Artemis II crew makes special stops in Madison, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

MADISON – The Artemis II crew has been making their rounds around the Rocket City on their national celebratory and gratitude tour. On August 31, they made a stop in Madison at Toyota Field for a free public event, where they addressed North Alabamians, many of whom contributed to the success of the Artemis II mission.

On September 1, the crew made a special visit at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to directly address Marshall employees. While at Marshall, the astronauts also spent time answering the media’s questions about their mission.

The conversation largely revolved around reflecting on preparation for the mission and the lessons learned as well as Marshall’s contribution to Artemis II.

The entire nation and world watched the take-off and splashdown of their flight, but the mission really began on earth far in advance of blasting off in the Space Launch System (SLS).

Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen prepared for the mission on the ground through simulation, testing, and engaging with the public. They met with a psychiatry team to prepare the group to work as a team, ensured physical fitness by exercising on flywheel devices, and practiced many different possible scenarios, including swimming out of the Orion capsule in the event the capsule turned upside down on splashdown and was out of reach of rescue crews.

Koch described that training exercise as “one of the scariest training days that I had.”

“We were in our spacesuits, and you have to flood your spacesuit with water to intentionally get heavy so you can go down the docking tunnel, out the spaceship, shoot yourself off of your feet on the edge of the tunnel and hopefully make it around without snagging the top. That was one of the scariest training days that I had,” shared Koch.

A lot of preparation went into the mission on the engineering side as well. Marshall contributed to propulsion, software, testing, and integration for the SLS. Artemis II astronauts thanked Marshall staff and NASA employees for their contributions to a safe and successful mission.

“The crew are really, significantly aware of the contributions that went into making that possible, to send four humans around the world. So, being here, talking to this team has been high on our list. It took us way too long to get here with the schedule being pulled in all directions, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important or meaningful for us to be here and thank these unsung heroes because it is an extraordinary team,” said Hansen.

“Everybody is just kind of immersed in this culture together, and you can tell, this place has just a very good culture, very tight-knit community, and they’re deeply proud that they have been powering us off of this planet since the late 1950s, early 1960s. It’s just steeped in tradition here, and we love coming and being a part of that,” said Wiseman.

Koch has another special tie to the Rocket City as a Space Camp alumna. She offered a message of encouragement to future generations of astronauts.

“The message that I would send to any space camper is that Space Camp should be a place where you foster your dreams, where you learn teamwork, but also where you might also learn it’s ok if you’re not as confident as maybe you should be. If you’re a little bit nervous going into everything that you do there, but if you love it so much that you’re willing to overcome that, then you’re doing what scares you, and you also have something in common with me,” said Koch.

Koch and her crewmates accomplished important testing on their flight, including rendezvous and docking, to prepare for future Artemis missions that will land on the moon. They were also treated to a rare sight: the far side of the moon.

“One really neat thing about it is it was a continuous view. We didn’t stare at the moon the entire ten days, but because we got to see it in different shots, it looked different every time they pointed a window at it,” said Glover.

Looking ahead, the Artemis II crew said the future holds many more thank you’s to hand out as well as supporting the next crew in Artemis III. Artemis III is projected to launch in 2027 and will practice critical maneuvers for a moon landing on Artemis IV.