NASA Astronaut Victor Glover Talks About Upcoming Mission To The Moon

Space health scientists from around the globe are in Tulsa this week. The goal is to discuss the health impacts of commercial human spaceflight.

One of the speakers is NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who is scheduled to pilot the Artemis II, which will take American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972.

The event is hosted by the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education and the LaunchPad Center at the Helmerich Research Center on the OSU Tulsa campus.

Glover joined us on Six In The Morning to talk more about his upcoming mission and the event.

What can be expected at the space health conference at OSU Tulsa?

"So there's going to be folks from industry, academia, and, of course, the public sector, the government is there. And this partnership is a really great opportunity for us to understand how going to space can impact our private astronaut partners. And so this is a way for us to communicate the things that we have learned in the government putting humans in space since the 60s, and how those things can be communicated better, how they can be better understood. And so that we can give them a more informed opportunity to go to space.

And here's another really exciting thing, that eventually the numbers of people going to space on these private and commercial missions is going to reach the numbers of government supported astronauts. And so it also provides new data. Every astronaut that works for a government entity is really highly screened and scrutinized. And so you're kind of getting a really small slice of the public. And now you're going to open this up to you know, greater age, greater ethnic diversity. And so we're going to learn a lot more about what space does to the human condition. And so this is a chance for us to understand the data that we're gathering," Glover said.

Who is joining you on your mission to the moon?

"So Reid Wiseman is the commander. (Mission Specialist 1) Christina Koch, who was also my classmate. We were selected in 2013, and started astronaut training together. And then Jeremy Hansen, who was also selected with Reid, is (Mission Specialist 2) from the Canadian Space Agency. And so the four of us get to crew Artemis II. And it is our job to run the best race that we can to get this mission safely in the book. So that we can hand off the stick to Artemis III, which is going to go further, farther and do a more complicated mission. As we work to land humans back on the surface of the moon, Glover said.

What's your message to the public about missions like this?

"You know, and right now NASA and our public and private partners, other countries as well as corporate America is helping us to go further into the solar system. We're going to continue to have humans in low Earth orbit like we have for almost every day of the last 23 years. And we are going to go further and learn more about deep space exploration. And it's so amazing what's happening right now. Everything you've ever read about Apollo, the Soyuz programme, the space station, we're doing all of that now. But we're doing it with a whole new group of people, a whole new partnership between countries and the public and private sector. And I just hope that you know, you pay attention to what we're doing and that we make you proud," Glover said.