NASA’s Artemis II Launch: Reid Wiseman Had Emotional Conversation With Kids About Death, ‘I Wish..’

NASA launched a mission named Artemis II that carried four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen in the Orion capsules sitting atop the SLS. NASA’s SLS rocket, which is believed to be one of the most powerful rockets ever built, took off from Kennedy Space Centre, carrying the four astronauts for a 10-day lunar flyby. This is NASA’s first crewed mission in 53 years, which marks humans setting foot on the moon, after Apollo 17.

Artemis II is something like a test drive, which will keep in check all the systems and technologies for the later missions like Artemis III and Artemis IV, when humans will reach the moon once again. Reid Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, along with three other astronauts, began their 25-hour checkout mission before the lunar singleshot and radioed, ‘the sun is rising on the integrity’, as he captured the view from space.

Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA’s Artemis, discussed a worst-case scenario with his kids before leaving for the mission

While this is a high-stakes mission and the astronauts’ families are proud, there’s always a worst-case scenario, and Reid Wiseman didn’t try to cover that from his teenage kids; rather, he talked to them about the same. Reid Wiseman was married to Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who was a nurse. It was back in 2020, when then 46-year-old Reid Wiseman lost his wife due to cancer.

Since then, he has been raising his two daughters single-handedly. Before the Artemis II mission, Reid Wiseman took out his two daughters, Ellie and Katherine, for a walk as he prepared them for the worst-case scenario. To mention, not many details about Ellie and Katherine are available, and as per their proud dad, one of them is in high school, and the other is in college. The 17 and 20-year-olds joined Reid Wiseman in Florida before the SLS carried him with the other three astronauts to the mission.

Reid talked to The Daily Mail about the same and stated that he told his daughters about the will and the trusted documents that the teens would have to have their hands on if something happens to him, for that matter. Reid Wiseman further mentioned that while death is a really emotional thing to discuss, he wishes that most people talked about the same with their families, as no one knows what will happen the next day or in the next moment, thus everyone needs to be prepared. Reid could be quoted as saying:

“I told them, ‘Here’s where the will is, here’s where the trust documents are, and if anything happens to me, here’s what’s going to happen to you. I actually wish more people in everyday life talked to their families in that way because you never know what the next day is going to bring.”

More about Reid Wiseman

For Reid Wiseman to become an astronaut was something that was written in the stars, or maybe in destiny. Since the time he was a 10-year-old kid, he was much into rockets and would bring home models from a local shop, and fill them with engines to launch them. Well, after graduating from Timonium’s Dulaney High School in 1993, he became a Navy pilot.

Following this, he became a test pilot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Eventually, NASA announced that he was one of the nine individuals who were selected for the astronaut program. Five years after the same, Reid Wiseman had his first-ever mission, a 165-day mission to the International Space Station. In his personal life, he was married to Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who passed away in 2020, just one month after the commander’s mother died of alzheimer’s disease.

What do you think about Reid Wiseman’s way of preparing his kids?

Also Read: Meet Victor Glover’s Eldest Daughter, Genesis, Ahead Of Artemis II Mission, Wants To Become A Doctor