A deeply personal moment played out near the moon this week, when the Artemis II astronauts asked to name two lunar craters after their capsule and the late wife of commander Reid Wiseman.
Now heading home from the moon, the crew proposed one small, fresh crater be called Integrity, after their capsule, and another be called Carroll, after Wiseman’s late wife. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen made the request just before Monday’s lunar fly-around, because Wiseman was too emotional to speak.
Carroll Wiseman, a neonatal nurse, died of cancer in 2020.
During Apollo 8 in 1968, astronaut Jim Lovell named a prominent lunar peak Mount Marilyn after his wife. It was humanity’s first trip to the moon, and she waited for his return in Houston.
The Artemis II crew, three Americans and one Canadian, are the first lunar visitors since Apollo 17 in 1972. Their request to name the craters briefly left ground controllers speechless.
“It was definitely a very emotional moment. I don’t think most of us knew it was coming,” NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Johnson Space Center in Houston. “There was not a single dry eye.”
Mission Control’s lead scientist Kelsey Young worked with the Artemis II crew before launch and quietly helped them choose the two bright, relatively young craters. The astronauts spotted them once they were close enough to the moon, using zoom lenses and their naked eyes.
The proposed Carroll Crater sits at the moon’s left limb on the boundary of the near and far sides, and is sometimes visible from Earth. It is shallow and about 5 kilometers across, according to Watkins. The slightly larger Integrity crater is completely on the lunar far side.
The request came shortly after the crew broke Apollo 13’s distance record for deep-space travelers. All four astronauts cried as they embraced in a group hug.
“We lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,” Hansen radioed, his voice breaking. “It’s a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.”
Mission Control was silent for nearly a minute before replying: “Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear.”
Watkins said the scene showed a clear difference from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s, when NASA’s all-male test pilot crews were mostly businesslike and tear-free.
“This is no fault of Apollo,” Watkins said. “I think we’re seeing just a more human aspect.”
After returning to Earth later this week, the crew will submit the proposed names to the International Astronomical Union. Nearly half a century passed between Apollo 8 and the union’s approval of Mount Marilyn in 2017.
The IAU’s Ramasamy Venugopal said a decision on Carroll and Integrity should come in about a month, the norm “for straightforward requests.”
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