Excitement builds in San Diego as Artemis II heads home

SAN DIEGO (NBC, KYMA) - Now that Artemis II crew is heading home, excitement is building in Southern California as the astronauts will splash down right off the coast of San Diego.

The Orion space capsule, over 252,000 miles from earth, but there is excitement building in San Diego.

"It's been incredibly eye opening, it's been thrilling, it's been inspirational," said David Neville, Communications Director for San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Neville says they've seen huge surge in visitors since the Artemis II mission started.

"Reaction from people coming to museum saying this is really neat, this is something I want to be involved with. This is the future and it's happening right now," Neville explained.

UC San Diego Professor John Kasmatak is the Director of the NASA California Space Grant Program, and he says this mission is creating a connection between his students and their elders.

"Their parents or grandparents would have all this knowledge excitement of sitting in front of a black white TV many years ago in the 70's...Now you've got all this validation, all of this stuff going on, so it's excitement across generations," Kosmatka shared.

Another reason for excitement locally is the San Diego based finish of the mission.

"San Diego is best place to land. It also puts San Diego in worldwide spotlight when they come back through atmosphere, with those parachutes and people from Navy in San Diego are going to rescue the astronauts. So, it really puts SD into focus...it's really important and inspirational," Neville remarked.

Artemis II is scheduled to splash down Friday afternoon off the coast of San Diego.