NASA Artemis II crew shares Moon secrets on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Travelling at 39 times the speed of sound, the Orion spacecraft carrying NASA's Artemis II crew became what mission commander Reid Wiseman called "a literal plasma ball" on reentry, flames visible through every window, the hull hot to the touch during the crew appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian to fly to the Moon, stayed in the compact Orion capsule for ten days on NASA Artemis II spacecraft before landing back on Earth after 10 days. While everyone talks about the excitement during the launch, the astronauts all agreed that the landing was the real challenge.

"You're going six miles a second," Wiseman told the audience, "and you don't really feel that speed until you hit the atmosphere." Hansen, who shared his first spaceflight experience, said a "containment plan" had been drawn up in advance; should he struggle, he didn't need it.

Upon asking, the dark side of the moon astronauts shared that on the third day, they started calling their planet "Tiny Earth", a joke about the size of Earth that could be observed from the Orion window even at the distances of the Moon.

The far side of the Moon was spotted early during the mission, with the crew observing unusual geometry of the lunar surface from afar before coming around to the other side. Hansen recounted the excitement that took place when the crew members crowded near the window: "We're seeing something no one's seen."

They shared that the most emotional events for the crew took place when they unanimously decided to name a lunar crater in memory of Wiseman's wife, Carol.

Wiseman's also told Fallon that his two daughters, watching from Mission Control, had no prior knowledge of the gesture. "That solidified us as a crew," Wiseman said. "We are bonded forever."

The Orion capsule, which the crew compared to the space of two minivans at best, housed all four for the full mission duration. Three years of training together meant few surprises, though Koch emerged as the acknowledged night owl, while Glover was quietly voted the best in-cabin dancer. "We gave each other a lot of grace," Koch said.