In April 2026, four Artemis II astronauts flew 406,771 kilometres from Earth — farther than any humans in history — breaking the Apollo 13 record from 1970 not by landing on the Moon, but by looping around its far side on a free-return path while the Moon’s elliptical orbit carried them just a little farther from home.

Artemis II broke a human spaceflight record in a way that looks almost modest until the geometry is understood. The four astronauts did not land on the Moon. They did not enter lunar orbit. They did not even need to make the record the centrepiece of the mission. They flew past the Moon, looped around [...] The post In April 2026, four Artemis II astronauts flew 406,771 kilometres from Earth — farther than any humans in history — breaking the Apollo 13 record from 1970 not by landing on the Moon