{"id":570592,"date":"2026-03-30T11:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/570592\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:15:11","slug":"nasas-first-moon-crew-in-more-than-50-years-is-making-history-already-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/570592\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s First Moon Crew in More Than 50 Years Is Making History Already : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 The four astronauts making NASA’s next lunar leap<\/a> bear little resemblance to the Apollo era<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Americans who blazed the trail to the Moon<\/a> more than half a century ago were white men chosen for their military test pilot experience.<\/p>\n

This first Artemis crew<\/a> includes a woman, a person of color, and a Canadian, products of a more diversified astronaut corps.<\/p>\n

None of them were alive during NASA’s storied Apollo program<\/a> that sent 24 astronauts to the Moon, including 12 moonwalkers.<\/p>\n

They won’t land on the Moon this time or even orbit it, but the out-and-back journey will take them thousands of miles deeper into space than even the Apollo astronauts ventured, promising unprecedented views of the lunar far side.<\/p>\n

\"InfographicMajor mission milestones for Artemis II. (NASA<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the Artemis astronauts whose mission aims to pave the path for future Moon landings<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Commander Reid Wiseman<\/p>\n

Leading the nearly 10-day mission is a widower who considers solo parenting \u2013 not rocketing to the Moon \u2013 his biggest and most rewarding challenge.<\/p>\n

Wiseman, 50, a retired Navy captain from Baltimore, was serving as NASA’s chief astronaut when asked three years ago to lead humanity’s first lunar trip since 1972. His wife Carroll’s death from cancer<\/a> in 2020 gave him pause.<\/p>\n

He’d spent more than five months at the International Space Station in 2014, and his two teenage daughters, especially the older one, had “zero interest” in his launching again.<\/p>\n

“We talked about it and I said, ‘Look, of all the people on planet Earth right now, there are four people that are in a position to go fly around the Moon,” he said. “I cannot say no to that opportunity.”<\/p>\n

The next day, homemade Moon cupcakes awaited him, along with his daughters’ support. The toughest part isn’t leaving them \u2013 “it’s the stress that I’m putting on them,” he said.<\/p>\n

Open with his daughters about everything, he recently told them where he keeps his will.<\/p>\n

Pilot Victor Glover<\/p>\n

As one of NASA’s few Black astronauts, Glover sees his presence on the mission as “a force for good.”<\/p>\n

The 49-year-old Navy captain and former combat pilot from Pomona, California, makes it a habit to listen to Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” and Marvin Gaye’s “Make Me Wanna Holler” from the white-dominated Apollo era.<\/p>\n

“I listen to those for perspective,” he said. “It captures what we did well, what we did poorly.”<\/p>\n

The ability for him now to offer hope to others is “an amazing blessing and a privilege.”<\/p>\n

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Despite having one spaceflight behind him \u2013 an early SpaceX crew run to the International Space Station \u2013 Glover finds himself in new personal territory.<\/p>\n

His four daughters are in their late teens and early 20s, “and I spend as much time and thought preparing them as NASA does preparing me.”<\/p>\n

He’s hyper-focused on running “our best race so that we can hand the baton off to the next leg” \u2013 a 2027 practice docking mission in orbit around Earth between an Orion crew capsule and one or two lunar landers.<\/p>\n

The all-important Moon landing would follow in 2028 with yet another set of astronauts.<\/p>\n

Mission specialist Christina Koch<\/p>\n

The last time Koch blasted into space, she was gone almost a year, so she’s not sweating a quick trip to the Moon and back.<\/p>\n

The 47-year-old electrical engineer from Jacksonville, North Carolina, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman \u2013 328 days. She took part in the first all-female spacewalk during her lengthy stay at the space station in 2019.<\/p>\n

More than any one individual, “it’s about celebrating the fact that we’ve arrived to this place in history” where women can fly to the Moon, she said.<\/p>\n

Before she got called up by NASA, Koch spent a year at a South Pole research station. Between that and her space stint, she feels she’s “inoculated” most of her family and friends.<\/p>\n

“So far, I haven’t gotten too many nerves from folks. Maybe my dog, but I’ve reassured her that it’s only 10 days. It’s not going to be as long as last time.”<\/p>\n

Her and her husband’s rescue pooch is named Sadie Lou.<\/p>\n

Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen<\/p>\n

The Canadian fighter pilot and physicist is making his space debut, stressful enough, but also serving as his country’s first emissary to the Moon.<\/p>\n

“Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t feel a lot of personal pressure.”<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

Hansen, 50, grew up on a farm near London, Ontario, before moving to Ingersoll and pursuing a flying career. The Canadian Space Agency selected him as an astronaut in 2009, and he was named to the Artemis crew in 2023.<\/p>\n

He realizes only now how much effort it took to send men to the Moon during Apollo.<\/p>\n

“When I walk out and I look at the Moon now, it looks and feels a little bit farther than it used to be,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I just understand in the details how much harder it is than I thought it was watching videos of it.”<\/p>\n

Related: NASA Announces Major Change to Plans For Putting Humans on The Moon<\/a><\/p>\n

Dangers still loom \u2013 something he’s shared with his college-aged son and twin daughters.<\/p>\n

“The most likely outcome is that we will come back safe. There’s a chance we won’t, and you will be able to move through life even if that happens,” he assured them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 The four astronauts making NASA’s next lunar leap bear little resemblance to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-570592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}