis II mission.

The Apollo era remains one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of space exploration. Launched during the height of the Cold War, the program was driven by the United States’ ambition to outpace the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik 1.

Astronaut Jim Lovell, who flew on two Apollo-era missions in 1968 and 1970, recorded a message for the Artemis II crew before his death in 2025.

Artemis II, NASA's first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years, launched Wednesday, April 1. It represents a shift from short visits toward sustained exploration, where understanding lunar geology and resources becomes as important as the engineering that gets astronauts there.

Artemis II’s crew sent a heartfelt Easter message to the world as they approached the moon Sunday — a remarkable echo of a Christmas address given by the mission’s closest cousin in space history, Apollo 8.

NASA's Artemis 2 astronauts have witnessed one of the rarest sights in spaceflight history — a total solar eclipse from beyond the moon. The event unfolded yesterday (April 6) as the Orion spacecraft looped around the far side of the moon.