by Flying to the Moon is the dream of most astronauts, but for the crew of the upcoming Artemis II mission, their ultimate goal is to return safely to Earth.
In an exclusive interview for Telegraph subscribers, Victor Glover from NASA and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, spoke of their fears for their families and their concern that the entire mission would be abandoned if something went wrong.
The pair were selected as pilot and mission specialist for the Artemis II mission, which is scheduled for a lunar flyby next year. If successful, it will be landed in 2025 or 2026.
Hansen, 47, a former fighter pilot, astronaut trainer and married father of three, said: “I’ve thought about it, I know it’s a scary thing. It is far away.
“I’m not afraid but I certainly acknowledge the fear of something like this and we spend a good part of our week talking about ways we could lose the crew in space and how we’re going to mitigate them.
“And we know that there are some that we will never think about and that is the reality.
“It’s really important for me to point out that we might lose a crew on a mission like this, it’s not likely that we’ll reduce all the risks.
“I don’t think that’s very likely, but it’s possible, and if we do, the most important thing is that we continue.
“The only way society could let us down for that sacrifice is if they didn’t continue if they had an initial response of ‘we have to close this’. That would be disastrous.”
Human spaceflight has a good safety record, but there have been notable exceptions. In 1986, NASA’s space shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members.
In 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart as it re-entered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana, killing all seven astronauts.
After the disaster, the space shuttle was grounded for two years, as was Challenger, meaning that construction of the International Space Station was halted.
Three Apollo 1 astronauts were also killed in an electrical fire in the command module during a ground test of the spacecraft.
The only astronauts to die in space were the Russian Soyuz 11 crew, who died at the recovery team after their crew capsule depressurized during re-entry on return from the Salyut 1 space station.
Glover, 47, a former US Navy test pilot and married father of four daughters, said he vividly remembered watching the Challenger crash at school in a televised event that shocked the world.
When asked what part of the mission he was most looking forward to doing, Glover said it was the splash pad – the moment the crew module returns to Earth.
“It’s a dangerous thing and it’s important to be honest about that,” he said: “I don’t spend a lot of time feeling nervous or anxious about it. There is one thing I feel about that and that is having my family there to watch the whole thing all the time. They are holding their breath.
“And I know that it’s not until we’re safely back on Earth that they can really exhale and be comfortable so that’s what worries me the most.
“People think I’m being facetious when I say I’m looking forward to a splash, but not because I’m in a hurry for the mission to be over.
“If that doesn’t work out, we can’t enable things in the future. All of those objectives come to an end until we find out what happened.
“And so a splash means one, our families can relax and exhale, but it also means that at least we’re in the process of handing over this baton.”
However, Glover said it was the Challenger disaster that inspired him to become an astronaut.
He added: “Being an astronaut was not my goal as a child, but the Challenger tragedy reinforced its importance.
“I was in the fourth grade and we were living in Texas at the time briefly and the day of the tragedy, they pulled us all into the auditorium and I remember being struck, and it was sad, but that was when the principal walked into the hall. auditorium to make the announcement and turn on the news I understood.
“My first deep thought as a child was, that this is because they are national heroes, this thought is so much more than just losing life, so that’s really what started me thinking about its importance. .”
Glover, born in Pomona, California, served as a US Navy aviator and was a test pilot for the Hornet F/A, Super Hornet and EA& flex 18G Growler, clocking up more than 3,000 hours in the air.
He was elected as an astronaut for NASA in 2013, and served on the International Space Station in 2021, performing four spacewalks and becoming the first African American to fly a long-duration mission on the ISS.
He will be the first black astronaut to fly from the Moon.
Born in London, Ontario, Hansen was a CF-18 fighter pilot and in 2009 was selected to become an astronaut by the Canadian Space Agency, going on to work at the Mission Control Center for the International Space Station.
In 2013, he took part in the European Space Agency’s cave program and lived underground in Sardinia for six days, and the following year became an aquanaut, joining the Neemo19 program, living underwater for seven days out from the coast of Florida.
Since 2017, Jeremy has started training astronauts at NASA and this year he was assigned to the Artemis mission, where he will be the first Canadian to ever go to the Moon.
Artemis II is scheduled to launch no earlier than November 2024, and will include Glover and two other NASA astronauts, Commander Reid Wiseman and payload specialist Christina Koch.
After launching on a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – the largest ever to leave Earth – the Orion spacecraft will separate and proceed to flyby the Moon.
It will be the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Telegraph subscribers can watch Sarah’s full interview with Victor and Jeremy on Tuesday, December 19 at 6.30pm. To book, visit http://telegraph.co.uk/extra-events
