NASA's Image of the Day captures a man climbing into the passenger seat of a race car. Super Bowl quarterbacks and rock stars have sat there before. This time, the passenger had just returned from the far side of the Moon.
Image: NASA Image of the Day · Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky · Image page
NASA's official image description reads:
"NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman sits in a two-seat Indy car, ready for driver Conor Daly to take him on a lap in the fastest seat in sports, on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, before the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington, D.C."
This was the first street race on the National Mall in IndyCar history. The 1.7-mile, or 2.736-kilometer, course ran against a backdrop of the Washington Monument and the US Capitol. The race covered 147 laps and 249.9 miles. The number "250" referred both to the mileage and the 250th anniversary of the United States.
The "fastest seat in sports" is an established program. Before a race, a two-seat Indy car carries a guest toward the green flag. Previous passengers have included Tom Brady, Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi.
This time, the passenger had returned from beyond the far side of the Moon four months earlier.
Who Is He?
Reid Wiseman is a retired US Navy captain from Baltimore. He earned his naval aviator wings in 1999, flew the F-14 Tomcat, completed two deployments to the Middle East, graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School in 2004, and later flew the F/A-18F Super Hornet.
His official NASA biography says: "Wiseman was selected in June 2009 as one of nine members of the 20th NASA astronaut class."
From May 29 to November 9, 2014, he served aboard the International Space Station during Expeditions 40 and 41, spending 165 days in orbit. He completed two spacewalks, logging nearly 13 hours outside as the lead spacewalker, and participated in more than 300 scientific experiments. From 2020 to 2022, he served as chief of the Astronaut Office.
Then came this year.
Artemis II Has Already Flown
This must be stated clearly because many Chinese-language reports still describe the mission as awaiting launch.
Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, and splashed down on April 10. The mission lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes. It is over.
Launch: At 6:35 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, a Space Launch System rocket lifted the Orion spacecraft from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. At main engine cutoff, the spacecraft was moving at more than 18,000 miles per hour, about 29,000 kilometers per hour.
The four-person crew: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch, all from NASA, joined by mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.
On flight day one, after separating from the upper stage, the crew manually flew Orion through approach and departure maneuvers around that now-detached stage for about 70 minutes. The exercise provided practical experience for future rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit.
On April 6, Orion flew around the Moon, passing within 4,070 miles of the surface. NASA's flight handbook described the view this way: "To the astronauts, the Moon would appear about the size of a basketball held at arm's length."
At about the same time, they broke a record held by Apollo 13 for fifty-six years, reaching 252,760 miles from Earth, about 407,000 kilometers and roughly 4,105 miles farther than Apollo 13.
Return: At 8:07 p.m. Eastern time on April 10, Orion splashed down off San Diego. It reentered at nearly Mach 35 and reached a maximum load of 3.9 G. Three 116-foot-wide main parachutes slowed it from about 130 miles per hour to between 17 and 20 miles per hour at splashdown: from the speed of a high-speed train to that of a bicycle.
The total: Orion traveled 694,481 miles, about 1.118 million kilometers, and landed just 2.9 miles, or about 4.7 kilometers, from its target. Reentry speed differed from the prediction by less than 1 mile per hour.
After traveling 1.11 million kilometers, it missed the target by less than five.
On launch day, the NASA administrator said: "Artemis II is the beginning of something bigger than any single mission."
The Part Worth Understanding: Why Only One Burn?
Now for the most elegant feature of the mission.
Orion used its main engine only once near Earth on the way to the Moon. From there, around the lunar far side and all the way home, the engine did almost nothing.
The route is called a free-return trajectory.
NASA describes it this way: "After Orion travels around the far side of the Moon and exits the Moon's sphere of gravitational influence, its fuel-efficient free-return trajectory will use the Earth-Moon gravity field to naturally pull Orion back toward Earth."
The key word is "naturally."
The trajectory is shaped like a figure eight lying on its side, with Earth inside one loop and the Moon inside the other. Near Earth, the spacecraft performs a single burn called trans-lunar injection. It lasts nearly 6 minutes and consumes about 1,000 pounds of propellant, establishing the correct speed and direction in one operation. Orion then coasts along the figure eight: around the lunar far side, its direction deflected by the Moon's gravity, and back toward Earth along the same path.
One analogy helps: gravity is like a contour map. Once you have climbed to the right elevation and stepped onto the correct path, the rest of the route is free.
But the trajectory's real value is not saving fuel. It is saving lives.
Why perform the burn close to Earth? Because communications are clear and mission control can watch the entire operation. Put the critical burn near the Moon, where contact may be lost, and an engine failure could mean no return home.
This is not theoretical. In 1970, an oxygen tank exploded in Apollo 13's service module while the spacecraft was traveling to the Moon. NASA aborted the mission and adjusted the spacecraft onto a free-return trajectory, bringing all three astronauts home alive.
The distance record Artemis II broke was the record Apollo 13 set after being flung outward during that accident.
Fifty-six years later, the same road was chosen deliberately.
A Word About the Shield
When Artemis I, the uncrewed lunar flyby of 2022, returned to Earth, Orion's heat shield suffered a problem. Gases produced inside its Avcoat ablative material could not escape. Pressure accumulated within the material, causing cracks and pieces of the charred layer to break away.
NASA spent two years investigating. Teams removed and analyzed about 200 Avcoat samples, conducted eight rounds of post-flight arc-jet testing and 121 individual tests, involved three research centers, and commissioned an independent review led by a former space shuttle flight director.
In December 2024, NASA announced its conclusion and decision: it would not replace the heat shield but would change the reentry trajectory. Orion would use a skip entry, grazing the atmosphere, rising out again and then reentering, dividing one severe heating event into two stages.
Here is a figure worth telling children. Even as pieces of the Artemis I heat shield broke away outside, the cabin remained in the mid-70s Fahrenheit throughout, about 24°C, a comfortable room temperature.
Thousands of degrees outside, air conditioning inside.
The Artemis II post-flight assessment, released on April 20, 2026, said that the thermal protection system "performed as expected," with substantially less loss of the ablative layer than on Artemis I, consistent with ground-test results.
One caution: different NASA materials give different reentry temperatures. A December 2024 news release on Orion's lunar return says "nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit," while the Artemis II mission handbook and flight blog say "about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit" and give the speed as "nearly Mach 35." When describing this mission, use the latter figure.
Another decision illustrates the logic of spaceflight engineering. On the first day of Artemis II, the crew deliberately remained in low Earth orbit instead of setting out immediately for the Moon, specifically to check whether the life-support system could reliably produce breathable air.
The reason was very simple: if it failed there, they could turn around and be home in hours. Discover the failure at the Moon, and it would be too late.
China: Several Things Happening Now
The official goal of China's crewed lunar exploration program is to achieve the first Chinese crewed landing on the Moon before 2030.
Its five major systems all have official names: the Long March 10 launch vehicle, including Long March 10A; the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft; the Lanyue lunar lander; the Wangyu lunar spacesuit; and the Tansuo crewed lunar rover. The last two names were selected in February 2025 after a public call for proposals.
Each major completed test has received an official announcement.
On June 17, 2025, Mengzhou completed a pad abort test at Jiuquan. Ignition came at 12:30 and the return capsule landed at 12:32. The entire sequence took two minutes. The official account says that solid motors lifted the spacecraft and escape-tower assembly, the return capsule separated safely from the tower after reaching its planned altitude at about 20 seconds, parachutes deployed successfully, and airbags cushioned the landing. Twenty-seven years had passed since China's previous test of this kind.
On August 6, 2025, the Lanyue lunar lander completed a comprehensive landing and ascent verification test at the extraterrestrial landing test site in Huailai, Hebei. Officials described it as "China's first test of a crewed spacecraft landing on and taking off from an extraterrestrial body."
On August 15, 2025, and afterward, Long March 10 completed two tethered firing tests. The second lasted 320 seconds and focused on the seven engines operating in parallel on the first stage.
The largest test came on February 11, 2026. Its official title must remain exact because it is more precise than any media headline:
"Low-Altitude Demonstration and Verification of the Long March 10 Launch Vehicle System and Maximum Dynamic Pressure Escape Flight Test of the Mengzhou Crewed Spacecraft System Successfully Conducted"
Ignition took place at 11:00 Beijing time at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, and recovery of the return capsule finished at 12:20. The rocket's first stage reached a maximum altitude of 105 kilometers, above the Karman line. More than sixty seconds after liftoff, once it had exceeded the speed of sound, the spacecraft received the abort command at maximum dynamic pressure, at an altitude of about 11 kilometers, and separated successfully. Xinhua reported that nearly one hundred commands and actions occurred concurrently within one second after the escape signal. The rocket's first-stage body and the spacecraft's return capsule made controlled splashdowns in their designated waters.
A widely repeated claim must be corrected. Some reports called the test the "successful first flight of Long March 10" or the "maiden flight of Long March 10 and Mengzhou." It was neither. The official name is a "low-altitude demonstration and verification" combined with a "maximum dynamic pressure escape flight test." The rocket reached only 105 kilometers and its first stage splashed down. This was neither Long March 10's first orbital flight nor an uncrewed orbital test of Mengzhou.
Another event is unfolding in Wenchang now.
On August 19, 2026, the China Manned Space Agency's website and the China National Space Administration's homepage announced: "Chang'e 7 Mission Spacecraft-Rocket Combination Completes Vertical Transfer; Launch Planned at an Appropriate Time in the Coming Days." The destination is the Moon's south pole. The Long March 5 Y14 rocket arrived in Wenchang on July 13, and the combined vehicle completed its vertical transfer to the launch area on August 19.
The official phrase is "launch planned at an appropriate time in the coming days." No specific date has been announced.
The picture now looks like this: on April 1, the United States sent four people beyond the Moon's far side and used gravity to bring them home for free. On February 11, China sent the first stage of Long March 10 to an altitude of 105 kilometers from Wenchang while Mengzhou practiced an escape above the speed of sound. And now Chang'e 7 is standing on the launch pad in Wenchang, waiting for a suitable window to fly toward the lunar south pole.
This is not a race report. It is an account of where two paths have reached. One side has completed a crewed lunar flyby. The other is verifying, one by one, the critical technologies needed for a landing before 2030. Their purposes and rhythms differ, and both must be described accurately.
Something Uncertain but Worth Knowing
On flight day six, April 7, 2026, the crew proposed naming a lunar crater "Carroll."
Carroll was the name of Wiseman's late wife. She died of cancer in 2020 at age 46. Wiseman raised their two daughters on his own.
Jeremy Hansen said from space: "It is a bright place on the Moon. We would like to call it 'Carroll.'"
This distinction matters: the name is only a proposal and has not been approved by the International Astronomical Union. The account comes from media reports, including NPR, The Baltimore Sun and NBC; I found no formal statement page on NASA's website. It is something the crew said, not yet a place-name on the Moon.
Sources: NASA Image of the Day and its RSS feed; NASA's official Reid Wiseman biography; NASA's 2026-04-01 launch release; NASA's Artemis II flight day ten blog and mission handbook; NASA's 2026-04-20 post-flight assessment; NASA's 2024-12-05 release on the Orion heat-shield investigation; NASA's 2026-08-21 release on the Congressional Space Medal of Honor; the official NASA Eyes blog of 2026-04-30; the IndyCar release of 2026-08-21; Washington, D.C.'s official America 250 website; the National Park Service's 2026 National Park Week page; China Manned Space Agency announcements of 2025-06-17, 2025-08-07, 2026-02-11 and 2026-02-27; Xinhua, 2026-02-12; the China National Space Administration, 2026-08-19; and China Daily, 2025-02-12.