For you, this special best voice note in the world

This week, I have been feeling low-key sad. Nothing dramatic, just a yawning chasm where Artemis II updates used to be.

On April 1, yes really, four astronauts launched from Kennedy Space Centre, flew around the moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, and returned safely ten days later. Please tell me you have been following this.

Because truly, could we get a more gorgeous bunch of hoomans? They somehow made a moon mission feel personal. There were so many funny, tender, oddly moving moments.

The Nutella jar floating through the spacecraft. MS Outlook problems in space, because even cool astronauts cannot escape email. And astronaut Victor Glover beaming live to his wife from lunar orbit: ‘Hey babe, I love you from the moon.’ Frankly, an impossible romantic standard for the rest of humanity.

Then came this.

The Artemis II crew called mission control to request that a previously unnamed moon crater be dedicated to Carroll, the late wife of commander Reid Wiseman. ‘It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.’ Grief and love, reaching right out into space and planting a flag.

And then, when you thought your tender heart could not take any more, Christina Koch, the first woman to fly a lunar trajectory, came through after a 40-minute radio blackout with this voice note for you:

‘It’s so great to hear from Earth again… When we burned this bird towards the moon, I said we do not leave Earth, but we choose it… Ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.’

And Houston replied, ‘From Earth, our fragile and interconnected system, we copy.’

By this point I was gone. Laughing, crying, goosebumpy and reaching for tissues all at once. This is too much for one human heart.

For one moment, all of us on Earth felt united and uplifted. That is what brilliant communication does. It binds us, it makes you feel seen and less alone.

In the press conference after their return, Koch reflected on seeing Earth from 252,000 miles away and said five words I cannot stop thinking about: ‘Planet Earth. You are a crew.’

That is what got me. Not just the beauty of space, but the reminder of what matters here.

We are all here together on this small blue planet, loving our people, carrying our grief, sending our emails, eating our Nutella and hoping for a bit of joy.

But always remember, Planet Earth. You are a crew.