400,000 kilometers away from Earth, as Artemis II broke the distance-to-earth record set in 1970 by the infamous Apollo 13 mission, the crew decided to pay a touching tribute to the late wife of their commander, Reid Wiseman. “It’s a bright spot on the Moon,” said mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of a previously unnamed crater the crew had come across on their fly-by, his voice breaking and Wiseman laying his hand on his colleagues shoulder and wiping away tears. “And we would like to call it Carroll.”
The four person crew of Wiseman, Hansen, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, hugged and mission control in Houston held a moment of silence for Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who had died nearly six years earlier from cancer.
For now, however, the name “Carroll” is not yet official and needs to go through the International Astronomical Union, the body that regulates the of naming planetary features. “Lunar features are generally named after explorers, scientists, or engineers who have been deceased for three years, but several features have also been officially named for the provisional names that astronauts designate during lunar exploration, like Carroll’s. One example is Mount Marilyn, named for Jim Lovell’s wife,” NASA explained on Instagram. “No matter how far we may travel, the people we love stay with us.”
Carroll Wiseman was 46 years old when she died on May 17, 2020, after a five-year battle with cancer. Born in Virginia Beach, she attended Virginia Commonwealth University and, says NASA, “dedicated her life to helping others as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit.” Together, the couple have two teenage daughters. “I love these two ladies,” he captioned a selfie on Instagram just days before blastoff. “ I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.”
This article was originally published in Vanity Fair Italia
