The Artemis II astronauts have broken the record for the farthest distance from Earth ever traveled by humans on Monday last week, becoming the first people to lay eyes on parts of the far side of the moon. The four-person crew, captained by Reid Wiseman, spotted several yet-unnamed craters. They decided to propose some, in hopes of leaving a personal – and heartfelt – mark on the moon. Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, on the line with mission control, suggested that one crater be named Carroll, in honor of Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020 at age 46.
“A number of years ago, we started this journey in our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one…her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,” Hansen spoke into his radio, surrounded by his crew members, in a video shared by NASA. “It’s a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call it Carroll.”
Somewhere, in that boundless expanse, Carroll now rests against the lunar surface. She is etched into a place older than memory. She reminds all of us that, even in a universe so vast, we humans still seek connection in the unending dark.Â
We are surrounded by so many extraordinary feats of science and technology that it is easy to forget they are carried out by people – fragile, feeling, and endlessly hopeful people. When the astronauts chose to name that bright crater Carroll, they reminded us that every act of exploration, however technical, is ultimately an extension of our shared humanity. It is more than the machinery that carries us upward. It is the stories, the loves, and the losses that make the journey mean something. No matter how high we climb or how far we travel, our connections to one another remain the brightest things we know. To name a place so far away after someone so deeply known and loved is to refuse the emptiness of space. It is to insist that even the far side of the moon can hold memory, can hold grief, can hold love. That nothing we care about is ever truly separate from us.
For as long as they all shall see Carroll again, Reid and his daughters will look up at the moon and be reminded of their mother’s steadfast and eternal imprint. Perhaps they will sting with the sadness that she will never get to know this, or maybe they will be comforted by the belief that she somehow does. Either way, they will marvel at their father not just as an astronaut who crossed the deepest dark, but as a man who, even out among the galaxies, chose to honor the love of his life.
People are amazing because they go to space. And because of how they love one another.