By Richard Tew/The Post Newspaper
Last week, NASA held a series of events at the Johnson Space Center’s Teague Auditorium to introduce a new crop of ten astronauts along with an update on Artemis II, the next in the Artemis series of missions intended to take humans to the Moon.
Monday, ten new NASA astronauts were introduced by Dr. Kjell Lingren, Acting Director, Flight Operations Directorate with introductions and additional comments by JSC Directory Vanessa Wyche and JSC Deputy Director Steven Koerner along with Texas elected leaders U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Congressman Dr. Brian Babin who commented on the significance of space exploration and the roll they see the U.S. playing in future trips to the Moon and beyond. Comments were also made by Secretary of Transporation and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, along with Acting NASA Deputy Administrator Amit Kshatriya.
According to JSC’s Deputy Director Steven Koerner, the new astronauts will start their two-year training as of the introduction ceremony.
The new astronauts are: Ben Baily, Lauren Edgar, Adam Fuhrmann, Cameron Jones, Yuri Kubo, Rebecca Lawler, Anna Menon, Imelda Muller, Erin Overcash and Katherine Spies.
Tuesday and Wednesday’s events focused on Artemis II. NASA says Artemis I’s mission was the send an uncrewed Orion Space Craft around the Moon to take video and picture for the future Artemis II mission. Artemis II will see a crewed Orion Space Craft travel to the Moon, circle it taking additional video, images and other useful data in preparation for a future Artemis III mission which will aim and putting humans on the Moon.
A tentative launch date of February 5, 2026 is the current goal.
At Wednesday’s crew update, Artemis Commander Reid Wiseman noted the relationships he, along with fellow NASA Astronauts Victor Glover, Cristina Koch and Canadian Astronaut Jeremey Hansen have created over the last few years.
“We have just built a tremendous amount of trust between the four of us and between our leadership who we interact with every day,” said Wiseman.
Wiseman says the Space Launch System (SLS)rocket with its booster is nearing completion and is waiting for the Orion Spacecraft to be affixed to the top. Once the crew is launched into space, Orion with separate from the SLS rocket, orbit Earth for 24 hours, go through a system of checks and if all checks out, initiate a burn towards the Moon then finally travel back to Earth after a ten-day mission.
NASA’s newest astronauts were introduced by Dr. Kjell Lingren, Acting Director, Flight Operations Directorate (far right) to a gathered crowd of family, friends, NASA employees and administrative staff, along with both elected and appointed officials last Monday at JSC’s Teague Auditorium.
Photos by Richard Tew/The Post Newspaper.
