Artemis II, NASA’s upcoming manned mission around Earth’s moon, officially has a crew. Moreover, there are at least three firsts taking place. NASA’s sending a woman and a person of colour on the mission — this much has been known for ages — but it’s also sending a Canadian. Believe it or not, that’s never happened before.
This is Artemis II
On the mission is Gregory Reid Wiseman (commander), an experienced astronaut and pilot who has spent time on the International Space Station. Joining him are Victor Glover (pilot), who was involved with the first manned Crew Dragon flight, Christina Hammock Koch (mission specialist), engineer and ISS astronaut, and Jeremy Hansen (mission specialist — Canada), who has undergone extensive training but has yet to venture into space.
This is the first human crew to leave low-Earth orbit since December 1972, which is when Apollo 17 concluded. It’s been more than fifty years since NASA was able to make an announcement of this nature. Even though this crew won’t be touching down — that’s for Artemis III — this will be the furthest humans have travelled away from our planet in far too long.
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Artemis II is the start of something that’s a huge deal for humanity, space-wise. The idea is to establish a human presence on our lunar satellite starting with this mission. Speaking in an interview, mission commander G. Reid Wiseman said, “There is no way you go to 250,000 miles from the Earth and look back at it and go man, I wish we’d have gone alone. No, you look back and go, ‘I am so glad we are doing this internationally.’ Jeremy’s on this. We’re gonna have Europeans, Japanese astronauts, and hopefully someone from the UAE down the road. I really hope this is just the beginning.”