by The first lunar commander in 50 years grins as a picture of jets and lunar rockets flash up on the screen in front of him. “It was a fun day.”
NASA an astronaut Reid Wiseman is in charge of Artemis 2which aims to fly four people around the moon in 2024 or so. During an exclusive with Space.com on December 18th, however, we talked over Zoom about the uncreweds Artemis 1 mission launched in late 2022 and successfully tested out most of the Orion spacecraft and Spatial Address System (SLS) rocket systems ready for Wiseman’s team. So the jet picture.
Wiseman was among a small group of astronauts who flew the famous T-38 jet trainers past the Artemis 1 SLS on the launch pad on August 23, 2022. No one knew it at the time, but three of the four Artemis 2 crew in tow. formation: Wiseman, NASA mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. (Only a NASA pilot was absent Victor Gloverwho was away on other duties at the time.)
“That picture evokes a lot of emotion. Most of it is positive,” Wiseman said. It took months of logistics, he recalled, to get the permits and time for the now iconic flyby.
Related: NASA astronauts buzz Artemis 1 SLS rocket in incredible jet flight (photos)
In 2022, Wiseman was chief of the astronaut office and responsible for assigning all NASA astronauts to space flights. (He stepped down from the role in November 2022 to become eligible for active duty again, just in time for the Artemis 2 big ad free on April 3, 2023.)
Wiseman told Space.com that he would walk the halls of NASA Johnson Space Center, where the astronaut’s office is headquartered. He would look at the photos of the International Space Station and the space shuttle on the walls. But in the case of Artemis, a brand new program that aims to land humans on the moon in the 2020s and follow in the footsteps of Program Apollo of the 1960s and 1970s? “We really haven’t had any pictures of that kind hit home.”
Artemis 1 first rolled out to Pad 39B by NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on March 17, 2022 to begin several months of testing (and a a few trips back and forth to the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building). Wiseman said the astronaut office had a strong reaction to Artemis 1 sitting on the pad for the first time: “Some of us are like, ‘We have to fly over that vehicle.’ “
Read more: What 8,000 hours of flying military jets taught 2 Canadian astronauts
Certainly the immense excitement of flight was in formation, and the practice time was useful for the astronauts (who must maintain flight proficiency for their work.) But Wiseman also saw a public relations opportunity: for us to remind people that there are people involved, and we have airplanes, and we have spacecraft. This is an important moment for NASA.”
Wiseman and fellow naval aviator and astronaut Matthew Dominick (now commander of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission) held numerous meetings to plan the procedures. “It’s not worth being in the picture,” Wiseman told Dominic, after all that work.
“It cost him several months of his life to get this through all the safety wickets,” continued Wiseman, laughing. “There were so many solutions to fly that national asset on the launch pad. But in the end, we decided we had to go ahead and give it a shot.”
All told, five T-38s were involved in the flyby: Four in the image with eight people inside, and one from a crew frame by NASA photographer Josh Valcarcel and experienced “chase plane” pilot and NASA astronaut candidate Jack Hathaway. The group stayed in staff quarters at NASA Kennedy Space Center the night before to get ready for the big day.
Read more: One year after the launch of Artemis 1, NASA prepares Artemis 2 to shoot for the moon again (video)
Wiseman is a graduate of the US Naval Test Pilot School and a former test pilot whose programs include F-35 Lightning II and F-18 separation weapons. He also made two deployments to the Middle East and has thousands of hours in combat aircraft, not to mention 165 days of experience in space. However, Wiseman got a surprise during the flyby pad.
“We woke up the next day, and we did this mission flying over,” said Wiseman. “I forgot how exhausting it is to fly in close formation, down low. We were all very tired at the end of a short, 45 minute flight. But it was just a great experience.”
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Wiseman said the flyby had many personal touchstones. He flew with two people who would be his Artemis 2 crew. He was in the air with NASA pilot Chris Condon, whom Wiseman has known since 1999. The group also flew a training aircraft of the type same as Apollo 11 an astronaut Neil Armstrongthe first person to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969. On top of all that was seeing a lunar rocket, rated to carry passengers, on a launch pad that once hosted Apollo and space shuttle launches.
“That whole event was just a marquee moment to watch the future of Artemis on a historic launch pad,” Wiseman said. “There was so much emotion attached to that day.”
