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Hello there, and welcome to Newsout from the BBC World Service. I'm Sean Lay, and we're coming to live from the BBC Studios in London.

There are two moments of significance for the crew of the Artemis II space mission

to experience today. Just over three hours ago, the four astronauts boldly went where no human

has been before, deeper into space as their Orion caps shall reach the far side of the moon.

On April 15th, 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission, three explorers set the record for

the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet.

At that time, over 55 years ago, Lovell, Swigert, and Hayes flew 248,655 statute miles away from Earth.

Today, for all humanity, you're pushing beyond that frontier.

Out in space, and the mission commander Reid Wiseman spoke of that historic moment.

We will continue our journey even further into space

before Mother Earth succeeds

and pulling us back to everything that we hold here.

But we most importantly choose this moment

to challenge this generation in the next

to make sure this record is not long-lived.

And just over two and a half hours from now when it's around 647 in the evening on the US

East Coast, the familiar reassuring background chatter from ground control at Houston will abruptly

cease. For 40 or 50 minutes, they may feel quite alone in the universe. At least they

have each other, should they wish to break that silence. In 1969, aboard the command module for the

Apollo moon landings, Michael Collins did not have even that. With Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin,

making their giant leap for mankind on the lunar surface, both

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