‘Absolutely stunning’ — Artemis II photo captures moon eclipse of sun

“This is not AI,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday.

“This is why we do what we do,” said Isaacman, as Artemis II continued heading back home to Earth.

The White House posted the photo taken Monday by Artemis II, and NASA released other photos from the Orion capsule, which conducted a six-hour flyby of the moon with four astronauts on board.

Artemis’ crew “mentioned this last night during the webcast that they don’t know if human eyes are ready to see what they’ve captured,” he said.

“I just paused when I saw it,” Isaacman said. “This is why we send astronauts father into space than ever before.”

“It’s why we bring them back home and learn and continue what is, I think, the greatest adventure in human history,” he said.

Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed Monday from the spacecraft, “It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now.”

“It is just unbelievable,” said Hansen, a Canadian, according to a report by The Associated Press.

The three other crew members are Americans, among them the commander, Reid Wiseman, who wept Monday when Hansen asked permission from the crew to name a fresh lunar crater after Wiseman’s late wife, who died from cancer in 2020, the AP noted.

Artemis is NASA’s first spacecraft to fly by the moon since Apollo 17’s landing there in December 1972.

“You’ve made history and made all America really proud,” President Donald Trump told the crew during a call on Monday.

NASA plans to launch Artemis III in 2027 to practice docking lunar landers.

The space agency aims to land two astronauts at the South Pole of the moon in 2028 with the Artemis IV mission.

“In a matter of months, really, by the beginning of 2027, we’re going to start landing uncrewed robotic missions on a nearly monthly cadence on the South Pole of the moon, and actually start building the moon base,” Isaacman said on Tuesday.