HOUSTON — For the first time in more than half a century, NASA has named a crew of astronauts headed to the moon.
They are Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander; Victor Glover, the pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and, Jeremy Hansen, also a mission specialist. The first three are NASA astronauts, while Mr. Hansen is a member of the Canadian Space Agency.
“So am I excited?” Ms. Koch said during an event unveiling the crew at Ellington Field, a small airport used by NASA for training of astronauts. “Absolutely. But my real question is: are you excited?”
The assembled crowd cheered in response.
It is a major step in NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon to explore the cold regions near the moon’s south pole where water ice can be found in the deep, dark craters. From the experience on the moon, NASA hopes to chart a path to putting humans on Mars, while scientists expect to use what is found there to answer questions about how the solar system formed.
“Together, we are going — to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond,” said Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator.
But the four astronauts aboard this next mission, Artemis II, will not land on the moon.
Instead, the travelers will take a 10-day journey that will swing around the moon and come back to Earth. It is currently scheduled for late next year, and it will be the first time that humans have ventured more than a few hundred miles off the planet since the return of Apollo 17, NASA’s last moon mission, in 1972.
“It’s an exciting time for the Artemis people, no question about it,” Harrison Schmitt, the last surviving astronaut from Apollo 17, said in an interview. He added that many people did not “fully realize that we’re about three generations away from any experience with human beings being in deep space, and that’s probably the most important part of the mission.”
Dr. Schmitt, who is also a former United States senator, said he was not necessarily surprised that it had taken so long. “I would say I’m disappointed,” he said. “A lot of things conspired to stop the Apollo program and to keep us from going back for quite a while.”
Astronauts in 2023 are much different than those of the moon race era. During the Apollo program, 24 astronauts flew to the moon, and 12 of them stepped on the surface. All of them were Americans. All of them were white men, many who were test pilots.
This time, the astronaut corps reflects a wider swath of society.
During the event, Mr. Wiseman said it said it was “awesome” to command a an international, diverse crew.
Mr. Glover was the commander of the first operational mission of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to the International Station and was the first Black man to serve as a crew member on the orbiting outpost.
Ms. Koch will be the first woman to venture beyond low-Earth orbit, and Mr. Hansen, as a Canadian, the first non-American to travel that far.
Mr. Hansen noted that the United States could have undertaken the Artemis missions by itself by instead chose to pull together an international collaboration with Canada and the European Space Agency. That agreement reserved a seat for a Canadian astronaut on Artemis II.
“All of Canada is grateful for that global mind set and that leadership,” Mr. Hansen said.
Mr. Wiseman said he wanted the moon missions “to bring our country together, to bring the world together.
