Godwin speaks of personal experience as Artemis 1 gets ready for launch

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Dr. Linda Godwin in her 30 year career spent more than 38 days in space and spent over 10 hours outside the shuttle on spacewalks. 

The University of Missouri professor spoke to ABC17 News on Tuesday about her experiences in space as the Artemis 1 rocket is set to take off into Wednesday morning.

The Artemis 1 rocket is currently scheduled to launch just after midnight tonight at 12:04 am, the entire mission is scheduled to last 25 days.

"I flew twice on Atlantis and twice on Endeavor (space shuttles)," she said. "I got to do two space walks, once each on my last two missions."

There have been many childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut. Godwin lived out her dream.

Now with NASA looking at adding future manned flights to the moon, Godwin said the shuttle program was special.

"Astronauts getting to fly into space and the number of opportunities per year it definitely was the golden age."

Launching the Artemis program will be the return of Americans on the lunar landscape and the first steps in the expanded future of space exploration.

"The shuttle was always meant to be a shuttle to a space station,” she said. “I don't think anyone thought it would take us this long to get back to moon.”

But that is only the first step in this new program.

After all the delays with Artemis, having a lunar outpost and a lunar lander will still be a work in progress.

"This first flight if it goes really well we could have people on the next flight,” Godwin said. “There is a lander in development, but it is not ready yet so that has to progress into fruition. The outpost will have to be built section by section and it may not be that big to start with. But we can land the first time without having the lunar gateway in place."