Moments of moon joy

Remember when DVDs had bonus content, like extra or deleted scenes? I wrote an essay this week for Cog about the Artemis II mission, and how it made me think of my dad who worked at NASA for his whole career. I followed the mission from home via the NASA livestream; as I wrote in the essay, I’ve been referring to the crew members of Integrity as “my astronauts,” along with “my space” as in, “Put my space back on the TV.” There were countless moments of “moon joy” I wish I could have included, so I’d like to share just a few more here.

After the lunar flyby, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman asked Mission Control for 20 new superlatives, because what they experienced was beyond words. Still, Miriam-Webster (yes, the dictionary) asked the team, via a live Q&A in space, to name a few words that came to mind. Astronaut Christina Koch, the first woman to orbit the moon, said if she had to choose one, it would be “humility.” She talked about the gratitude she felt for  NASA predecessors like Neil Armstrong and Dorothy Vaughan, civil rights leaders and everyone who “put their hands on this spacecraft” — from engineers and technicians across the country and the world, to people in harnesses rigging the spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center.

The Orion spacecraft capsule is about the size of two minivans. But with zero gravity, was it really more spacious than you’d expect? Koch’s answer to that question was yes, it feels bigger inside, and also yes, they were always bumping into one another. Laughing, she said, “Everything we do here is a four-person activity. But it’s also really fun.”

In a press conference the day before the scheduled splashdown, NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya expressed his admiration for the crew and said, “If you can’t take love to the stars, then what are we doing? Why would we even go?” He said that’s why we send humans instead of robots sometimes. We can share the experience.

That's what I kept thinking (and writing) about last week — how the most inspiring parts of this mission are about being human.

Koch also answered a question about what her 10-year-old self would think about where she is now — in space. She recalled visiting the Kennedy Space Center with her family, and seeing the Saturn V rocket. She said couldn’t believe she went to space in a rocket from that same place. I took my 9-year-old son to the Kennedy Space Center last month. Who knows what will come from that. Sometimes we can’t even imagine.

Until soon,