NASA Artemis II astronauts train, orbit Moon and promote lunar base plans

NASA prepared the Artemis II crew – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – with a week‑long geological training program that included field work in Labrador and Iceland. The mission, launched on 1 April 2026, took the astronauts around the lunar far side for ten days, where they described terrain, captured thousands of images and even proposed names for two craters, demonstrating that a trained human eye can complement robotic sensors.

After the flight, Victor Glover visited the Naval Postgraduate School to discuss the mission with students, highlighting the program’s legacy. Meanwhile, the United States has issued an executive order to establish a permanent lunar outpost by 2030, and China has outlined its own Moon base for 2035. Engineers are studying regolith‑based 3D printing, modular construction, and habitat design to address the Moon’s extreme temperature swings, abrasive dust, radiation and micrometeorite hazards, while also considering the psychological impacts of long‑duration confinement.