Artemis II Crew Returns to Marshall to Thank the Workforce Behind Their Lunar Mission

The four-person Artemis II crew visited NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on September 1 to thank the workforce that supported their historic first crewed lunar flyby, NASA said.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen met with Marshall employees and took part of a question-and-answer session, according to NASA's account of the visit. Koch described the stop as long overdue. "It took us far too long to get here because our schedules were being pulled in many directions," she said at a press conference that day, "but that does not mean it was not important or meaningful for us to be here and thank these unsung heroes." Wiseman, when asked what gave the crew confidence in the Space Launch System rocket, offered a one-word answer: trust.

The visit was part of what the crew called a continuing tour of gratitude for the teams that supported the mission, accounts of the event reported. The Artemis II crew flew farther from Earth than any humans since Apollo 13, reaching a maximum distance of 252,756 miles, according to accounts of the visit. For Koch, the stop carried personal weight. She attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center five times between 1992 and 1996, accounts of the event reported, and called Huntsville the place where her dreams were allowed to grow.

Wiseman said the crew is already focused on what follows. "Artemis III is next," he said, according to accounts of the event. The crew intends to support that mission as a reference for the team that flies it.

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