5 hours agoCommander Wiseman gets emotional tribute of Carroll Crater to honor his late wife<\/p>\n
As NASA\u2019s Artemis II crew heads back to Earth from the moon, the astronauts have marked the mission with a deeply personal tribute, asking to name two lunar craters \u2014 one for their Orion capsule, Integrity, and another for Commander Reid Wiseman\u2019s late wife, Carroll.<\/p>\n
The request came earlier this week during the crew\u2019s lunar flyby, when Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian to the moon, asked mission controllers for permission to use the names. Wiseman, who said he was too emotional to make the request himself, later described the moment as one of the defining experiences of the mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust for me personally, that was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me,\u201d Wiseman said from space Wednesday night in a rare space-to-Earth news conference with the media.<\/p>\n
Carroll Wiseman, a neonatal nurse, died of cancer in 2020.<\/p>\n
The gesture echoed an earlier moment from the Apollo era. During Apollo 8\u2019s historic 1968 mission around the moon, astronaut Jim Lovell named a lunar peak Mount Marilyn after his wife. That mission was humanity\u2019s first journey to the moon, and Marilyn Lovell was waiting for him back in Houston.<\/p>\n
Artemis II\u2019s four-person crew \u2014 three Americans and one Canadian \u2014 are the first astronauts to travel to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their crater-naming request stunned scientists and flight controllers on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a very emotional moment. I don\u2019t think most of us knew it was coming,\u201d NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Johnson Space Center in Houston. \u201cThere was not a single dry eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before launch, Mission Control lead scientist Kelsey Young quietly worked with the Artemis II crew to identify two bright, relatively young craters. Once the astronauts neared the moon, they were able to spot them using zoom lenses and with the naked eye.<\/p>\n
Wiseman said the idea originated with his crewmates while the team was in quarantine just days before liftoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I would love that, I think that\u2019s just the best. And I said, \u2018But I can\u2019t give the speech, I can\u2019t give the talk,\u2019\u201d he recalled during a crew news conference.<\/p>\n
The proposed Carroll Crater sits near the moon\u2019s left limb, along the boundary between the near side and far side, and can occasionally be seen from Earth. According to Watkins, it is about 3 miles, or 5 kilometers, across and relatively shallow. Integrity crater is slightly larger and lies fully on the far side of the moon.<\/p>\n
The naming request came shortly after the crew surpassed Apollo 13\u2019s long-standing distance record for human spaceflight. All four astronauts cried and embraced after the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,\u201d Hansen radioed, his voice breaking. \u201cIt\u2019s a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mission Control was silent for nearly a minute before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntegrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
For NASA officials, the exchange stood apart from the more stoic tone often associated with the Apollo moon missions, whose all-male test pilot crews were generally less outwardly emotional.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is no fault of Apollo,\u201d Watkins said. \u201cI think we\u2019re seeing just a more human aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n
After returning to Earth later this week, the Artemis II crew is expected to formally submit the proposed names to the International Astronomical Union, which oversees official naming of planetary features.<\/p>\n
It took nearly 50 years for the IAU to formally approve Mount Marilyn, which it did in 2017.<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s Ramasamy Venugopal said a decision on Carroll and Integrity could come in about a month, which he described as typical \u201cfor straightforward requests.\u201d<\/p>\n
The IAU has already approved 81 astronaut-given lunar feature names, including Apollo 16\u2019s Baby Ray and Gator, as well as Apollo 17\u2019s Lara, named for the lead female character in the 1965 film \u201cDoctor Zhivago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not every Apollo nickname made it into the official record. Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan informally called a split boulder \u201cTracy\u2019s Rock\u201d after his daughter in 1972, while Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad dubbed his 1969 landing area \u201cPete\u2019s Parking Lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 hours agoCommander Wiseman gets emotional tribute of Carroll Crater to honor his late wife As NASA\u2019s Artemis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4,27304,829,2413,3,79,193,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-574352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-current-news","10":"tag-latest-news","11":"tag-national-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}