Did the Artemis astronauts ACTUALLY travel the farthest from Earth ever?
Yes, the Artemis II claim is true—the four astronauts (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen) did travel farther from Earth than any humans before them, including all the Apollo crews.
Artemis II (launched April 1, 2026) was a crewed lunar flyby mission. On April 6, 2026, during the loop around the Moon’s far side, the Orion spacecraft reached a maximum distance of approximately 252,756–252,760 miles from Earth. This broke the 56-year-old record set by Apollo 13 in April 1970, which reached 248,655 miles.
That’s roughly 4,100 miles farther than Apollo 13—the previous record holder.
Why the Moon’s orbital movement doesn’t change this
You’re right that the Moon is slowly moving away from Earth (about 3.8 cm per year due to tidal interactions). From Apollo 13 in 1970 to Artemis II in 2026 is ~56 years, so the average Earth-Moon distance increased by only about 2.1 meters. That’s completely negligible compared to the ~384,000 km average distance or the thousands of kilometers difference in the mission records.
The new record isn’t because the Moon itself was meaningfully farther away during Artemis II. It’s because of the specific trajectory each mission flew:
- Apollo 13 used a free-return path after its oxygen-tank explosion, swinging around the Moon at a certain distance.
- Artemis II was deliberately flown on a trajectory that took Orion farther beyond the Moon (roughly 4,070 miles above the lunar surface on the far side), so the point opposite the Earth was naturally farther out.
In short: mission designers chose a path that pushed the “farthest-from-Earth” point out by design, not because the Moon had drifted a couple of meters since the 1970s.
Quick comparison of human distance records
| Mission | Year | Max distance from Earth | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo 13 | 1970 | 248,655 miles | Held record for 56 years |
| Artemis II | 2026 | ~252,756–252,760 miles | Current record |
All other Apollo missions (even those that landed on the Moon) stayed closer than Apollo 13’s emergency trajectory.
So NASA’s claim was accurate and verified in real time by mission control. The Moon’s tiny orbital drift had nothing to do with it—the record was broken by clever trajectory planning and the physics of the flyby. Artemis II really did send humans deeper into space than ever before!