HOUSTON (AP) 鈥 Lunar love knows no bounds.
Now hurtling , the took a poignant page from earlier this week, proposing deeply personal names for a pair of lunar craters.
asked permission to name one small, fresh crater after their capsule called Integrity and another after his late wife, Carroll. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen made the request right before . Wiseman was too emotional to talk.
Carroll Wiseman, a neonatal nurse, died of cancer in 2020.
鈥淛ust for me personally, that was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me,鈥 Wiseman said from space Wednesday night.
During , astronaut Jim Lovell bestowed his wife鈥檚 name upon a prominent lunar peak: Mount Marilyn. It was humanity's first trip to the moon and she anxiously awaited his return back home in Houston.
The three Americans and one Canadian of Artemis II are the first lunar visitors since Apollo 17 closed out that grand epoch in 1972, and their crater-naming request temporarily left ground controllers speechless.
鈥淚t was definitely a very emotional moment. I don鈥檛 think most of us knew it was coming,鈥 NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Johnson Space Center in Houston. 鈥淭here was not a single dry eye.鈥
Mission Control鈥檚 lead scientist Kelsey Young worked with the Artemis II astronauts before launch, quietly helping them choose the two bright, relatively young craters, which they quickly spied once they were close enough to the moon through zoom lenses as well as their naked eyes.
Wiseman said his crewmates came up with the idea and approached him about it while they were in quarantine a few days before liftoff. His response: 鈥淎bsolutely, I would love that, I think that's just the best. And I said, 'But I can't give the speech, I can't give the talk,'" he recalled during a crew news conference, saying he was too overwhelmed.
Proposed Carroll Crater is at the moon's left limb on the boundary of the moon鈥檚 near and far sides, and occasionally visible from Earth. It's rather shallow and approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) across, according to Watkins. The slightly bigger Integrity crater is completely on the lunar far side.
Their request came shortly after they broke Apollo 13鈥檚 distance record for deep-space travelers. All four astronauts wept as they embraced in a group hug.
鈥淲e lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,鈥 Hansen radioed, his voice breaking. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.鈥
Mission Control fell silent for nearly a minute before replying: 鈥淚ntegrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear.鈥
The emotion-drenched scene was vastly different from the 1960s and 1970s Apollo moonshots in more ways than one. NASA's Apollo all-male test pilots were for the most part all business and tear-free.
鈥淭his is no fault of Apollo,鈥 Watkins said. 鈥淚 think we're seeing just a more human aspect."
Once back on Earth later this week, the crew will submit the two proposed names to the International Astronomical Union.
Nearly a half century passed between Apollo 8 and the union's sign-off of Mount Marilyn in 2017.
The IAU's Ramasamy Venugopal promised a decision on Carroll and Integrity in about a month, the norm 鈥渇or straightforward requests.鈥
There already are 81 astronaut-named lunar features on the group's approved list, including Apollo 16's Baby Ray and Gator, and Apollo 17's Lara named for the lead female character in the 1965 film 鈥淒octor Zhivago.鈥
Some Apollo-era nicknames didn't make the cut.
Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the moon, dubbed a split boulder 鈥淭racy鈥檚 Rock,鈥 after his young daughter in 1972.
And in 1969, Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad nicknamed his touchdown spot 鈥淧ete鈥檚 Parking Lot.鈥
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