‘I hope they forget all about Artemis 2’: Moon astronauts are taking the long view

The astronauts of NASA’s Artemis 2 moon mission want to become a mere footnote in the annals of space history.

Artemis 2 will send NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day flight around the moon. As the first crewed trip to lunar realms since Apollo 17 in 1972, this mission will be momentous — but the Artemis 2 astronauts hope future generations have reason to gloss over their contributions.

“I hope they forget all about Artemis 2,” Koch told Bill Whitaker of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which aired a piece about the mission on Sunday night (Feb. 1). “I think that’s a little bit extreme, but we talk about our legacy being enabling the future missions, all the way from Artemis 3 to Artemis 100 to missions to Mars.”

Back to the moon: Inside NASA’s Artemis II mission – YouTube

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“I completely agree,” Wiseman said.

“But you’re the first step,” Whitaker pointed out.

“Yeah, but watch what’s coming next,” Hansen responded. “It gets pretty extraordinary from here.”

NASA is targeting Feb. 8 for the launch of Artemis 2, which will take place atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

Hitting that date, however, is contingent upon the successful completion of numerous prelaunch checks, including a crucial SLS fueling test that’s happening at KSC’s Pad 39B today (Feb. 2). Artemis 2 has backup launch opportunities on Feb. 10 and Feb. 11. After that, there are windows available in March and April.

Artemis 2 is the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent human presence on and around the moon by 2030 or so and, as Koch mentioned, help pave the way for crewed trips to Mars. If all goes to plan, Artemis 3 will put astronauts down on the lunar surface in 2028, and future missions will help establish and operate a base in the area.

You can watch the 13-minute “60 Minutes” Artemis 2 piece on YouTube. The discussion of the mission’s legacy quoted in this article came from a separate, seven-minute “’60 Minutes’ Overtime” segment, which you can find here.