These four people will soon fly around the moon

Three men and a woman will fly around the moon on NASA’s “Artemis 2” mission. These are American astronaut Christina Koch, her American colleagues Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA announced on Monday. The four astronauts would be the first humans to be near the moon since the astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission set foot on the moon in 1972. The mission “Artemis 2” is currently scheduled for November 2024.

“We need to celebrate this moment in human history,” Glover said shortly after the announcement. “It’s more than a mission. It’s the next step in the journey that will take humanity to Mars and this crew will never forget it.” Glover would be the first non-white to board a NASA moon mission, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first Canadian. It would be the second flight into space for Glover, Koch and Wisemann and the first for Hansen.

“The crew of ‘Artemis 2’ represents thousands of people who work tirelessly to take us to the stars,” said NASA Director Bill Nelson. “This is their profession, this is our profession, this is humanity’s profession.” The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated and thanked the four astronauts for their work over the phone. German astronaut Alexander Gerst also congratulated on Twitter in English: “Congratulations, my friends. Here we go!”

The “Artemis 2” mission, which will last about ten days, would be the first crewed “Artemis” launch following the successful test of the “Artemis 1” mission in December. The unmanned capsule “Orion” had traveled about 2.4 million miles through space, flew around the moon, landed back in the Pacific Ocean after about 26 days in space and collected important data.

Previously, the mission had not had a good star with cost explosions and repeated launch delays for various reasons. The uncrewed test mission was regarded as an important step in the return of humans to the moon, with the long-term goal of a trip to Mars.

About a year after “Artemis 2” there will be another manned flight including moon landing with “Artemis 3”. With the program “Artemis”, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, a woman and a non-white person will land on the moon for the first time. The European Space Agency Esa and space agencies from several other countries are involved in “Artemis”.

The last time humans were on the moon was with the “Apollo 17” mission about 50 years ago – the landing took place on December 11, 1972. In all, the US was the only country with the “Apollo” missions between 1969 and 1972 to have twelve astronauts to the moon.

“The moon is an important target for space travel,” said Europe’s former space chief Jan Wörner of the German news agency. The “Artemis” program, however, is a clear further development: “Not ‘back to the moon’, but ‘forward to the moon’: the mission does not have four white, male Americans on board, but is an example of diversity: different skin colours, three men and one woman, respectively three Americans and one Canadian. That is exactly what ‘Forward to the Moon’ means: no repetition, but something new, a team characterized by diversity.” (sda/dpa)