NASA has announced the names of the astronauts who will take part in the Artemis II “around the Moon” mission in 2024. They are: NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (Commander) and Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The astronaut wings on their space suits give an idea as to their background. Wiseman and Glover both have US Navy pilot wings, Koch has US Air Force wings, while Hansen has Royal Canadian Air Force wings.
This will be Reid Wiseman’s second trip into space. He served previously as a flight engineer aboard the International Station for Expedition 41 from May to November 2014. Wiseman has logged more than 165 days in space, including almost 13 hours as lead spacewalker during two trips outside the orbital complex. Prior to his assignment, Wiseman served as chief of the Astronaut Office from December 2020 until November 2022.
The mission will be Victor Glover’s second spaceflight. He previously served as pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1, which landed on 2 May 2021 after 168 days in space. As a flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 64, he contributed to scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, and participated in four spacewalks.
Christina Hammock Koch also will be making her second flight into space on the Artemis II mission. She served as flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 59, 60 and 61. Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks.
Representing Canada, and giving an international slant to the mission, Jeremy Hansen is making his first flight to space. A colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force and a former F-18 fighter pilot, Hansen holds a Bachelor of Science in space science from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and a Master of Science in physics from the same institution in 2000, with a research focus on Wide Field of View Satellite Tracking.
Making his point about the diversity of the crew, which includes a woman and person of colour, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: “NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”
The Artemis II flight test, lasting approximately 10 days, on the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket, will prove the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space.
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Courtesy: NASA
Historical note: The Apollo launches to the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s were entirely made up of white heterosexual men, usually with military backgrounds. There was no diversity in the 1960s when they were selected. Worse, there was out-and-out negative discrimination with evidence that women were deliberately not selected for space missions. Meanwhile, certain male air force pilots of Afro-Caribbean descent are said to have been prevented from being transferred to NASA by the alleged racism of some senior air force officers. Gay individuals did not get very far either, since only those with past military flying – usually test pilot – experience could get into the astronaut programme and homosexuality and lesbianism were officially banned in the US military back then.
Comment by David Todd: Promoting diversity – moral so it is – should always play second fiddle to getting the mission done. In this case, the main mission is getting to and back from the Moon in one piece. That said, anyone making it into the NASA astronaut corps will be good by definition. No fear of a ‘diversity hire duffer’ there.
