Artemis II pilot talks about what it was really like to fly and land in Orion

The modelers, the flight controllers, they came up with something. And even though there were pleasant surprises, overall, the real thing is better than we simulated. And that’s part of what being a test pilot is: to verify and validate manufacturing processes, software development processes, and sometimes teams. And all three of those, in this case, crushed it. Ars: What do you think the implications are for Artemis III and Artemis IV when there will be some pretty complex rendezvous and docking operations with a lander? Glover: The Lunar Science team won’t like it when I say this, but it’s the truth. If we had launched, done the rendezvous and proximity operations demo, and then had to emergency de-orbit, I would have considered us a massive success. Because that may be the only chance we get to test this really important capability. We don’t plan to manually dock. It’s a crew interrupt. Boeing CFT (the Starliner Crew Flight Test in 2024, during which Butch Wilmore had to take control of the spacecraft during an emergency) has shown us when these things might need to be done. And Butch held position manually. He had to use his eyeballs to correlate where he was and just hold position. That was a critical moment for them to breathe, and for the team to collect themselves, because if they had tried to retreat or tried to continue docking with ISS, both of those would have been catastrophic. Glover: It was also a ton of fun, truly a test pilot’s dream. I mean, I feel bad. I got to fly Dragon as well. I got to manually pilot Dragon. We got to do a fly-around for the port relocation. It was the first time that software got used in space, and I did that. So I got to do a few touchscreen commands and listen, I prefer a stick-and-throttle over a touchscreen any day. But Dragon also flew like a dream. It worked. It does what they say it’s going to do. It’s really about the mission. They both are great tools. If I’m doing something where I’m so busy that I cannot stop and look down at my hands to fly, this is the biggest difference. I have to touch the screen, which means I have to look, because if I touch right next to that arrow, it doesn’t work. In Orion, I have a feel. I don’t have to look. I can focus on precision because I can look out the window the whole time. That’s the difference. So stick-and-throttle, or hand controllers, are vital depending on the type of tasks. Ars: Did you guys ever do any flying off the books? I’m thinking of Apollo 12, during the ascent from the Moon. They’re in the shadow of the Moon, and Pete Conrad tells Alan Bean to take the Lunar Module controls for a spin when they were out of contact with Mission Control. Bean later recalled it as an unforgettable experience. Glover: [laughs] OK, that’s good. Listen, we wanted everybody to have a meaningful role. I think you saw that everybody did critical things. Jeremy and Christina got us to the Moon and back. We [Reid and Glover] did ascent, prox-ops, and entry. But they monitored all the burns. The team really wrote the original plan for Reid and I to do all the flying, but we knew that it’s important to get this data because on future missions, you might have a doctor in that seat, and it’s important to know the vehicle from varying perspectives. We didn’t have to be sneaky because the team built a plan that capitalized on the strengths of the whole crew. Everyone got to fly it per the plan. And so Jeremy flew the vehicle, and Christina flew the vehicle. Ars: You’ve talked about reentry, 13 minutes and 36 seconds. You called it “very intense.” You and I have talked about the heat shield concerns before. Walk me through the experience you just lived. Glover: We got assigned on April 3, 2023. It was almost three years exactly ago. I’ve been thinking about reentry for three straight years, maybe too much. Maybe I focused on that too much, but I knew if anybody has to be on that day, I have to be a part of it. It’s not just me, but to back up Reid, or Reid backing me up. We’ve got to be in flow that day. Having gone through something similar in Dragon was helpful. But that window on Orion was right in front of me, that view was so different. When the flames started, I was like, “That’s big. Is it supposed to be that big?” And then my brain just locked onto “OK, it all looks the same.” That’s a good sign. If I start to see changes, that’s something. And then there was a point—there’s something that I feel that I am not ready to say to the public yet. Glover: But you know, I know what happened to Columbia, and that this is a system with no backup. But I was not worried. I wasn’t focused on that because we had already said we’re go for launch—and go for launch is go for entry. And I just said, “Hey, they need me to be on.” Reid needs me to be on. I need him to be on. What I’m saying is kind of what folks are expecting. So I need to do it like we’ve trained to do it.