The first woman. The first person of color. The first Canadian.The four people who will soon step aboard a spacecraft for the first human moon mission in more than half a century represent a tapestry of historic milestones. The crew of the NASA-led Artemis II mission is set to expand the roster of deep-space explorers beyond the narrow scope of the Apollo-era astronauts — a group exclusively composed of White American men, almost all with military backgrounds.Yet while the astronauts will usher in an era of diversity for deep-space exploration, their credentials echo those of their Apollo counterparts.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe crew includes NASA’s Reid Wiseman, a Navy test pilot and single father who will serve as commander of the mission; Victor Glover, a naval test pilot who will become the first Black person to travel to deep space; Christina Koch, an engineer and record-holding astronaut who will become the first woman to venture to the moon; and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, a fighter pilot who will be the first non-NASA astronaut to join a lunar mission.The high-stakes journey to the vicinity of the moon will take them beyond its far side — deeper into space than any human has ventured before — and it will pose myriad risks to the astronauts.The 10-day, roughly 600,000-mile (965,600-kilometer) trip that’s set to launch as soon as April will expose the crew to dangerous levels of radiation. At various crucial points in the journey, the crew expects to lose contact with mission control because of the sheer distance and physics involved with the flight. Unexpected communications blackouts are also a real possibility.And the astronauts will be the first humans to fly aboard the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket — pieces of hardware NASA has spent two decades and more than $40 billion developing that still have known issues.AdvertisementAdvertisementIn interviews, the Artemis II crew members have expressed their hopes and optimism while also giving surprisingly candid nods to the realities of risk.“It’ …
