Former astronaut from Missouri speaks on Artemis II space launch

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

History was made Wednesday after NASA launched a crew to the moon for the first time since the 1970s Wednesday in its Artemis II mission.

The rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The last mission this close to the moon was the Apollo 8 mission.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, took off on their journey in the Orion spacecraft around 5:30 p.m. central time. The 10-day mission will loop the astronauts around the moon — but they won’t touch down on its surface. In their return back to earth the spacecraft will land the astronauts into the Pacific Ocean.

Linda Godwin -- a Missouri native who is a former astronaut and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri -- during her 30-year career spent more than 38 days in space and more than 10 hours outside the shuttle on spacewalks with NASA. During went to the International Space Station during her final mission.

Godwin said while the path Artemis II astronauts are taking is similar to the Apollo 8 mission, astronauts this time are planning to look at different things. Apollo 8 was the mission where astronauts first left Earth's atmosphere and reach the moon's orbit. That mission occurred in December 1968, seven months before the Apollo 11 mission touched down on the moon.

"For Apollo [8], they mainly wanted the side that faced Earth to be lit because that's the surface they landed on," Godwin said. "On this mission, they're kind of more interested in when the lunar lighting is shifted so they can see more of the back."

Godwin said the astronauts will also be tasked with a number of different experiments.

"What's changing in their own body, they're gonna be looking a lot of tests and radiation measuring equipment," Godwin said. "The things they are going to do to really help us understand that whole environment for the next crew."

Eventually NASA has its sights set on putting boots back onto the moon's surface. However, Godwin said recent changes may not make that possible until Artemis IV.

"The next mission, it's going to be in low-Earth orbit and they're hoping to have some landers available to to cruise and can practice and practice operations," Godwin said.

Godwin said the Artemis II mission will also help them stay on top of maintenance while the moon lander is being built. This is especially important after issues found during Artemis I.

"The heat shield was the big one," Godwin said. "They saw some evidence that it didn't quite act like they thought it would and they spent some time really figuring it out, understanding what was wrong and also realizing that they could change the way Artemis II comes back into the atmosphere a little bit."

She said NASA engineers are confident with the updated heat shield and adjusted reentrance point for Artemis II. Godwin added that the astronauts have practiced various mock failure scenarios in preparation.

"They and Mission Control are tied in together in these simulations to talk about and respond to failures and what they would do and particularly on ascent, it might have to be a quick response," Godwin said.

She said there's always the unknown in the back of an astronaut's mind, but that's where the repetition and practice come into play.

"There are certain abort modes they can execute, just like if they lose thrust at a certain time," Godwin said. "You think about all the failures you can react to, you do everything you can to prepare for that and then you got to get ready for launch day and you've made it as safe as you can, you've trained as much as you can."

The spacecraft will make its return to earth April 10.

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