A lot has changed since NASA last sent astronauts to the moon — including the attitudes of those space explorers.

That's the view of Victor Glover, the NASA astronaut who served as pilot on the Artemis 2 mission around the moon's far side this past April.

"When you look back on the Apollo missions, there was a lot more competition back in the office. Everybody wanted to be the first, and then everybody wanted to be the next," Glover told Angels Broadcast Television on June 12, shortly before he threw out the first pitch before a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays.

"I think our office learned a lot from them," he added. "There are some good things about that. It makes you work really hard, but it also can create some unnecessary conflict. And so my office really wants to support everybody — wants you to be the guy that does it, and somebody just gets picked to do it, and that's OK."

Glover and his Artemis 2 crewmates — NASA's Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — did indeed seem to forge a very strong bond during their training and their time in space.

For example, shortly before Artemis 2's April 1 launch, Glover, Koch and Hansen came up with a plan to name a crater on the moon after Wiseman's wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.

"They said the three of them had talked, and they would like to do this," Wiseman said on April 6, the day Artemis 2 looped around the moon and got farther from Earth than any crewed mission ever had. "That was an emotional moment for me. And I just thought that was just a total treasure, that they had thought through this, and they had offered this."

Wiseman, Artemis 2's commander, said he broke down when Hansen radioed mission control with the naming request. In fact, all four astronauts were overcome with emotion at that moment.

"That was, I think, where the four of us were the most forged, the most bonded, and we came out of that really focused on that day ahead," Wiseman said.

The atmosphere was a bit different during the 1960s and early 1970s, as Glover noted; undercurrents of competition and rivalry reportedly ran through the Apollo crews.

For example, multiple people, including Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, have said that Buzz Aldrin lobbied to be the first person to set foot on the moon, an honor that eventually went to Apollo 11 crewmate Neil Armstrong. (Aldrin has disputed this version of events, saying he didn't want to be the first-ever moonwalker.)

There are other big differences between Artemis and Apollo, of course. Apollo was designed to get people to the moon before the Soviet Union could do so, a goal that was regarded as a national security imperative because it would demonstrate American technological supremacy. As a result of this need for speed, Apollo did not build anything permanent on the moon, leaving behind only flags, footprints and defunct spacecraft.

Artemis, on the other hand, aims to establish a permanent and sustainable presence on Earth's nearest neighbor. If all goes to plan, NASA will build one or more moon bases near the lunar south pole, then use the skills and knowledge gained from this endeavor to get astronauts even farther afield — to Mars.

NASA's plan to deorbit the International Space Station in coming years has fallen under the scrutiny of a government watchdog group and stirred up a wave of reaction by a leading ocean conservation organization.

As presently blueprinted by NASA, the International Space Station will be de-orbited via a series of actions. Firstly, in early to mid-2028, the ISS will start to be lowered through a combination of Earth's natural atmospheric drag and the execution of re-entry maneuvers by the ISS's Russian segment. Then, in mid-2029, NASA plans to launch a SpaceX-supplied, government paid for, U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) and attach that craft to the ISS, which will fire its 46 Draco thrusters and push the station down to a watery grave.

But there's one issue that has ecology experts concerned. The Ocean Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-headquartered group with a mission to improve global ocean health and the human relationship with the sea via carefully chosen strategies and projects, says the planned deorbit of the International Space Station "raises serious concerns for ocean health that the space community has not adequately grappled with," according to Mark Spalding, president of the foundation.

A troubling gap

A just-issued U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report has focused on issues related to NASA's plan to bring down the International Space Station (ISS) and transition from the ISS to commercial space stations, namely NASA's concern about having a "gap" in continuous human presence in low Earth orbit.

The GAO report explains that, at the end of 2030 or early 2031, the USDV is to perform a re-entry burn. That would push the ISS through the Earth's atmosphere and into a pre-determined spot – an ocean zone called Point Nemo.

"As part of the reentry process, NASA expects portions of the ISS and deorbit vehicle to break up and fall into the remote part of the ocean to minimize the risk to populated areas," states the GAO report.

But as for using Point Nemo or any part of the ocean as a convenient dumping ground, Spalding told Space.com that "there is a troubling structural gap in international law that the ISS de-orbit throws into sharp relief."

Under the Space Liability Convention of 1972, if space debris falls on another nation's territory or damages property, Spalding said, the launching nation owes compensation - absolutely and without needing to prove fault. "But no equivalent protection exists for the ocean," he said.

"As a result, when space agencies have control over where debris falls, they aim for the high seas, and in doing so, they incur no legal obligation to pay for cleanup or environmental remediation," said Spalding.

The Ocean Foundation leader said he understood the legitimate safety rationale for targeting Point Nemo, the point on Earth farthest from any populated area. "But the ocean's remoteness from human infrastructure should not be mistaken for a lack of value or vulnerability," Spalding said. "The ocean and its creatures deserve the same protection that international law affords to national territories."

Concerning the ocean's ecosystems, Spalding asks what happens to the marine ecosystems and creatures on the seafloor where the ISS leftovers land?

"The honest answer is, we don't fully know. That is deeply troubling for a structure the size of a football field. We do know that not everything burns up on reentry. Denser components will survive and reach the seafloor," Spalding added.

The problem: uncertainty

What denser, specific materials from the ISS re-entry will be, and what harm they may cause to marine life, Spalding said, "has not been adequately studied or disclosed. That uncertainty is itself the problem."

Additionally, what environmental harm may begin before the debris hits the water is worrisome. As the largest reentry in history, the cumulative atmospheric impact of down-falling ISS hardware deserves serious study, he said.

For one, Spalding flagged a newly negotiated High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement) that is relevant to downing the ISS. It requires parties to conduct environmental impact assessments for activities that may affect the marine environment beyond national jurisdiction when effects are unknown or poorly understood.

"It is fair to ask whether the ISS deorbit  — the largest such reentry in history, targeting the high seas  — should trigger that obligation," Spalding said.

Position statement

As for the Ocean Foundation's position on the ISS deliberate crashing into the Pacific Ocean, the group believes that discussion points prior to the ISS downing include:

• A full environmental impact assessment of the anticipated seafloor debris field and atmospheric effects;
• Public disclosure of all materials that will survive reentry and reach the ocean floor;
• A rigorous legal analysis of obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS,) the London Protocol of 1996 that provides an international standard and framework for countries to individually and collectively protect and preserve our oceans from pollution caused by the dumping of wastes and other matter into the ocean, along with the BBNJ Agreement.

The high seas have no sovereign who can demand accountability, concluded Spalding. "We believe this gap in international law needs to be closed, and the ISS de-orbit is a vivid illustration of why."

SpaceX's Cargo Dragon capsule shines in the sunlight over Earth as it departs from the International Space Station in a new image snapped from onboard the station.

What is it?

Peering through the window of the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronaut Jessica Meir snapped a striking photo as she watched a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule depart from the station.

With sunbeams gleaming downward, reflecting off of the spacecraft's hull, the Dragon can be seen backing away from the station mere moments after undocking from the port on the station's Harmony module. The undocking is so recent that you can clearly see both the docking port and the hatch of the Dragon where the two connected.

The Dragon disconnected from the space station on June 16, and just one day later, parachuted into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California where it was retrieved, chock-full of cargo and finished science experiments.

Why is it incredible?

The space station has been in orbit since 1998 and continuously occupied since November, 2000. With decades of work in orbit, it can be easy to take for granted the incredible transport system that supports cutting-edge research hundreds of miles above Earth's surface.

The work done on the station is impressive, but this system is just as mind-boggling. In addition to launching and returning astronauts who perform critical maintenance and repair work on the station on top of their research duties, cargo missions keep the station stocked.

From food and clothing to medical equipment and intricate science experiments, these missions are essential for both keeping astronauts safe and healthy on station as well as continuing the progression of science in-orbit. This back-and-forth between Earth and the space station is an impressive feat, and this photo shows the system fully in-motion.