Lunar love knows no bounds. As the Artemis II astronauts headed home from the moon, the crew used a longstanding Apollo-era tradition to propose two lunar crater names tied to their personal story and mission identity. Commander Reid Wiseman and his crewmates asked permission to name one small crater “Integrity” after their spacecraft call sign and another after Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Wiseman, NASA said. The request was made during the mission’s lunar fly-around earlier this week and, according to people involved, left ground controllers momentarily speechless.
Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll Wiseman, died of cancer in 2020, and the name request carried that weight into the radio call. “Just for me personally, that was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me,” Wiseman said Wednesday night from space, according to the Associated Press report. NASA lunar scientist Ryan Watkins said the moment was emotional for the crew, telling the Associated Press that “there was not a single dry eye” during the exchange at Mission Control.
The naming request came right before Monday’s lunar fly-around, with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen making the ask during the live communications. Hansen told Mission Control: “We lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie.” He added: “It’s a bright spot on the moon and we would like to call it Carroll.” Mission Control responded, after a brief pause, with “Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear,” as quoted in the report.
Mission Control’s lead scientist, Kelsey Young, worked with the Artemis II astronauts before launch to help them select the two bright, relatively young craters that they could spot up close once they were near enough to the moon using zoom lenses and even their naked eyes. Watkins said the scene recalled earlier Apollo-era naming, when astronaut Jim Lovell bestowed his wife’s name on a lunar feature during Apollo 8 in 1968. In that case, Lovell named a prominent lunar peak “Mount Marilyn,” with the Associated Press report describing the moment as the first trip to the moon and noting how his wife awaited his return in Houston.
The Artemis II crew’s request also drew a contrast between earlier Apollo moonshots and the modern mission atmosphere. Watkins said, “This is no fault of Apollo,” and added: “I think we’re seeing just a more human aspect.” Wiseman said his crewmates came up with the idea while the crew was in quarantine a few days before liftoff, and he agreed, saying he was too overwhelmed to give a full talk afterward. Wiseman recalled that he told the crew “Absolutely, I would love that, I think that’s just the best,” but “I said, ‘But I can’t give the speech, I can’t give the talk,’” according to the report.
On the moon’s map, the two suggested names correspond to different locations and sizes. Watkins said the proposed “Carroll” crater sits at the moon’s left limb near the boundary of the moon’s near and far sides and is occasionally visible from Earth; he described it as shallow and approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) across. Watkins said the slightly larger “Integrity” crater lies completely on the lunar far side.
NASA said the crew planned to submit the two proposed names to the International Astronomical Union after returning to Earth. The report noted that nearly half a century separated Apollo 8’s naming of “Mount Marilyn” from the union’s sign-off in 2017. The Associated Press report also quoted IAU’s Ramasamy Venugopal as saying a decision on the proposed “Carroll” and “Integrity” names would come in about a month, describing that timeframe as the norm “for straightforward requests.”
The IAU already maintains an approved list of astronaut-named lunar features, the report said, including names such as Apollo 16’s “Baby Ray” and “Gator,” and Apollo 17’s “Lara,” named for a female character from the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago.” The report said some Apollo-era nicknames did not make it onto the approved list, including Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan’s “Tracy’s Rock,” named in 1972 for his daughter, and Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad’s “Pete’s Parking Lot” nickname for his landing site in 1969.
Nearby, the Artemis II crew’s lunar-flyaround exchange carried a different tone from the Apollo era’s carefully controlled mission briefings, even as the underlying practice—honoring people and mission meanings on the lunar surface—linked the missions across decades.