NASA today named the first 18 astronauts of its “Artemis Team” for missions to the moon — and two of the teammates trace their roots to Washington state.
One of the pair, Anne McClain, was born in Spokane and went on to serve a six-month stint aboard the International Space Station in 2018-2019. She took on two spacewalks during her time in orbit, but because of a flap over spacesuit sizes, she narrowly missed out on being part of a high-profile, all-woman spacewalk.
Now she has another chance at making history, as one of the candidates to become the first woman to set foot on the moon.
She played down the gender angle during a news briefing today.
“When I was up on space station, we never even thought about genders or races or religions — or nationalities, even — until somebody asked us about them,” McClain said through a mask that she wore to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. “So it has actually made us reflect on the reasons, and my takeaway is that the strongest teams are the most diverse teams.”
The other woman on the team with Washington state roots is Kayla Barron, who considers Richland her hometown and was named to the astronaut corps in 2017. She hasn’t yet been in space, but she has experience with living in close quarters by virtue of her service as a Navy submarine warfare officer.
Barron also has another connection to the Seattle tech community: She earned her master’s degree in nuclear engineering at the University of Cambridge, thanks to a scholarship funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The first Artemis astronauts were introduced by Vice President Mike Pence during a meeting of the National Space Council, held today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. In addition to McClain and Barron, they include:
- Joseph Acaba, a California native who’s flown three space missions.
- Raja Chari, who was raised in Iowa and became an astronaut in 2017.
- Matthew Dominick, a member of the Class of 2017 from Colorado.
- Victor Glover, a California native who’s currently on the space station.
- Warren Hoberg, a Class of 2017 astronaut from Pennsylvania.
- Jonny Kim, a Californian who joined the astronaut corps in 2017.
- Christina Koch, who set the women’s record for longest spaceflight.
- Kjell Lindgren, a space station veteran who was born in Taipei.
- Nicole Mann, a Californian who’s training to fly on Boeing’s Starliner.
- Jessica Meir, a Mainer who lived on the space station in 2019-20.
- Jasmine Moghbeli, a New Yorker who became an astronaut in 2017.
- Kate Rubins, a Californian serving her second space station stint.
- Frank Rubio, a member of the Class of 2017 from Florida.
- Scott Tingle, a space station veteran born in Massachusetts.
- Jessica Watkins, a Colorado native who’s part of the Class of 2017.
- Stephanie Wilson, a veteran of three space shuttle flights.
“I give you the heroes who will carry us to the moon and beyond – the Artemis Generation,” Pence said. “It really is amazing to think that the next man and first woman on the moon are among the names that we just read, and they may be standing in the room with us right now.”
In the years ahead, Artemis astronauts will train on the hardware that will be used during future missions to the moon – including NASA’s Orion deep-space capsule, as well as landing systems that could include the spacecraft being developed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and its partners.
The first crewed Artemis mission is currently scheduled for 2023, and would involve a lunar flyby followed by a looping return to Earth. NASA’s plan calls for sending an Artemis crew to the moon’s south polar region in 2024, although that date might slip. Other missions would follow, leading to a sustained human presence at an Artemis Base Camp in the late 2020s.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine emphasized that membership on the Artemis Team would not be limited to the nine men and nine women named today. He said that more astronauts – from NASA and from the space programs of partner nations – would be added as the program progressed.
Assignments to specific missions will be announced at a later time.
In what’s likely to be his final appearance as chairman of the National Space Council, Pence said the Artemis Team’s role won’t be limited to moon missions.
“We made clear in our first year that the moon is not a final destination, but it’s a base for developing and training for future deep-space missions,” he said. “We’re going back to the moon, and then we’re going to Mars and beyond.”
In related developments:
- The Trump administration issued a national space policy that puts more emphasis on human space exploration as well as cybersecurity and national security. Pence singled out China and Russia as countries of concern. “Russia demonstrated a space-based anti-satellite weapon earlier this year,” he noted. “China is developing a new manned space station, and its robotic spacecraft will return samples from the moon in just a matter of weeks.”
- Pence said two Florida facilities that figure prominently in America’s space program have been renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Patrick Space Force Base, in recognition of the past year’s rise of the U.S. Space Force.
- The vice president also said “we are initiating today efforts to rename an upcoming United States military base after the late and great General Chuck Yeager.” Yeager, who became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier in 1947, died this week at the age of 97.
