Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman Names Moon Crater After His Late Wife Carroll
A bright spot on the moon may soon carry the name of a Virginia nurse who spent her career caring for newborns in intensive care.
The Artemis II crew proposed naming a newly discovered crater Carroll, after Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Wiseman, who died at age 46 after a five-year battle with cancer.
The proposal came on April 6, the same day the crew surpassed the record distance from Earth of 248,655 miles — a record previously set during the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
How the Carroll Crater Got Its Name
The Artemis II crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Mission Pilot Victor Glover, Crew Specialist Christina Hammock Koch and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — discovered two unnamed, relatively fresh craters on the moon on April 6.
The first crater, located between the craters Orientale and Ohm on the far side of the moon, was proposed to be named Integrity, after their spacecraft.
The second was proposed to be named Carroll.
Hansen announced the Carroll crater naming, his voice cracking with emotion. Wiseman wiped tears as Hansen spoke, then placed his hand on Hansen’s shoulder. All four crew members shared a group hug shortly after.
The moment was captured in a video posted to NASA’s Instagram account.
Hansen described the crater’s location and what it meant to the crew.
“And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie,” he said in the video.
“If you want to find this one, you look at Glushko, and it’s just to the northwest of that, at the same latitude as Ohm, and it’s a bright spot on the Moon. And we would like to call it Carroll,” he added.
Who Was Reid Wiseman’s Wife?
Carroll Taylor Wiseman was born in Virginia Beach, Va. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University as a pediatric nurse practitioner and dedicated her career to working as a newborn intensive care unit (NICU) registered nurse.
She worked at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Va., and also served as a school nurse in Patuxent River, Md. and Friendswood, Texas — near NASA.
Carroll Wiseman died on May 17, 2020, at age 46 after a five-year battle with cancer. She was survived by her husband Reid, daughters Katey and Ellie, her parents, a brother, a sister and seven nieces and nephews.
Reid Wiseman, who was 44 years old when he lost Carroll, has been a single father to his two daughters since her passing.
In his NASA bio, he describes fatherhood as his “greatest challenge and most rewarding phase of life.”
Just before the mission launched, he shared a selfie on Instagram with his now-teenage daughters and the spacecraft, writing “I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.”
Is the Carroll Crater Name Official?
Not yet. The crater names are proposals at this point. They must be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union after the mission concludes.
The IAU is the governing body for naming celestial bodies and their surface features.
The Carroll crater sits near the boundary of the far side of the moon and is visible from Earth during certain times of the lunar cycle — a detail Hansen emphasized in his announcement.
In some cases, the IAU can take several years before finalizing the name of moon craters and planet names. It’s unclear if the naming of Carroll Crater will be done in a timely manner.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
