The Artemis II Astronauts – Life and Leadership Lessons on Steroids
I’m still captivated by the Artemis II mission and crew. So many aspects of this mission were about team, leadership, community, and, ultimately, living life to the fullest. Furthermore, the Artemis II Crew modeled countless important leadership and character attributes: courage, humility, humor, grit, selflessness, and vulnerability, to name a few.
All of the Artemis II Astronauts live courageously, chasing their dream of going into space knowing there were risks involved. They all pursued education and experiences that would qualify them to do what they did as astronauts. They leaned into the discipline required to keep their bodies fit for such an arduous journey and spent decades gaining the science and technology knowledge they needed to master to do this work.
The crew certainly enjoyed being together, spending 10 days in the small, cramped space of the Orian spacecraft. April of 2023 NASA announced the four-person crew: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The group had three years to prepare for the mission by undergoing rigorous, mission-specific preparation before leaving earth in the Orian April 1, 2026. During those three years of physical and mental preparation for the mission the crew also clearly bonded and became a team ready to support each other no matter what lay ahead.
While orbiting the moon, the crew named a bright lunar crater on the far side of the Moon “Carroll” to honor mission commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. The emotion of the moment when Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen announced the naming request to NASA over the radio was unmistakable. All the crew shared in the grief and joy of the knowledge of someone they never met but learned of through Reid Wiseman. The beauty and the sadness coexisting in that moment was a
testament to the human experience of loss and remembrance.
And they drew us all in. They included us in their time in space and shared what life on Orian is like, all with humor and vulnerability. Over 27 million people watched the April 10 reentry and splashdown live on TV and over 20 million watched via digital livestreams. All of us seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief (I know I did) when they landed safely.
Not only did they land safely, they landed within 27 seconds of their scheduled time, having spent almost 10 days in space and traveling, according to NASA, a total distance of 695,081 miles from launch to splashdown. Furthermore, at their greatest distance from earth during the lunar flyby, the crew reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles from Earth, setting the official record for the farthest humans have ever traveled into space, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13. The capabilities of countless people at NASA and related organizations who made the mission a success, while landing within 27 seconds (!) of the scheduled time were on full display during the mission and at its conclusion.
Finally, humility and a sense of community and team were all on display with the Artemis II Astronauts, as reported in Inc. Magazine on April 7, 2026, while Orian was in orbit:
“The question, prompted by the folks at Merriam-Webster and channeled through NASA, was: “You’ve already surpassed more than 250,000 miles from Earth — farther than any human has gone before. So, what are some words that come to mind when you try to wrap your mind around this very unique experience?”
The astronauts passed the microphone around a bit before Koch took charge. Here’s what she had to say:
I’ll be honest with you, the main word, because superlatives just don’t do it justice, is humility. We would never be here if it weren’t for so many people that came before us, starting with Neil Armstrong, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, civil rights movement leaders.
Everyone who worked on this spacecraft before we got here in our three years of training. We went all over the country and to European and Canadian partners to see the people who have put their hands on this hardware — the millions of parts from every valve to this entire thing, the people that put on harnesses every day to rig it up in the VAB …
They all passed the record. We definitely didn’t pass the record up here alone.”
Class, pure class. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone else who came before me who made this happen. We all have people who have gone before us and helped us be who we are today. Who paved the way for you to succeed as a person and as a leader?
If you and your team need leadership development to succeed better here on earth, contact us at laura@conoverconsulting.com. We’ve been building better leaders and cultures for decades.
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