Artemis II: Meet the Diverse Crew Making History on NASA’s Lunar Mission
The first woman. The first Black person. The first Canadian.
The four individuals soon to embark on a spacecraft for the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than half a century represent a set of historic milestones. The Artemis II crew, led by NASA, is expected to expand the roster of deep-space explorers beyond the narrow profile of astronauts from the Apollo era – a group composed exclusively of white American men, almost all with military backgrounds.
However, while the astronauts will inaugurate an era of diversity for deep-space exploration, their credentials closely resemble those of their Apollo counterparts.
The crew includes Reid Wiseman of NASA, a U.S. Navy test pilot and single father who will serve as the mission commander. Victor Glover, a naval aviator and test pilot who will turn into the first Black person to travel to deep space; Christina Koch, a record-breaking engineer and astronaut who will be the first woman to travel to the Moon; and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), a fighter pilot who will be the first non-NASA astronaut to participate in a lunar mission.
The high-stakes journey to the vicinity of the Moon will take them beyond the far side – farther into space than any human has traveled before – and will present countless risks to the astronauts.
The 10-day mission, approximately 965,600 kilometers in length, is targeted for launch as early as April, exposing the crew to dangerous levels of radiation. At several critical points in the trajectory, the crew expects to lose contact with mission control due to the immense distance and the physics involved in flight. Unexpected communication blackouts are as well a real possibility.
And the astronauts will be the first humans to fly aboard the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket, hardware that NASA has spent two decades and more than $40 billion developing, and which still presents known issues.
In interviews, crew members of Artemis II have expressed hopes and optimism, while also making surprisingly frank acknowledgements of the realities of risk.
“It’s possible we won’t be able to communicate with Earth, and we’re having problems with the spacecraft,” Hansen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. About his training for the mission.
“What are the most basic things to give us a chance to keep breathing and to fall somewhere on the planet, ideally in the Pacific Ocean? Obviously, I’ve had that conversation with my wife and my kids.”
Yet, the four have also spoken openly about what this mission will mean for them and for NASA and its international partners, the CSA and the European Space Agency, as they compete to return humans to the lunar surface amid a new space race with China.
NASA has long presented the Artemis lunar exploration program as a stepping stone to exploring the cosmos more deeply.
Artemis II is a test flight that will circumnavigate the Moon and not land on its surface, but will serve as a precursor mission to Artemis III, which is expected to touch down near the largely unexplored lunar south pole.
The overarching goal of the Artemis program is to determine how humans can live and work permanently on the lunar surface. And that feat, according to the space agency, will aid NASA discover how people can survive months-long journeys to Mars.
“We need to celebrate this moment in human history,” Glover said after his selection for the Artemis II mission in 2023. “It’s the next step in the journey that will take humanity to Mars.”
Home City: Baltimore.
Previous Flight Experience: Flew to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule in 2014, spending 165 days in orbit.
Role in Artemis II: Commander.
Bringing With Him: A blank card to jot down his thoughts.
Wiseman, 50, is a decorated Navy aviator and test pilot who joined the NASA astronaut corps in 2009. Most recently, Wiseman was chief of the astronaut office, a position that has been described as thankless, but advantageous because it allows those who hold it to assign themselves to the mission they desire.
When asked why NASA is returning to the Moon, Wiseman was direct: “Because we desire to see humans on Mars,” he said in 2023 on “The Late Present With Stephen Colbert.”
Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman, was an intensive care nurse and died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.
Wiseman has said he spent a lot of time with his two daughters in preparation for his 10-day trip to the Moon.
“I went for a walk with my daughters. I told them, ‘Here’s where the will is, here’s where the trust documents are, and if something happens to me, this is what’s going to happen to you,’” Wiseman said. “I actually wish more people in everyday life talked to their families that way because you never know what tomorrow will bring.”
Home City: Pomona, California.
Previous Flight Experience: Piloted SpaceX Crew-1, the first routine six-month mission to the International Space Station aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which launched in 2020.
Role in Artemis II: Pilot.
Bringing With Him: A Bible and a family heirloom for his family members.
Glover, 49, often appears the most reserved of the group and rarely displays emotion.
“Emotion, for example, is something that people ask me about a lot,” Glover said during a January 17 press conference. “I believe it can become a distraction.”
Glover holds several master’s degrees, including a Master of Science in Flight Test Engineering from Air University at Edwards Air Force Base, California; a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School; and a Master of Arts in Military Operational Art and Science from Air University, Alabama.
The world of test pilots is one where skillful, hands-on control of complex machines is highly valued, and those who bring their expertise as test pilots to the world of astronautics are often asked how they feel about entering a spacecraft that is largely automated.
Legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager famously described NASA’s early 1960s Mercury astronauts as “Spam in a can.”
When asked about that long-standing line of questioning, Glover joked that he is “a little bit of a Luddite.”
“I love sticks and controls that I can, you know, grab with my hands,” Glover said, but also accepts automation as the future, noting, “We’re not going to un-do all of that.”
But what hasn’t changed are the needs and desires of humans aboard these spacecraft, something he said he realized while reading old reports from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts.
“They say the same things that we say: that having a window is vital, having the ability to perform critical functions is important, and just how we implement that is going to change with the state of technology.”
Glover is married to Dionna Odom Glover, and they have four daughters. He said he is glad that the families of the crew will be assigned an astronaut on Earth to stay in close contact and console them during the mission.
“Liftoff may be a magnificent and terrifying moment at the same time, and that’s why I’m really grateful for that team helping us prepare,” Glover said.
Home City: Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Previous Flight Experience: After launching to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2019, Koch spent 328 days in orbit, a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. That year, she also participated in the first all-female spacewalk.
Role in Artemis II: Mission Specialist.
Bringing With Her: Handwritten notes from loved ones. During the mission, “I can hold in my hands something they held in their hands,” Koch said.
Koch – whose last name is pronounced “cook” – holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University. She previously worked on Earth-observing satellites at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and conducted stints at some of the most remote laboratories on the planet, including the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and Palmer Station in Antarctica.
“I really loved the things that made me feel small, things that made me reflect on the size of the universe, my place in it,” Koch said in a 2020 NASA video.
She joined the astronaut corps in 2013.
Koch said she has long admired the Apollo astronauts, who seemed to enjoy gathering at NASA events even decades after retirement.
“What they went through together and how that bonded them has been really foundational for me to appreciate every day with my crew,” Koch said in a January 17 press conference.
She recounted that she once heard Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise say without prompting, “I hear you guys are going to break our record” of the farthest distance humans have ever traveled in space. The Apollo 13 crew reached 400,171 kilometers from Earth in 1970, but Artemis II could break that record, as it is expected to travel more than 402,000 kilometers.
“At that point,” Koch said, referring to Haise, “he introduced me to that group of camaraderie.”
And while Koch said she is excited and prepared to break more records with her Artemis II crewmates, she has grappled with the practicalities of leaving her husband at home without an easy way to communicate with her during the mission.
“I really have to make sure he knows that it’s not like the International Space Station, where You can just make a phone call, so he’s not going to be able to call me and ask me where something is in the house,” Koch joked. “He’s going to have to find it.”
Home City: London, Ontario.
Previous Flight Experience: None.
Role in Artemis II: Mission Specialist.
Bringing With Him: Four moon pendants he gave as gifts to his wife and children.
The Artemis II mission will mark Hansen’s first trip to space, an impressive feat, as most first-time fliers stay closer to home on missions to low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station resides. In Artemis II, Hansen will travel roughly 1,000 times farther.
Hansen grew up on a farm, and said he used to plow the living room carpet with toy tractors and pretend his treehouse was a spaceship, but also dreamed of flying airplanes, jets, and spacecraft before becoming a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Although he has no prior astronaut experience, Hansen does hold the titles of caver and aquanaut.
His caving training came from the European Space Agency’s CAVES program, in which he explored underground for six days on the Italian island of Sardinia to prepare for living and working with others in remote and isolated conditions.
Hansen was a member of NASA’s NEEMO 19 excursion and spent a week in an underwater habitat near Key Largo, Florida.
“It’s actually very dangerous,” Hansen said about his aquanaut training, noting that any attempt to quickly return to the surface could be fatal due to decompression sickness.
“We’re down there for a week. We’re fully saturated,” Hansen recalled. “So, if you have a problem down there and you just decide to come up to the surface, you’re dead.”
When a reporter asked his American crewmates what the rookie astronaut might bring to the table, Hansen, who is considered the funny man of the group, joked, “Well, you only have one question.”
“He’s the funny one,” Glover confirmed with a laugh.
Hansen is also unusually tall for an astronaut, standing nearly 6 feet 2 inches. During a September press conference, Wiseman joked that their Orion spacecraft, about 16 feet wide, would feel large enough for most of their 10-day trip, “until Jeremy starts working out,” Wiseman said. “Then it’s going to feel small again.”
When asked about the dangers involved in his historic deep-space mission, Hansen said the Artemis II crew is “taking calculated risks.”
“We’re going to take some appropriate risks, and we’re going to achieve some extraordinary things,” he said. “We’re going to have some failures, some setbacks along the way, and then we’re going to get up and keep going.”