Nearly a week after their Pacific splashdown, the astronauts who crewed the Artemis II mission that flew around the Moon told reporters on Thursday they have yet to fully grasp the magnitude of the moment.

"It's been a week of medical testing, physical testing, doctors, science objectives," mission commander Reid Wiseman said during a press conference at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston.

"We have not had that decompression," he added.

The 50-year-old led fellow Americans Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian crew-mate Jeremy Hansen, on a mission that took them farther into space than anyone has ever gone before.

When the initial parachute set cut away, Glover said, "We went back to free fall... I've never been base jumping, I've never been skydiving, but if you dove off a skyscraper backwards, that's what it felt like."

And adjusting to life on Earth is taking a beat.

"Tomorrow will be one week, and I just was trying to live in a little hole for one week, been off social media, not on the news. So, no, I don't know," Glover, who piloted the mission, told reporters.

Nonetheless, he said his children and neighbours have clued him in to the excitement.

Artemis II was the first crewed mission to venture to the Moon's orbit since 1972, and the only one in history to include a woman, or a black astronaut, or a non-American.

Their voyage was broadcast live by US space agency Nasa, and the media coverage of the launch and return to Earth was watched by millions of people.

For Koch, waking up to the reality means remembering gravity has taken hold.

"In the first few days, I thought I was floating. I truly thought I was floating, and I had to convince myself I wasn't," Koch said.

Their mission lasted almost 10 days, but Nasa has ambitions to return to the Moon for longer visits to establish a base in preparation for future missions to Mars.

The United States is targeting a lunar landing in 2028, before the end of US President Donald Trump's term. (Agencies)



Edited by Raymond Yeung