After a gap of almost 50 years, NASA, the US Space Agency will send humans back to the moon, and the 4-person group visiting outer space includes, for the first time in history, a Black man and a woman.
Victor Glover will become the first Black astronaut, and Christina Koch will be the first woman astronaut to be sent on a lunar mission. “This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate. And it’s so much more than the four names that have been announced,” Glover said.
Glover also has the distinction of being the first Black astronaut to serve a rotation at the International Space Station. He will be the pilot for Artemis II.
“We need to celebrate this moment in human history because Artemis II is more than a mission to the moon and back. It’s more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the moon. It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars,” Glover said.
Glover was a member of the first crew to fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship in 2020.
The two will join Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen to fly a capsule around the Moon sometime in late 2024 or early 2025.
So far, since the first moon landing in 1969 of the Apollo mission, NASA has sent 24 white American men to the moon. Now for the first time, a Black man, a white woman, and a Canadian will visit the moon.
The crew will complete the first flight around the moon in more than 50 years. They will however not land on the moon itself, and instead, will carry out the spadework for a subsequent crew that will land.
The mission, Artemis II, will last 10 days aboard NASA’s Orion spaceship.
