Moon crater named after Artemis commander’s deceased wife

Summary

• Artemis II crew emotionally named a lunar crater "Carroll" after commander Reid Wiseman's deceased wife, honouring her memory during their mission.
• The crew also named their spacecraft "Integrity," giving that name to another crater, as they journeyed further from Earth than any humans before.
• NASA will submit the proposed crater names to the International Astronomical Union for official approval, following the crew's record-breaking lunar flyby.

HOUSTON - Artemis astronauts at the outer edge of human space travel had an emotional moment on April 6 as they proposed to name a crater in honour 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 Captain 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 honour 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 April 6 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,” Colonel Hansen said.

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