When in-flight entertainment is a spaceship launch, live!

Passengers on a routine flight over Florida just got the treat of a lifetime – a front-row view of the launch of the first manned mission to the moon since 1972 (Apollo 17). And what a view! From the Artemis II blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center to reaching low Earth orbit, they saw it all. And all for the price of a plane ticket!Window seat just became VIPThe caption to the viral video sums it up nicely: “Talk about an in-flight movie upgrade no airline could ever plan: witnessing Artemis II’s liftoff from 35,000 feet above Florida.”

And the reactions said it all: “Wildly different from the ground view, what amazing luck,” an user wrote, while another said, “Wow, I’m surprised they didn’t close the airspace for the launch.” And everyone loved the way the pilot asked people to look out the window.Witnessing history unfold The general emotions among those who commented on the thread were those of pride and awe. For one, it was a view of a lifetime, and second, the Artemis II, which is carrying astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen to a trip around the moon, is the first manned spaceflight beyond low earth orbit (aka the International Space Station orbit) since the Apollo 17 took Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt to the lunar surface in December 1972.

That’s a gap of more than 53 years!