Kenneth Chang

It's not quite as crowded as it would be if you were driving cross-country.

So on day six is the big event.

This is when they are closest to the moon.

And they're not super close.

So the way NASA describes it, the moon will appear about the size of a basketball held at arm's length.

And the moon's gravity will basically pull them around the moon

And they'll go behind the moon, so that means they'll lose all radio communication with Earth for about 40 minutes.

And we won't know what's going on until they emerge on the other side.

And during this time, they'll also be making all these observations of the far side of the moon.

Hmm.

Such as?

So what's really interesting is that they will be seeing parts of the far side of the moon that no human eyes have seen before.

And that's because the last time an astronaut passed over the far side of the moon, it was a different time of day, and those areas were in darkness.

Correct.

On the moon, there's no streetlights.

So the last time an astronaut passed over these parts, it was completely dark.

The trajectory that they're on, NASA designed it specifically that they actually don't need to use the engines to bring them back to Earth.

It's going along a path that the gravity of the moon basically is going to sling them around and throw them right back toward Earth without them doing much of anything.

Which is a good thing because it's much easier to be headed back to Earth than into deep space where who knows where you would end up.

So once they complete their lunar flyby—