It took the work of thousands of people to prepare and monitor the Artemis II mission, which brought four astronauts the furthest into space humans have ever been.
Jack Sieleman, a Waukee High School graduate, logged 79 hours at a console desk in NASA’s Mission Control Center during the spacecraft’s trip to the far side of the moon and back. That included a shift just before reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and splash down.
“We came into the atmosphere going seven miles a second, you know — just over 42 times the speed of sound,” he said. “And building up that amount of heat on the back shell of the heat shield is no small feat. Assent and entry are the two most critical and dynamic phases of flight, so it's certainly exciting.”
Sieleman said when he was seven, he got a model rocket and made it his whole personality. He worked on rockets with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as a mechanical engineering student at the University of Iowa before graduating in 2022. When it came time to work on Artimus II, Sieleman described it as “the world’s coolest LEGO puzzle.”
“How do we convert one of the most advanced vehicles humans have ever put together into something that we can manage and put flight procedures together and really figure out what the operation looks like?” Sieleman said. “It was an incredibly cool puzzle that all came together for the 10-day mission that was Artemis II.”
Sieleman said the flight control team is responsible for the safety of the astronauts and sending commands to the spacecraft during the mission to ensure they perform trajectory maneuvers correctly. Preceeding that are years of planning, testing systems, running simulations and preparing to problem solve any malfunctions.
For Sieleman, the launch day was surreal.
“Coming through the big silver doors at the front of Mission Control Center on the day of, knowing that today was our day and we were going to do something incredible — was really special,” said Sieleman, who will also be working on the ascent team for Artimus III. “There's those moments every now and then. They don't get old.”
Madison Tuttle of West Des Moines grew up with a reverence for space. She was particularly inspired by Iowan Peggy Whitson, the U.S. astronaut who has spent the most cumulative time in space. At Iowa State University, she discovered she could channel her love of science with science communication. Now, she works as a public affairs specialist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
During Artemis II, she was responsible for communicating with the rest of the world about the space mission. The goal of her work was to make this major space adventure accessible to the public.
“Going to the moon is no easy feat, and we're dealing with a lot of complex technical information that we have to take and make sure that the general public can understand,” Tuttle said. "NASA's audience is kind of the whole world. We have to assume that our audience doesn't have a science or engineering background, so it's all about 'How do we take this information and make it understandable but also interesting to the public?'”
One different aspect about this mission vs. previous moon visits is that astronauts have social media available to them, so they could directly post material to the public during the fly by.
“The astronauts were such great storytellers. I think we got really lucky that they were so willing and eager to share their thoughts and their images in their stories in the flight,” Tuttle said.
Tuttle said seeing the reactions of the public on social media and how many people fell in love with the crew and the mission was a highlight for her.
“I think that moment was really impactful for me, just to see that this got people really excited and feeling hopeful about spaceflight,” Tuttle said.
Alex Brewer, a Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln High School graduate, landed his job with a NASA contractor when he was on a time crunch to find employment out of college. He's now a software lead with the hazardous gas detection system at Amentum.
“It was pretty humbling at first, because you've seen all the history that has happened here, going through Apollo, then through shuttle, and then coming on to the new Artemis program. It was pretty overwhelming,” Brewer said,
During a rocket launch, his system monitors the fuels being loaded into the vehicle. The liquid oxygen and the liquid hydrogen are at extremely cold temperatures and try to escape from any tiny joint or seal they can. Brewer and his team monitor hundreds of sensors on the launch pad to be aware of any hazard.
On the day Artimus II launched, Brewer was watching and waiting for any issue, but the loading operations went smoothly.
“Once it launched, it was such a giant relief off my shoulders, saying, what a great job everybody did on the teams.”
To hear this conversation, listen to River to River, hosted by Ben Kieffer. Samantha McIntosh produced this episode.
