Astronauts Name Moon Crater 'Carroll' for Late Wife

Four astronauts floated together in a tearful embrace 230,000 miles from Earth this week, honoring a woman who never got to see this moment but made it possible.

During Monday's Artemis II mission, Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew became the first humans in over 50 years to see parts of the moon's far side. They spotted several unnamed craters and decided to make their mark in the most personal way imaginable.

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen radioed mission control with a proposal. The crew wanted to name one crater after their spacecraft, Integrity. For the second, they chose Carroll, after Wiseman's late wife.

"We lost a loved one, her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie," Hansen said, his voice breaking as Wiseman reached out a supportive arm beside him. Christina Koch wiped tears from her eyes as the four crew members embraced.

Mission control observed nearly a full minute of silence before responding: "Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear. Thank you."

Carroll Wiseman was a registered nurse who worked in a neonatal intensive care unit before becoming a school nurse near Houston. When she was diagnosed with cancer, Reid wanted to move their family back north to be closer to relatives.

She refused. "No, this is where you work and you love your job," she told him, according to Baltimore Magazine. "We should not give that up for this."

Carroll died in 2020 at age 46, leaving Reid to raise their two teenage daughters alone. Three years later, he was chosen to command Artemis II, calling it "like I was carrying a legacy of her along."

His daughters initially worried about their dad launching into space. But when he told them about the mission in 2023, they quickly came around. The morning after the announcement, his older daughter made moon cupcakes for the family.

"Here these two kids I thought were gonna pull me, but they were pushing me," Wiseman told NASA's podcast. His last social media post before launch was a selfie with his smiling daughters in front of the rocket.

Why This Inspires

The crater sits in what Hansen called "a really neat place on the moon," one that will be visible from Earth during certain lunar transits. "It's a bright spot on the moon," he said.

NASA will formally submit the name proposals to the International Astronomical Union after the mission completes. Astronauts have named lunar features before, like Jim Lovell naming Mount Marilyn after his wife during Apollo 8 in 1968.

Reid Wiseman's NASA biography lists his professional achievements, from 27 years as a Navy pilot to 165 days aboard the International Space Station in 2014. But it ends with this: "Despite a long list of professional accolades, Reid considers his time as an only parent as his greatest challenge and the most rewarding phase of his life."

Now Carroll Wiseman's name will shine on the moon, a permanent reminder that the people who love us shape our journeys even after they're gone.

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