{"id":619869,"date":"2026-09-10T01:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619869\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T01:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:24:09","slug":"artemis-ii-moonshot-commander-and-pilot-are-hanging-up-their-astronaut-suits-at-nasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619869\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II moonshot commander and pilot are hanging up their astronaut suits at NASA"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 The two NASA astronauts who led the Artemis II moonshot <\/a>earlier this year are stepping away from spaceflight.<\/p>\n

NASA announced Wednesday that Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover will no longer serve as active astronauts but will continue to support the moon exploration program as emeritus astronauts.<\/p>\n

Glover has taken a leadership job at his alma mater, California Polytechnic State University, while Wiseman\u2019s future plans weren\u2019t disclosed. They flew around the moon in April with two other astronauts, setting a new distance record for humanity.<\/p>\n

Artemis II\u2019s Jeremy Hansen retired from the Canadian Space Agency in July. That leaves Christina Koch as the only crew member still on the active astronaut rolls.<\/p>\n

As emeritus astronauts, Wiseman and Glover will donate their time to train and mentor NASA workers and share their knowledge for future moon missions. It\u2019s a new approach to taking advantage of expertise, according to the space agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, they took on one of the most challenging missions in human spaceflight and helped return America to the lunar environment,\u201d NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019m grateful they will continue sharing what they learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cal Poly said Glover will help shape long-term strategies and inspire students to study science and engineering. His new job in San Luis Obispo took effect Sept. 1, the same day he retired from the Navy.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Associated Press, Glover stressed \u201cthis is not a leaving … for me, this is opening the aperture, not closing it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to keep talking about how faith and science work together in my life,\u201d Glover said. \u201cThat\u2019s not NASA\u2019s mission, but I can still help NASA from the sidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of waiting to command a moon-landing mission, Glover said he decided to put spaceflight behind in order to focus his efforts on young people and spend more time with his wife and four daughters. Three of his daughters are currently enrolled at Cal Poly. The oldest has already graduated from there.<\/p>\n

Wiseman\u2019s status change will take effect this month. Chosen by NASA as an astronaut in 2009, the retired Navy captain spent more than five months aboard the International Space Station in 2014, later becoming the space agency\u2019s chief astronaut.<\/p>\n

After graduating from Cal Poly in 1999, Glover became a Navy test pilot before NASA picked him to be an astronaut in 2013. He served as pilot on SpaceX\u2019s second crew flight for NASA, a nearly six-month mission to the space station in 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n

Glover\u2019s eloquence stood out while flying to and from the moon.<\/p>\n

Earth is an oasis in \u201ca whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe\u201d where humanity exists as one, he observed from space. \u201cThis is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we\u2019ve got to get through this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiseman also tugged at heartstrings as he and his crew asked for permission to name one of the moon\u2019s craters after his late wife Carroll<\/a>, who died of cancer in 2020.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Artemis II crew received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor from President Donald Trump during a ceremony at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 The two NASA astronauts who led the Artemis II moonshot earlier this year are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-619869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}