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Thursday, February 29, 2024

Why NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps waited an extra 6 years for her ISS space mission - Space.com

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps had an unusual path to space: She waited an extra six years to fly.

Epps will finally fly to the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than Saturday night (March 2) on the SpaceX Crew-8 mission for NASA, performing the second long-duration mission by a Black woman on the orbiting complex. But Epps was supposed to get there as soon as June 2018; that timeline was delayed twice, following reassignments from Russia's Soyuz and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

"It has been a number of years, but I was confident that I would fly," Epps, 53, said during a livestreamed Crew-8 press conference held Jan. 25 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

Epps noted that she kept her spirits up by focusing on training, which kept her "pretty busy over the last few years." NASA, she said, ultimately moved her to the SpaceX spacecraft to get flight experience sooner and prepare for future missions.

Related: NASA selects astronauts for SpaceX Crew-8 mission to International Space Station

Epps, an engineer by training and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) technical intelligence officer, was selected by NASA in July 2009 as an astronaut candidate. Including international astronauts, only Epps and the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA)  Jeremy Hansen remain unflown of that selection group, although Hansen is assigned to fly on NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission in 2025.

The CSA only flies astronauts to the ISS about every six years due to its 2.3% contribution to the station, however. As a majority co-partner in the space station, NASA gets frequent seats and flight opportunities for the ISS alongside the other major contributor, Russia. So, in 2017, Epps received a flight assignment for Expeditions 56 and 57, with liftoff scheduled aboard a Soyuz MS-09 in June 2018. This was a normal wait for a NASA astronaut, given the available spacecraft seats at the time.

But in January 2018, NASA announced that Epps would be removed from Soyuz MS-09. Her NASA backup, Serena Auñón-Chancellor, would serve in Epps' place. When asked at the time why the agency made the late-hour switch, NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean told Space.com partner collectSPACE that several factors were considered. "These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn't provide information," Dean added.

Related: NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps speaks about her puzzling removal from space mission

The astronauts on NASA SpaceX Crew-8 include, from left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist; NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, pilot; NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, commander; and NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, mission specialist. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Epps addressed the situation for the first time in an interview on stage at the Tech Open Air festival in Berlin in June 2018. "There's no time to really be concerned about sexism and racism and things like that, because we have to perform," Epps said of some of the rumors behind the decision. "And if it comes into play, then you're hindering the mission, and you're hindering the performance. And so whether or not it is a factor, I can't speculate what people are thinking and doing unless I have a little bit more information."

Epps added that many of her Russian colleagues expressed safety concerns with her being removed from the Soyuz crew just months before launch, given they were training for about two years prior to the reassignment. "I don't know where the decision came from and how it was made, in detail or at what level," Epps noted. 

NASA next assigned Epps to Starliner in August 2020 for what would have been the spaceship's first operational mission to the ISS. Starliner, however, has been delayed by numerous technical issues, and its crewed debut, a test mission to the ISS, isn't expected to fly until April this year. Epps was then reassigned by NASA to SpaceX Crew-8, the eighth operational astronaut mission to the ISS by SpaceX, in August 2023.

RELATED STORIES:

When Epps reaches space, she will be at least the 19th Black astronaut to have gone there, according to NASA statistics from February 2023. That's out of more than 600 individuals who have flown to space worldwide. (The number of people in space may vary according to the criteria employed, however; in August 2023, for example, Virgin Galactic launched two Black individuals to suborbital space, a little below the Kármán line that international authorities define as the boundary of space.)

Black NASA astronauts such as Charlie Bolden, who is also a former NASA administrator, have spoken out about the institutional racism in the U.S. that did not allow Black astronauts to reach orbit until decades later than their white peers. There was also little attention paid to NASA's Black technicians on the ground who played key roles in early human spaceflights, like the "Hidden Figures."

The first Black astronaut assigned to a spaceflight was Robert H. Lawrence, according to NASA; Lawrence died in an aircraft accident in 1967 before the U.S. military's planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) space station could get off the ground. MOL ultimately never flew. U.S. Black test pilot Ed Dwight participated in military space-related activities in the 1960s but for complex reasons (outlined in a 2020 Smithsonian Magazine article) never made it to space. 

The first Black astronaut in orbit was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, who visited the Soviet Salyut-6 space station in 1980, NASA stated.

NASA recruited its first Black and female astronauts in 1978. NASA's first flown Black astronaut was Guion S. Bluford in 1983 aboard space shuttle mission STS-8, while the first flown Black female at NASA was Mae Jemison in 1992 on STS-47. Among other milestones: Bernard Harris was the first to spacewalk in 1995 on STS-55, Victor Glover was the first Black long-duration astronaut in 2020-21 during ISS Expeditions 64 and 65, and Jessica Watkins was the first Black female long-duration flyer in 2022 for Expeditions 67 and 68.

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Why NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps waited an extra 6 years for her ISS space mission - Space.com

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps had an unusual path to space: She waited an extra six years to fly.

Epps will finally fly to the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than Saturday night (March 2) on the SpaceX Crew-8 mission for NASA, performing the second long-duration mission by a Black woman on the orbiting complex. But Epps was supposed to get there as soon as June 2018; that timeline was delayed twice, following reassignments from Russia's Soyuz and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

"It has been a number of years, but I was confident that I would fly," Epps, 53, said during a livestreamed Crew-8 press conference held Jan. 25 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

Epps noted that she kept her spirits up by focusing on training, which kept her "pretty busy over the last few years." NASA, she said, ultimately moved her to the SpaceX spacecraft to get flight experience sooner and prepare for future missions.

Related: NASA selects astronauts for SpaceX Crew-8 mission to International Space Station

Epps, an engineer by training and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) technical intelligence officer, was selected by NASA in July 2009 as an astronaut candidate. Including international astronauts, only Epps and the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA)  Jeremy Hansen remain unflown of that selection group, although Hansen is assigned to fly on NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission in 2025.

The CSA only flies astronauts to the ISS about every six years due to its 2.3% contribution to the station, however. As a majority co-partner in the space station, NASA gets frequent seats and flight opportunities for the ISS alongside the other major contributor, Russia. So, in 2017, Epps received a flight assignment for Expeditions 56 and 57, with liftoff scheduled aboard a Soyuz MS-09 in June 2018. This was a normal wait for a NASA astronaut, given the available spacecraft seats at the time.

But in January 2018, NASA announced that Epps would be removed from Soyuz MS-09. Her NASA backup, Serena Auñón-Chancellor, would serve in Epps' place. When asked at the time why the agency made the late-hour switch, NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean told Space.com partner collectSPACE that several factors were considered. "These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn't provide information," Dean added.

Related: NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps speaks about her puzzling removal from space mission

The astronauts on NASA SpaceX Crew-8 include, from left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist; NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, pilot; NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, commander; and NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, mission specialist. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Epps addressed the situation for the first time in an interview on stage at the Tech Open Air festival in Berlin in June 2018. "There's no time to really be concerned about sexism and racism and things like that, because we have to perform," Epps said of some of the rumors behind the decision. "And if it comes into play, then you're hindering the mission, and you're hindering the performance. And so whether or not it is a factor, I can't speculate what people are thinking and doing unless I have a little bit more information."

Epps added that many of her Russian colleagues expressed safety concerns with her being removed from the Soyuz crew just months before launch, given they were training for about two years prior to the reassignment. "I don't know where the decision came from and how it was made, in detail or at what level," Epps noted. 

NASA next assigned Epps to Starliner in August 2020 for what would have been the spaceship's first operational mission to the ISS. Starliner, however, has been delayed by numerous technical issues, and its crewed debut, a test mission to the ISS, isn't expected to fly until April this year. Epps was then reassigned by NASA to SpaceX Crew-8, the eighth operational astronaut mission to the ISS by SpaceX, in August 2023.

RELATED STORIES:

When Epps reaches space, she will be at least the 19th Black astronaut to have gone there, according to NASA statistics from February 2023. That's out of more than 600 individuals who have flown to space worldwide. (The number of people in space may vary according to the criteria employed, however; in August 2023, for example, Virgin Galactic launched two Black individuals to suborbital space, a little below the Kármán line that international authorities define as the boundary of space.)

Black NASA astronauts such as Charlie Bolden, who is also a former NASA administrator, have spoken out about the institutional racism in the U.S. that did not allow Black astronauts to reach orbit until decades later than their white peers. There was also little attention paid to NASA's Black technicians on the ground who played key roles in early human spaceflights, like the "Hidden Figures."

The first Black astronaut assigned to a spaceflight was Robert H. Lawrence, according to NASA; Lawrence died in an aircraft accident in 1967 before the U.S. military's planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) space station could get off the ground. MOL ultimately never flew. U.S. Black test pilot Ed Dwight participated in military space-related activities in the 1960s but for complex reasons (outlined in a 2020 Smithsonian Magazine article) never made it to space. 

The first Black astronaut in orbit was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, who visited the Soviet Salyut-6 space station in 1980, NASA stated.

NASA recruited its first Black and female astronauts in 1978. NASA's first flown Black astronaut was Guion S. Bluford in 1983 aboard space shuttle mission STS-8, while the first flown Black female at NASA was Mae Jemison in 1992 on STS-47. Among other milestones: Bernard Harris was the first to spacewalk in 1995 on STS-55, Victor Glover was the first Black long-duration astronaut in 2020-21 during ISS Expeditions 64 and 65, and Jessica Watkins was the first Black female long-duration flyer in 2022 for Expeditions 67 and 68.

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Solar eclipse in April will bring traffic problems in Ohio - Akron Beacon Journal

A 124-mile-wide band through Ohio will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8.
  • The Ohio Emergency Management Agency expects anywhere from 150,000 to 575,000 visitors statewide
  • ODOT is treating the eclipse like a major travel holiday
  • The Ohio Turnpike won't close lanes before, during or after the eclipse

The April solar eclipse will bring a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon to Ohio.

It's also going to come with some traffic headaches.

State officials are urging Ohioans and visitors to prepare for increased traffic on April 8. The 124-mile-wide path of totality will cross Ohio from southwest to northeast, briefly submerging cities like Dayton, Mansfield, Akron and Cleveland in darkness. Large cities such as Cincinnati and Columbus are just south of the path of totality.

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency expects anywhere from 150,000 to 575,000 visitors statewide.

The total eclipse will last only a few minutes, but traffic around the event could jam up roads for hours. After the 2017 eclipse, Illinois drivers reported spending over 12 hours in traffic, while Missouri saw congestion for two to three hours. Some Kentucky roads had six-hour backups, with one route carrying 122% more traffic than normal.

“Last time we had a total eclipse in Ohio, there weren’t cars," Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Bruning said. "There were probably barely roads."

The last total solar eclipse visible in Ohio was in 1806.

How is Ohio planning for solar eclipse traffic?

Bruning said ODOT is treating the eclipse like a major travel holiday. The department will open as many lanes as possible and reduce the size of construction zones. Officials can't stop major work like the I-70 project in Columbus, but they won't block off lanes to install guardrails or paint lines.

ODOT is also talking with transportation agencies in states that went through the 2017 eclipse. Those conversations generated at least one idea: Road crews in Ohio will have gas cans in case drivers wind up with an empty tank.

The Ohio Turnpike, which is not under the purview of ODOT, won't close lanes before, during or after the eclipse. Two of three lanes around a bridge project over Tinkers Creek in Summit County will be open in both directions. Turnpike staff will be on hand to help drivers who get stranded.

Meanwhile, Emergency Management has conducted exercises to prepare for potential problems, executive director Sima Merick said. Ohio lawmakers gave the agency an additional $1 million for the eclipse, which will fund reimbursements for local emergency costs.

Traffic is at a standstill heading out of the Madras Municipal Airport north of Madras, Ore. as campers try to leave after the eclipse in 2017.

How can I prepare for total solar eclipse traffic?

Pack your patience, Merick said: "You don’t want to ruin (the eclipse) by feeling very frustrated."

Congestion will be worst after the eclipse, when people collectively decide to head home. ODOT expects backups on two-lane highways in western and north-central counties that don't usually see a lot of traffic. Places with other events that day, such as the Guardians home opener in Cleveland, could also be jammed.

State officials encourage people to have a plan for viewing the eclipse. They don't want you to watch it on the side of the road and block emergency vehicles or risk someone getting hurt.

"Just pulling off and running out into some random farmer's field is not an approved place to watch the eclipse from," Bruning said. "Neither is the side of the interstate."

Other tips:

  • Fill your gas tank.
  • Pack snacks, water and a cell phone charger.
  • Bring a paper map in case service is bad.
  • Turn on your headlights if you drive during the eclipse itself.
  • Drivers without an E-ZPass should consider getting one to save time if they use the Turnpike, spokesman Charles Cyrill said.
  • Call 911 or #677 in Ohio for emergency help or to report unsafe drivers or stranded motorists.

Can I avoid eclipse traffic delays in Ohio after it's over?

Ohioans who live in the path of totality should consider watching the eclipse at or near home. But if you travel, officials recommend you stay put for a little while once it's over.

"We want people to have a plan for sticking around and trickling back out," Bruning said.

To that end, Ohio's tourism arm is promoting other activities in counties within totality. Eclipse-watchers in Akron could head to the zoo, while visitors to Montgomery County can pick from the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery or the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Other counties boast parks, breweries and restaurants for tourists to check out.

Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Began Melting In Mid-20th Century, Study Finds - Slashdot

According to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier began rapidly receding in the 1940s -- much earlier than scientists had previous thought. The Hill notes that it's often referred to as the "doomsday glacier" due to the potentially catastrophic consequences of its hypothetical collapse. From the report:
While scientists had already observed the glacier's accelerated retreat by the 1970s, they did not know when it began. Coupled with earlier research about Thwaites's neighboring Pine Island Glacier, the study also provides new, potentially alarming, insight into the cause of the glacier's melting. Scientists tried to reconstruct the glacier's history using analysis of the marine sedimentary record, and they found the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers both lost contact with the seafloor highs in the 1940s -- at around the same time. These significant changes happened against the backdrop of a massive El Nino weather phenomenon, the scientists found, showing the glaciers "were responding to the same driver(s)."

"The synchronous ice retreat of these two major ice streams suggests that, rather than being driven by internal dynamics unique to each glacier, retreat in the Amundsen Sea drainage sector results from external oceanographic and atmospheric drivers, which recent modeling studies show are modulated by climate variability," the study read. The scientists note that the glaciers' continued retreat shows how difficult it can be to reverse some of the consequences of naturally occurring weather events -- which they say is made even more difficult by human activity. "That ice streams such as Thwaites Glacier and Pine Island Glacier have continued to retreat since then indicates that they were unable to recover after the exceptionally large El Nino event of the 1940s," the scientists wrote. "This may reflect the increasing dominance of anthropogenic forcing since that time but implies that this involved large-scale, in additional to local, atmospheric and ocean circulation changes."


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Tuesday, February 27, 2024

The Asteroid Dimorphos Looks Totally Different After NASA's DART Mission Walloped It - Gizmodo

A simulation showing the aftermath of the DART mission 30 minutes post-collision.
Gif: S. D. Raducan (UNIBE)

In September 2022, a NASA spacecraft smashed into a tiny asteroid to nudge it off its orbital course. The mission was a success in testing an asteroid deflection method that may come in handy one day, but rather than leaving behind an impact crater, the orbital collision changed the shape of the target asteroid altogether, revealing its fungible composition.

A team of researchers simulated the impact of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, to reveal how it likely transformed Dimorphos, a 558-foot-wide (170-meter) space rock that orbits its larger 2,625-foot-wide (800-meter) companion, Didymos. In a new study published in Nature Astronomy, the simulations show that the impact led to significant reshaping and resurfacing of the asteroid Dimorphos.

“Our simulations revealed that Dimorphos is probably a rubble-pile asteroid,” Sabina Raducan, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and lead author of the study, told Gizmodo in an email. “Before DART’s arrival at Dimorphos, we didn’t know what to expect because the system is so far away from Earth.”

NASA’s 1,340-pound spacecraft smashed into the moonlet on September 26, 2022, following a 10 month journey to the binary asteroid system. Datasets gathered by ground-based optical and radio telescopes show that, following the collision, Dimorphos’s orbital period around Didymos shortened from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.

Using the Bern Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) impact code, the team ran through 250 simulations to reproduce the asteroid’s first two hours after impact. The scientists estimate that 1% of the entire mass of Dimorphos was chucked into space after it was impacted by the DART spacecraft and around 8% of its mass was shifted around its body.

The results not only show what may have happened to the asteroid after the spacecraft rammed into it, but also the composition of Dimorphos itself. The study indicates that the asteroid is a rubble pile that’s held together by its weak gravity rather than cohesive strength. Therefore, DART’s impact created a much wider cone-shaped ejecta, or plume, of material that extended by up to 160 degrees, and kept on expanding after the impact due to the weak gravity holding the asteroid together and its low material cohesion.

Simulations showing the asteroid approximately 178 seconds post-impact.
Gif: S.D. Raducan (UNIBE)/C. Manzoni/B.H. May

The study findings also suggest that the small asteroid Dimorphos likely formed from material that was shed by Didymos, which was re-accumulated and gravitationally bound to orbit the larger asteroid like a tiny moon. “These findings offer clues about the prevalence and characteristics of similar binary systems in our solar system, contributing to our broader understanding of their formation histories and evolution,” Raducan said.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a follow-up mission to the binary pair of space rocks to get a closer look at the changes made to Dimorphos following its encounter with DART. ESA is scheduled to launch its Hera mission in 2024, which will rendezvous with Didymos and its moon by 2026.

Follow-up observations could offer clues as to how asteroids form and help better inform asteroid deflection methods to prepare for a possible Earth collision.

“The implication for planetary defense is that small, rubble-pile asteroids, like Dimorphos, are very efficient to deflect and the kinetic impactor technique would be an appropriate deflection mechanism,” Raducan said. “However, before attempting deflection, a reconnaissance mission would likely be necessary to accurately assess the asteroid’s properties.”

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.

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Intuitive Machines slumps as moon lander likely has 10-20 hours of battery life left - Reuters

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  1. Intuitive Machines slumps as moon lander likely has 10-20 hours of battery life left  Reuters
  2. Odysseus moon lander tipped over, will lose power in hours  USA TODAY
  3. Intuitive Machines expects early end to IM-1 lunar lander mission  SpaceNews
  4. Odysseus Moon Lander Sends Photos Home Before Spacecraft Likely Dies  The New York Times
  5. Lunar landing photos: Intuitive Machines' Odysseus sends back first images from the moon  CNBC
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Meet Victor Glover, who will pilot the Artemis II moon mission - NPR

NASA astronaut Victor Glover will be making his second flight to space as the pilot of the Artemis II mission. Riley McClenaghan/NASA

Riley McClenaghan/NASA

When a 10-year-old Victor Glover first saw the launch of a space shuttle on television, he was "totally captivated by the machine," he says. "I thought, 'Wow, I would love to drive that.'"

Fast forward 27 years to 2013. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Victor Glover, a test pilot with combat experience over Iraq, is far removed from aircraft carriers, fighter jets and boyhood dreams of traveling into space. He's on Capitol Hill on a temporary assignment as a legislative fellow for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

That's when he got the call.

Actually, he missed that first call. But after frantically dialing back, he eventually reached Janet Kavandi, then NASA's director for flight crew operations.

"She answers the phone and asks me, 'How would you feel about coming to Houston to start astronaut candidate training?'"

Glover had been passed over once before, in 2009. That time, despite his experience as a test pilot, engineer and flying the Navy's F/A-18 fighter jet, he "didn't make it very far," he says.

To say that NASA's selection process is brutal would be a gross understatement. In Astronaut Group 21, Glover was among just eight chosen from a pool of 6,300 applicants.

He says he doesn't remember much about the conversation with Kavandi. But when he hung up the phone, he took a deep breath and pinched himself. "I'm in a suit and tie and I'm standing in the Russell Senate Office Building with these marble floors and these beautiful statues and brass work," he says. "And ... I look down at myself and I'm thinking, I am dreaming."

Artemis II will be the first crewed moon mission since Apollo

Today, at 47, Glover is a Navy captain and the first African American to have spent extended time on the International Space Station. He is slated for another historic undertaking next year — piloting the Orion space capsule as part of NASA's Artemis II mission. He and three crewmates will be the first humans to visit the moon in more than 50 years.

Despite a childhood fascination with space travel, Glover, who grew up in Pomona, Calif., didn't always aspire to be an astronaut. He describes a kid who was "an adrenaline junkie," the son of parents who encouraged his curiosity and interests. "I wanted to be a stuntman, a police officer like my father, a fireman, or a race car driver."

By high school, Glover had become a star athlete — football and wrestling. He was also showing aptitude in math and science. But Robin Ikeda, who taught him advanced placement biology at Ontario High School, says he sometimes seemed to prioritize athletics over academics.

"I remember his math teacher just tearing his hair out," she recalls. "He would come to my classroom and say, 'I know that Victor really respects you. You've got to talk to him. He's got to buckle down in math. He's not reaching his potential.'"

Even so, there was no doubt that he had a personal drive that she didn't see in a lot of other students. "He could have done really well in biology," Ikeda, now a retired college professor, says. "But he was totally into the physical sciences and math. I couldn't talk him out of it."

Ikeda, who remains in close contact with Glover, says he was special. Over the years, lots of her students showed promise, but "with Victor, it was this inner compass and self-awareness. I have never seen that level of self-awareness and confidence in a youngster," she says. "He was very respectful, very serious, very funny, but not frivolous."

When it came time to choose a college, the Navy wasn't on Glover's radar, and he had no interest in the military academies. "I was recruited for multiple sports and turned it down," he says. Instead, he landed at California Polytechnic State University — San Luis Obispo, ranked among the top engineering schools in the country.

After graduating from Cal Poly, Glover joined the Navy and briefly considered signing on with the elite SEALs, but his father suggested something else. "My dad says, 'You know, with an engineering degree from Cal Poly and Navy pilot wings, you might mess around and become an astronaut.'"

First, however, there was a lot of flying to be done. As he progressed to fighter jets, he earned the callsign "Ike" (I Know Everything) from his commanding officer. Over the years, he's gotten stick time on dozens of aircraft, from the iconic Korean War-era Soviet MiG-15 to the Goodyear blimp. But his favorite is the one he flew into combat over Iraq: the F/A-18.

"That thing kept me alive in some pretty challenging times," he says.

Glover earned a master's degree in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., in 2009. He graduated with honors and "a near-perfect GPA," according to Mark Rhoades, a senior lecturer at the school who was Glover's thesis adviser. That thesis, co-authored with another student, is for restricted distribution, so "I can't go into the details other than to say it was very innovative," Rhoades says.

The view from space looked like "the country was boiling over"

Glover and his wife, Dionna, were on a Mediterranean cruise in 2018 when he learned he'd been selected to be on the first operational flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft — a mission that would involve a long-duration stay on the International Space Station.

He says they were fortunate to have time to talk about the implications of the upcoming mission for the family, including their four daughters. "We agreed that NASA's going to get me ready to fly and live in space," Glover says, "but my wife and I would be responsible for getting my family ready for me to work and live in space for six months."

Liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., came barely two weeks after the contentious 2020 presidential election. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging, and anger over the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd was still fresh.

As he said a socially distanced farewell to his family on his way to the launch pad, Glover wrestled with the contrast of what was happening to the country and to him personally. He was "excited and ... proud to represent America and humanity," he says, but also disappointed at "how it treats some people who look like me just because they look like me."

NASA astronaut and Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Victor Glover is pictured inside Japan's Kibo laboratory module installing research gear to develop a biological model to study the effects of spaceflight on musculoskeletal disease. NASA

NASA

Over the next several months, Glover vividly recalls, came the feeling of circling a planet that seemed to be falling apart below him.

"The country was boiling over with ... discontent and dissatisfaction," he says.

He was in space when an insurrectionist mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. From his time working on the Hill, he had gotten to know some of the Capitol Police officers. "My heart and thoughts were with my friends in D.C.," he says.

One day aboard the space station, Glover "took a bunch of pictures right as the sun was rising because I wanted to capture that moment right when the sun rays went through the atmosphere," he says. "I got a picture and I sent that to all of my friends to just let them know I was thinking about them." He added a quote from Psalms: "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

NASA astronauts Victor Glover (from left), Ed Dwight and Leland Melvin pose for a portrait to promote the National Geographic documentary film The Space Race during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour on Feb. 8 at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

As a verdict neared in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer accused of murdering Floyd, several Black astronauts called from Earth to lend their own moral support. "We had a video call ... and it was great to show them around" the space station and "just to be able to talk through that time," he says. It was "so supportive and powerful for me. And I needed that. I needed an outlet. And they were that for me."

NASA YouTube

The astronaut, the human, the mentor

Artemis II won't involve a lunar landing, but it is a critical milestone for NASA. Not only will it be the first time in decades that humans have been sent to the moon, but it will be the first time anyone will travel into space aboard the Orion spacecraft. The mission invites comparisons to Apollo 8, the first flyaround of the moon in 1968 that took place after just one Earth-orbit test of the program's command module.

Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman (right) makes a point during a visit to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., in November. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is seated at left, next to Christina Koch and Glover. Charles Beason/NASA

Charles Beason/NASA

Right now, Glover and his crewmates — fellow Americans Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — are in training mode. They are scheduled to fly in 2025, after delays pushed back this year's original launch date.

All but Hansen have previously been in space on long-duration flights. Like Glover, mission commander Wiseman spent months aboard the International Space Station, while Koch holds a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman — 328 days.

By comparison, the Artemis II mission will last just 10 days. Nonetheless, crew compatibility is essential, Wiseman says. "We are not yet that well-oiled crew," he says. "You find that the human dynamic and the team skills ... take time to develop."

Even so, Wiseman clearly believes his team has what it takes. As for Glover, "the thing that strikes me every day is just how methodical and thoughtful he is as he goes through his workday," Wiseman says. "He does not let a detail slip through the cracks."

There are the less quantifiable character traits, too, Wiseman says: "The thing that is lost when you just look at Victor as the astronaut is you don't get to see him as a human, as a mentor."

Crewmate Hansen agrees. "What I really love about Victor is his heart and how much he stops to care for other people," Hansen says. "When we're traveling and we're meeting people around the country, he just goes out of his way ... to make these authentic connections."

Astronauts Victor Glover (right) and Jeremy Hansen react at a news conference in Houston, Texas, on April 3, 2023, after the announcement that they have been selected for the Artemis II mission to venture around the moon. Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images

Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images

After Artemis II, NASA plans to start landing astronauts on the moon's surface again — for the first time since 1972. But only a handful of missions seem solidly in place, and Glover says it probably doesn't make sense for him to stick around at the space agency in hopes of walking on the moon himself.

"I personally don't see how one person could fly multiple Artemis missions with the few missions that we're going to get in the next several years," he says. "So, I don't see it as a possibility for me. I am not expecting it. I'm not holding out for it. And I won't stay with NASA for that."

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SpaceX rolls out rocket, capsule for Crew-8 astronaut launch (photos) - Space.com

SpaceX's next astronaut launch is just around the corner.

The company just rolled out the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule that will fly Crew-8, the next mission that SpaceX will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA.

Crew-8 is scheduled to lift off from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday (March 1) at 12:04 a.m. EST (0504 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com when the time comes.

Related: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

Another look at Crew-8's Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon during their rollout to the pad. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

Crew-8 will send NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barrett, Jeannette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin to the ISS for a six-month stay. Dominick will be Crew-8's commander, Barrett will be pilot, and Epps and Grebenkin will serve as mission specialists.

The quartet will replace the four astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-7 mission, who are scheduled to leave the ISS about a week after Crew-8 arrives. 

The Crew-8 Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule stand atop Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 26, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

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As its name suggests, Crew-8 will be the eighth operational astronaut mission that SpaceX flies to the ISS for NASA.

The space agency signed a similar contract with aerospace giant Boeing, which plans to fulfill it with a capsule called Starliner. Boeing is gearing up for its first crewed mission with Starliner, a two-astronaut test flight to the ISS that's scheduled to launch in mid-April.

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