SEATTLE — U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell spoke Thursday with the Artemis II crew as they returned from a mission around the moon, highlighting Washington state’s role in the program and the value of human spaceflight.
Cantwell, a Washington Democrat and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, joined the call from her Seattle office.
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She congratulated NASA and the Artemis team, who are scheduled to return from their journey around the moon on Friday. She relayed that astronaut Anne McClain said members of NASA’s 2013 astronaut class, known as the “Eight Balls,” were proud of the crew.
“This mission is a major investment in science and a testament to human achievement,” Cantwell said, noting that Orion spacecraft thrusters were built in Washington state. She invited the astronauts to visit the state to see the companies and workers supporting the program.
Cantwell asked what human observation could reveal about the moon that robotic rovers cannot.
Astronaut Victor Glover said human explorers can gather data more quickly and provide insights beyond measurements. While rovers collect information at a slower pace, he said, astronauts can also describe the physical and emotional experience of spaceflight.
“They’re also going to come back and tell you how it feels in a technical and medical sense, but also in an emotional sense,” Glover said, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a human connection to exploration.
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Cantwell last week toured two Washington companies involved in the Artemis program: Karman Space & Defense in Mukilteo and L3Harris in Redmond.