Meet Christina Koch, the First Woman NASA Astronaut on Moon Mission
- Sergei Ilnitsky
VIVA – An engineer, Christina Hammock Koch was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013, and she becomes the first woman to go around the moon when NASA's Artemis II mission takes off next year.
Koch is a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 44, grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and resided in Livingston, Montana when she was selected to join the Astronaut Corps. She has set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks in 2019.
Christina Koch stated in 2020: "I really don't remember a time when I didn't want to be an astronaut. For me, I learned that if I was going to be an astronaut, it was because my passions had turned me into someone that could contribute the most as someone contributing to human space flight,"
"Am I excited? Absolutely!" she said at a news conference at the crew's announcement on Monday.
Insinyur dan Astronot NASA, Christina Koch
- Daily Mail
"The one thing I'm most excited about is that we will carry your excitement, your aspirations, your dreams, on this mission,"
Koch also said: "We are going to launch from Kennedy space center, we are going here the words 'go for launch' on top of the most powerful rocket NASA’s ever made."
NASA has sent a total of 355 people to space so far, of which some 55 have been women — or 15 percent. It has also sent 24 people to orbit the moon and 12 to walk on the lunar surface who were all men.
However, Koch will make history on the Artemis II mission when she completes her long-awaited trip around the moon.
NASA introduced the crew that will go around the moon on the Artemis II mission. NASA's Artemis II mission will include the first woman and first black man to circle the moon. The team is Victor Glover (44), Christina Koch (44), Reid Wiseman, (47), and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, (47).
