Fear of sharks during Artemis II splashdown in Pacific Ocean? What NASA did to ensure astronauts' safety

Artemis II successfully completed its historic lunar mission on Friday. The Orion module with the astronauts safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. As people across the globe continue to celebrate the big moment, a section of people expressed concerns about the safety of the Artemis II crew. Among the questions, one about possible shark encounters during touchdown particularly caught everyone's attention.

Artemis II splashdown safety

So how did the Artemis II crew members save themselves from the sharks after landing on the ocean? According to NASA, the safety of the astronauts is maintained by a specific recovery team that is tasked to monitor the water.

A US-based author, Chasten Buttigieg, took to X, formerly Twitter and wrote, “Watching the Artemis splashdown and just out of curiosity is it anyone’s job to make sure there are no sharks?”

"Was also worried about the ocean creatures," said another in the comments of the post. Another commented, "Imagine successfully finishing a mission directly into a mouth of a shark. No that is wild." Someone else said, "Statistically, I've heard the chances of getting eaten by a shark are pretty low. And the chances of being an astronaut are even lower. So the chances of being an astronaut who gets eaten by a shark... But ya know, ya never know."

Responding to the post, NASA wrote back, "Yes — the recovery teams monitor the area so the only thing greeting the crew is the welcome party.”

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The Artemis II splashdown

The Artemis II astronauts splashed down at 8:07pm ET after a historic 10-day mission around the Moon.

Artemis II mission was crewed by four astronauts — NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, NASA Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. They were the first humans to fly around the Moon in over 50 year, as per multiple reports.

Artemis II was the first crewed mission to utilise NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew module.

The mission flew 700,237 miles; its peak velocity was 24,664 m.p.h.; and the flight had an entry range of 1,957 miles but landed within one mile of its target, previously Rick Henfling, the flight director said.

Artemis III mission around the corner?

On the other hand, NASA also said that the Artemis III mission is "right around the corner" following its journey around the moon.

"The next mission is right around the corner, and you know, we'll take the lessons learned from Artemis II," Henfling said.

"We learned a bunch on how to fly people in space, both from vehicle operations, but also from how to run a control room with a deep space mission. And when the time is right, we'll get back into specific training, and we've got a core group of about 30 flight directors, and they're all extremely capable.

"I think anybody who's assigned to that next mission is going to be as successful as us," Henfling added.