A professing Christian will pilot NASA's first crewed trip around the moon in over 50 years next November.
NASA astronaut Victor Glover, a member of the Churches of Christ in the Houston area, will join fellow astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. All were named the crew for the Artemis II mission, a 10-day-long flight test of NASA's Orion spacecraft.
During a NASA event in Houston, Glover said that he wanted "to thank God for this amazing opportunity.
According to The Christian Post, Glover believes the celebration is about "so much more than the four names that have been announced."
"We need to celebrate this moment in human history," he said, adding the mission is meant to be "the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars."
"I pray that God will bless this mission, but I also pray that we can continue to serve as a source of inspiration, for cooperation and peace — not just between nations, but in our own nation," he added.
Glover will be the first African American to fly to the moon while Koch will be the first woman to do a lunar mission, and Hansen will be the first Canadian.
Glover previously trained for a six-month mission to the International Space Station in 2020.
"I want to use the abilities that God has given me to do my job well and support my crewmates and mission and NASA," he told The Christian Chronicle at the time. "That's really the thing I think the most about."
Glover ended up bringing a Bible and communion cups to the station, saying he intended to partake in "virtual service, virtual giving, reading my Bible and praying."
The first NASA moon landing in history took place in July 1969 through the Apollo 11 mission. Meanwhile, Apollo 17 was the last crewed mission to the moon, back in December 1972.
"I could not be prouder that these brave four will kickstart our journeys to the Moon and beyond," Director of Flight Operations Norm Knight of NASA Johnson Space Center said in a press release.
"They represent exactly what an astronaut corps should be: a mix of highly capable and accomplished individuals with the skills and determination to take on any trial as a team. The Artemis II mission will be challenging, and we'll test our limits as we prepare to put future astronauts on the Moon. With Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy at the controls, I have no doubt we're ready to face every challenge that comes our way."
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Carmen Mandato / Staff
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
