In 1968, Invoice Anders, a member of the Apollo 8 mission crew, took a photograph of the Earth that made history, marked the lives of many and inspired an entire generation.
Christina Koch was born 11 years after that moment and as a child she had a poster of “Earthrise” or “Earthrise”, the famous photo taken from lunar orbit in which the Earth appears partially in shadow and the lunar surface in the foreground.
He remembers that moment when he saw her for the first time. It was then that he decided he would become an astronaut.
Not only did she meet that great goal, but on Wednesday, April 1, she became the first woman to travel to the Moon aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission.
He goes with three other astronauts, including mission commander Reid Wiseman, Canadian Jeremy Hansen and Victor J Glover, the first black man to travel to the Moon.
The mission is planned to take the crew further from Earth than any human in history, reaching about 400,000 km at its furthest point.
Koch has described her participation in Artemis II as “an incredible privilege and responsibility,” and that she was “very grateful to those who paved the path” that led to the historic voyage.
For her, the flight of the Artemis II mission is literally a dream come true because, like Apollo 8 that captivated her in her childhood, it will fly around the Moon to prepare the ground for a later mission that lands on the moon, and at some point establish a lunar presence.
In an interview with NASA, she stated that she hopes that her mission will allow a new generation to have an experience similar to what she lived and make the world a more optimistic place, as the Apollo 8 mission did in 1968.
“The fact that there was a human being behind the lens made the image much deeper and changed the way we thought about our own planet,” he noted.
“The Moon is not just a symbol to reflect on our place in the universe; it is a beacon for science and for understanding where we come from.”
NASA’s Artemis II mission marks a historic moment with the return of a crew to Moon orbit, something that has not happened for more than 50 years.
The mission commander, Reid Wiseman, said in a press conference that they plan to fly over large areas of the Moon never seen before and will do so aboard their Orion spacecraft, which the team of astronauts chose to call Integrity.
“The name Integrity embodies the foundations of trust, respect, openness and humility of the entire crew and the numerous engineers, technicians, scientists, planners and dreamers necessary for the success of the mission,” they explained in a statement.
Record Breaker
Christina Koch was born in the city of Worthy Rapids, Michigan, and raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
In her biography on the NASA website, she says that the summers she used to spend as a child on her family farm in Michigan instilled in her a passion for hard work and challenges.
What always drove her, she noted in a 2020 NASA video, were “things that made me feel small, things that made me think about the size of the universe, my place in it, and everything there was out there to explore.”
After earning degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering, Koch worked as a research associate in the United States Antarctic Program and as an electrical engineer in the Space Department of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, among other positions.
Her career as an astronaut began in 2013, in a class that had the largest number of candidates ever selected in the NASA program – 3 women, 4 men – and that also included Artemis II pilot Victor Glover.
In October 2019, she performed, together with Jessica Meir, the first all-female spacewalk.
The astronauts left the International Space Station (ISS) and spent 7 hours outside the ISS replacing a failed power watch over unit.
Recalling the historic event with Meir, Koch told NBC News: “When we were cleared to exit the airlock, and we finally got out, we were holding on to a railing and our eyes met.”
“We knew how special that moment was and I will never forget it.”
During that mission, he performed another 5 spacewalks (extravehicular activities), totaling 42 hours and 15 minutes in the vacuum of space.
Upon her return in early 2020, she made history by completing the longest space flight by a woman, after spending 328 consecutive days on the ISS.
In addition to the knowledge gained after completing more than 200 investigations, Koch brought important data with him on his body, as highlighted by NASA scientist Bryan Dansberry.
“As we hope to go to the Moon… and eventually Mars, we really have to understand the impacts [de pasar tiempo en el espacio] in the human body,” Dansberry explained.
Koch completed 5,248 orbits around the Earth and traveled 223 million kilometers, equivalent to 291 round trips to the Moon from Earth.
“I’m very overwhelmed and happy right now,” she told reporters after completing the feat, still sitting outside the capsule, shortly after it landed on a snowy surface in Kazakhstan.
He later noted that he wanted to inspire the next generation of space explorers.
“For me, it was important to see people in whom I could reflect on my childhood, when I imagined what I could do with my life and what my dreams would be. To possibly be a source of inspiration for someone else is a true honor.”
“Are we alone?”
Preparing for the Artemis II mission, Koch collected handwritten notes from people close to him to take with him and have as a “tactile connection” with loved ones on Earth.
With her husband, she said, the trip was a topic of constant conversation, with him wanting to know “what the most important milestones are, what the risky parts are, when he can breathe easy and when he needs to be glued to the television.”
But they have also talked about more practical things, such as the fact that Artemis will not be like its mission to the ISS: there will be no informal calls from orbit or the ability to quickly ask where something is in a closet.
“He won’t be able to call me to ask me where something is in the house,” he said, laughing. “You’re going to have to find it on your own.”
Koch’s role on Artemis II is that of mission specialist, meaning she is one of those responsible for carrying out technical and scientific tasks on board, such as operating the ship’s systems, supervising experiments and making sure everything works correctly during flight.
In her case, this role fits perfectly with her career: she is an electrical and physical engineer, she has worked with scientific instrumentation and was already a flight engineer on the ISS, a role also focused on the technical operation of the mission.
Koch explained that the group will have the opportunity to study the lunar surface in great detail for three hours.
“Believe it or not, human eyes are some of the best scientific instruments we have,” he said.
Koch added that NASA geologists are excited about the fact that the Moon will be observed directly by the four astronauts.
“We’ve been training ourselves to turn that observation into answers to some of the biggest questions of our times, like, ‘Are we alone?’” he continues.
“We will be able to answer it in the future by traveling to Mars, but this mission may be the first step for humanity to find that answer.”
click hereto look more stories from BBC News World.
Subscribe hereto our new e-newsletter to receive a selection of our best content of the week every Friday.
You can also follow us on YouTube, instagram, TikTok, x, Facebookand in our whatsapp channel.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.
- Artemis II: valuable natural resources and 4 other reasons why NASA wants to return to the Moon after 50 years
- “What an incredible sight”: NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully lifts off on a historic journey to the Moon
- Atenea: what the microsatellite developed by Argentina that participates in the historic Artemis II mission to the Moon is like and what it will do
