These Four Souls Will Bring Humans to the Moon On Artemis II, Here's Why Each Got the Call

In a joint announcement by NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the twin agencies announced they'd finished the selection process for the Artemis II  circumnavigation of the Moon and agreed on the above-mentioned choice of the crew. With Commander Reid Wiseman at the helm, Artemis II will conduct the first dedicated circumnavigation around the Moon since the Apollo 8 mission of December 1968 with Frank Borman, William Anders, and commander Jim Lovel at the controls.

For ten perilous days, a single Lockheed Martin Orion Space Capsule will use 8.8 million pounds of thrust from its SLS booster vehicle to propel itself into a trans-lunar injection on a direct path to lunar orbit. In future human-crewed landings on the lunar surface, Orion is planned to dock with the Gateway Lunar Space Station before embarking on a SpaceX Starship HLS to go down to the surface.

For the time being, Artemis II will serve essentially the same role the Apollo 8 mission did all those years ago. Their shared mission was to test the respective command and service modules of either the Apollo or Artemis program in preparation for a ten-orbit jaunt around the circumference of our nearest neighborly heavenly body. In unique ways, each astronaut selected for Artemis II brings something vital to the table.

Take mission commander Gregory R Wiseman for example. A former Captain in the United States Navy whose claim to fame before his selection to NASA in 2009 was working closely on the test programs of the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-35C Lightning II. He's also a combat veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and the subsequent U.S. deployment over Iraq. In fact, it was while on deployment in the Middle East that Wiseman was informed of his selection to the 2009 NASA Astronaut Group.

With 165 days in orbit and nearly 13 hours of EVA experience under his belt, Reid Wiseman was the obvious first choice for the most daring space mission in half a century. He'll be flanked by a team including the first woman to slip the bounds of low-Earth orbit. Forget Billie Eilish, Christina Hammock Koch of Jacksonville, North Carolina is the kind of woman you want young girls to aspire to be like.

With 328 days, 13 hours, and 58 minutes in LEO under her belt, Christina Koch has accomplished more in space at age 44 than most astronauts have in their entire careers. A scientist at heart with a Master's degree in electrical engineering, Koch cut her teeth working at the United States Antarctic Program between 2004 and 2007. At Palmer Station on Anvers Island in Antarctica, Koch braved conditions that would prepare her to one day do things no woman has done before.

Besides Koch, in the Artemis II Orion Capsule is the first African American man to join the short life of those who've traveled to the Moon. Another U.S. Navy Captain and former High School Quarterback/ Running Back, Victor Jerome Glover. With the added factor of his experience in non-NASA vehicles like SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, this Pomona, California native has a Masters of Science from the Air University wing of the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.

With a prolific athletic background and combat experience over the Middle East during the War on Terror, Victor Glover is well suited for both logically and physically strenuous activities the average lunar mission has to offer. He's also had flight experience on over 40 different aircraft. So then, he's the Eric "Winkle" Brown of the modern day, so to speak. But completing this crew rotation is the first non-American to leave Low Earth Orbit.

As one of the most skilled CF-18 Hornet fighter jet pilots in all of Canada, Colonel Jeremy Roger Hansen is well on his way to becoming one of the most important Canadian nationals alive today. As a choice for the CSA's 2009 selection group, separate from NASA's, Jeremy Hansen will be the first astronaut to make use of the Artemis Accords. Essentially an international doctrine that allows non-U.S. nations, including Canada, to use NASA/ESA infrastructure to get their citizens into space.

Add them all together in a shared Orion capsule, and NASA's selected a variable dream team of skills, quirks, and specialties that'd make the early '90s U.S. Olympic Basketball team seem feeble by comparison. We're going back to the Moon, everybody! It's these brave souls who are going to bring us there.