NASA chose only to return these astronauts to the moon.

NASA It named four astronauts the first humans to orbit the moon in more than 50 years.

US astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover and G. Reed Wiseman will travel aboard the Orion spacecraft, departing from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as November 2024. He joins them. Canadian Space Agency.

of 32-story mega moon rocket – the most powerful in the world – with a force equivalent to 160,000 Corvette engines, it shoots them into the sky with 8.8 million pounds of thrust. In the year Astronauts haven’t made this trip since the Apollo flights in 1972.

Although women are trained and tested with men In the early 1960s(Opens in a new tab)This mission marks the first time in history that any woman has gone on such a deep voyage. Space, hundreds of thousands of miles above the low-Earth orbiting International Space Station. For years, NASA said female applicants did not meet strict criteria for crew placement. Now in the year In 2023, the agency freely admitted that this date was too long.

“You’ve already gone down in the history books as a record-setting astronaut,” said Jo Acaba, NASA’s first female astronaut chief. You are a trailblazer and a role model for all generations to come. To travel to a deep place. “And as the only professional engineer on board, I know who to call in mission control when it’s time to fix something on board.”

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NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced the Artemis 2 crew: Mission Specialist Christina Hammock Koch, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Commander G. Reed Wiseman and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen.
Credit: NASA

Artemis II breaks another barrier by piloting the first man of color beyond low-Earth orbit on a space mission Victor Glover. According to NASA officials, the various classifications of the crew of the plane show that it is very large Cultural changes They took place at the agency decades before the program began, when white men dominated human space exploration and aeronautics.

“All four astronauts represent the best of humanity as they explore the common good,” Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in a statement.

Aim of Artemis II

The mission is expected to serve Critical stress test(Opens in a new tab) Orion’s life support systems, the new passenger rover NASA hopes will carry astronauts to the moon to fulfill its long-held ambition: establishing a permanent lunar base for research. The agency intends to use the moon as an experiment A future mission to MarsOver 130 million miles away. The selection of the planes was announced Monday morning from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA announced crew selection for Artemis II on Monday morning from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credit: NASA

“The commitment to go to the Moon has to be seen in the context of going to Mars,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s former associate administrator for science, told Mashable last year. “This is probably one of the hardest things we’ve ever done as humans, technologically, objectively. It’s harder than going to the moon, harder than the Apollo program. And the way we’re doing it. It’s very different, we’re doing it as a world, not as a country.

“The way we work is very different. We are not working as a country, but as a world.”

That vision, a future where humans can travel to Mars and survive, requires practice and cannot be accomplished single-handedly by NASA. The agency By the time it’s ready to send the first astronauts to walk on the moon in early 2025, for example, it will have spent the cost. 93 billion dollars On the project, according to the federal watchdog. Becoming multiplanetary requires many other astronaut nations and trading partners to bear the cost.

Artemis II will be the first mission to send a woman or a person of color into deep space.
Credit: NASA

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NASA is buying the plans with other nations. Treaty of Artemis(Opens in a new tab)International Convention Establishing Standards for Safe and Cooperative Space Exploration. Agency officials say the mission, which includes a Canadian astronaut, demonstrates their commitment to international partnerships in the Artemis program.

“It’s not lost on any of us that the United States could choose to go back to the moon alone,” Hanson said. “But America has made a very deliberate choice over the decades to nurture a global team, and that, in my definition, is true leadership.”

Artemis 2 mission

Artemis II sends four astronauts to orbit the moon as a critical flight test for Artemis III before returning to the lunar surface.
Credit: NASA

Over 10 days, the Artemis II astronauts will make two elliptical loops around Earth before flying around the Moon. The Houston team will control most of the flight, but astronauts will be responsible for the second Earth orbit. Conducting the maneuver(Opens in a new tab). That step tests Orion’s docking and docking capabilities – Important During the next Artemis III mission.

For the duration of the flight, NASA is looking at how the spacecraft maintains its air supply, removing carbon dioxide and water vapor as astronauts breathe, especially during physical activity.

Orion does Single lunar flight(Opens in a new tab) During the mission, put the astronauts on a path that uses Earth’s gravity to return home.

Try the dummy Cmmdr. Munkin Campos sits in the pilot’s seat during the Artemis I mission.
Credit: NASA

This second mission follows the completion of the first Artemis spaceflight last December. NASA launched the empty Orion spacecraft on the Mega Moon rocket November 16, 2022. It flew a 1.4 million mile mission, trying different orbits that had never been attempted before.

After 25.5 days, the spacecraft sprinkled down In the Pacific Ocean and back. After reviewing flight data three months later, the US space agency declared the mission a success.

But after returning, NASA Analysis after the flight The rocket stage and spacecraft were severely damaged in the impact and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Groups are particularly concerned about overburned items Heat protection It will protect Orion as it accelerates to 24,500 mph in temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit during its return. The team has not yet decided if the material should be re-recorded.

“With Artemis 1, we set out to make sure the hardware was ready,” Akaba said. “Artemis II will take advantage of that by putting humans back into orbit, performing tasks on the critical path and making new footprints on the lunar surface.”