NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman gestured a heart sign before the Artemis II took off to orbit the Moon, where astronauts proposed for a crater to be named "Carroll" in honor of his deceased wife

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman gestured a heart sign before the Artemis II took off to orbit the Moon, where astronauts proposed for a crater to be named "Carroll" in honor of his deceased wife

Artemis astronauts at the outer edge of human space travel had an emotional moment Monday as they proposed to name a crater in honor of the deceased wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman. 

"It's a bright spot on the Moon. And we would like to call it Carroll," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told a live broadcast.

The crater can be seen "at certain times of the Moon's transit around Earth," he said.

As Wiseman and others wiped away tears, the four astronauts pulled together in a silent, floating embrace.

The Artemis II crew dubbed another crater "Integrity," in honor of the name they have given their spacecraft.

A NASA spokesperson in Houston said the names proposed by the Artemis crew would be passed along to the International Astronomical Union, the body responsible for naming celestial bodies and features.  

The four astronauts became on Monday the humans to travel furthest from Earth, as they prepared to view areas of the Moon never before seen by the naked eye as part of NASA's historic lunar flyby.

"We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next, to make sure this record is not long-lived," Hansen said.

Carroll Taylor Wiseman died of cancer in 2020, and Reid Wiseman, a former fighter pilot, has been raising their two daughters on his own since then.

cha-ico/ksb/sla

Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.

(0) comments

Welcome to the discussion.

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.