Artemis crew shares emotional moment as lunar crater named after commander’s deceased wife

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen announces the names of two fresh moon craters, including one named Carroll after the late wife of Commander Reid Wiseman.

Artemis astronauts at the outer edge of human space travel had an emotional moment Monday 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.

• READ MORE: Jeremy Hansen challenges future generations to break new Artemis record
• READ MORE: Broken toilet, no showers and farts: Here is everything the Artemis II crew is dealing with

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 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.

• READ MORE: What to know about the 40-minute communications blackout as Artemis II rounds the moon
• READ MORE: Manitoba artist designs patch for Artemis II astronaut

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.

• READ MORE: How NASA’s Artemis II mission is opening Canada’s space economy
• READ MORE: How NASA’s Artemis II moon mission will unfold