NASA tapped the astronauts for the historic moon flyby mission

Discovery of the Crew of a Space Mission for the First Moon Flight in Five Decades: Jean Wiseman, J. C. Glover, and Christina Koch

Members of the crew who will helm the first moon mission in five decades were revealed on Monday, queuing up the quartet to begin training for their historic lunar flyby that is set to take off in November 2024.

In 2009, Wiseman was selected to be a NASA Astronaut and had served in the Navy as a naval aviator. He spent 165 days at the International Space Station in his first flight, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. After working in the office of the chief of the Astronaut office, he became eligible for a flight assignment.

The Canadian space agency chose a fighter pilot as a candidate to become anastrologer. He is one of just four Canadian astronauts, and recently was put in charge of training for a new class of NASA astronauts.

Glover is a 46-year-old naval aviator who returned to Earth from his first spaceflight in 2021 after piloting the second crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and spending nearly six months aboard the International Space Station. A veteran of four space walks earned a master’s degree in engineering while also being a test pilot.

Christina Koch, 44, is a veteran of six spacewalks. She holds the record for longest spaceflight by a woman, with a total of over 300 days in space. Koch is also an an electrical engineer who helped develop scientific instruments for multiple NASA mission. She’s also spent a year at the South Pole, an arduous stay that could well prepare her for the intensity of a moon mission.

The Farthest a Human’s Traveling Under the Moon: The Case of the Orion Space Shuttle and the Artemis I Mission

After the safe return of the Orion spaceship in December, NASA associate administrator RobertD. Cabana said that the craft performed “flawlessly”. Officials had scuttled the scheduled launch of Artemis I several times over technical problems, including a hydrogen leak, as well as severe weather.

It will take about 10 days for the crew to go beyond the moon, which could be the farthest a human has traveled in history.

The exact distance beyond the Moon will be determined by the day of liftoff and the relative distance from the Earth at that time.

“The world is still calm when things like this happen,” Biden said. “And I know you know it, but the work you’re doing is going to inspire countless people around our country and the world.”

As part of the program, NASA hopes to build a base camp on the Moon that would include a lunar cabin, a rover and a mobile home and allow astronauts to stay there for up to two months at a time to conduct future research.

The Artemis program will cost an estimated 93 billion dollars over the next seven years, according to NASA’s Office of Inspector General.

The Artemis Accords have been signed by many countries, including Australia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.