That's awesome that you hand me this flag.

It flew on STS-1.

I know this flag was taken up on STS-135.

There is a good shot of the STS-1 flag that flew up onboard Atlantis.

The Demo-2 SpaceX crew, my friends, great friends, brought this thing home.

So it's amazing to think of the hands this thing has gone through.

It's pretty special.

And then it will travel once again on the next vehicle that leaves low Earth orbit.

And here we are in Mission Control in Houston, Texas, and this flag is in my hands.

I don't know about you, but I think we should send this thing to the moon.

Let's take it to the moon.

Human spaceflight is the ultimate team sport.

When these four fly around the moon, they won't be doing it alone.

They're part of a team, a team of astronauts, engineers, scientists, trainers, a team of support working around our country and around the globe ready day and night.

We will help them carry the incredible weight.

And it's a heavy one now laid on their shoulders because we go together for all humanity.

NASA has a rich history of test flights, and we do it for a reason.

It goes all the way back to Mercury, to Gemini, to Apollo, to Shuttle, STS-1, station where the two modules came together, and we put that first crew on.

Demo-2 on SpaceX, a lot of work went into that.

Starliner for the crew flight test.

These are test flights, and they're test flights for a reason, because we're making sure that that vehicle's ready to go from an operational standpoint, from that point further.

And Artemis is no different.

NASA was established to undertake big, bold endeavors in air and space to undertake the near impossible.

The next stop is America's return to the lunar environment.

What we learned from that mission is going to help enable America's return to the lunar surface.

When we arrive to the moon, we're there to stay.

[APPLAUSE] Our mission calls for four names It's difficult to pick just four, from a group that by its very definition attracts the best and the brightest that humanity has to offer, as humanity looks to find its place among the stars.

My name is Norm Knight.

I'm the director of flight operations at NASA Johnson Space Center.

Well, let me tell you a little bit about what flight operations does.

You could think of us as a service provider to the major programs at NASA, both for low Earth orbit and for our exploration goals to Moon and Mars.

We plan, we train, and we go execute and fly the missions.

Assigning a crew for a mission is complicated.

I'll tell you that.

We look at our experience base and we say, all right, here's the mission, in this case Artemis 2, higher risk being a test flight.

So what complement of experience base do we want on this mission?

With a test flight, we typically like pilots that have test flight experience, test pilots.

In addition to that, you look for cohesiveness with a crew.

We need mission specialists on board that are able to do a lot of the tasks.

We go look at an experience base within the office and say, who best can fit these needs?

How can they work or will they work together in an environment that's cohesive to aligning to the mission?

And you end up with an experience base with those crew that then provide everything possible to guarantee mission success going forward.

As head of flight operations, I have the privilege of getting to know each and every astronaut.

The best part of my job, the best part of my job, is that I'm surrounded by people who inspire, who give hope to those that might follow in their footsteps.

I want to thank you all for sharing in this moment today.

And thanks to our crew, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, as they get ready to embark on this journey.

It has been an amazing journey the last two and a half years.

We have just built a tremendous amount of trust between the four of us.

This crew cohesion, we're at the point now where we are ready to go fly.

For us, Artemis 2 is about much more than just going back to the moon.

It is about the pursuit of excellence.

If you want to go fast, go alone If you want to go far, go together.

And we are going together.

And our mission success is built on handing off a starting point to Artemis 3 that sets our country and our partners up to go back to the surface of the moon.

Sending machinery around the moon, beautiful machines, is a challenge.

Adding humans takes it a giant leap forward.

And there is a lot of work that goes into integrating people into the system.

This is a very serious endeavor.

This is absolutely a test flight.

The last time we launched was more than three years ago.

It did not have crew on it.

It was not a completely like-for-like spacecraft on top of the SLS architecture.

We basically invented all of the training for the Orion spacecraft and the rocket and put it all together.

And now we're in the middle of giving all of that information to the crew to prepare them for the launch.

For me, the heart of Artemis 2 are the individuals, the people that are on board that Orion capsule.

They are going to represent us as humanity, going out into space on this incredible journey.

And to me, that's the real piece there, is the human element.

I'm Reid Wiseman, a NASA astronaut and commander of the Artemis 2 crew.

I guess if I'm going to answer who I am, first and foremost, I'm a dad.

I was a pilot in the Navy.

I'm an astronaut.

I'm a lover of nature, lover of the Earth.

And in general, I just try to be nice to people.

I've known Reid a long time and just an absolute great person.

He is very strategic in his thought process.

I consider him big picture.

His leadership style is really obvious.

He's looking for ways to let all of his really talented, experienced crewmates own parts of the mission.

Over his career, Wiseman has spent over 165 days in space.

In the office, he was the chief astronaut, which is a very tough job.

More on the personal side.

He's just a great guy.

I grew up in a small town north of Baltimore, Maryland, known as Cockeysville or Hunt Valley.

The first time I remember being interested in space, I was in elementary school.

I was always into cars and trains and planes, and I distinctly remember before the first space shuttle flight, I think I was five years old, the 747 flew over with a shuttle on the back.

I distinctly remember being on a hill near a mall with my mom and dad watching that thing fly over and all.

I was a tiny kid.

I graduated high school pretty young.

And so I was small.

I tried all the standard little kid sports.

I tried soccer.

I tried baseball.

Those just did not fit with me.

While I was at school, I decided that I wanted to be a Navy pilot.

I joined the Navy in college through this thing called ROTC.

And then when I graduated from college, that was my road into the Navy.

Once I had that test pilot school block met, I knew that I had all the pieces to be an astronaut.

I applied once, I got my rejection letter, it's still hanging up at home, I looked at it last night.

I thought it was hand signed, it wasn't hand signed.

And then in 2009, I applied again for my second time and luckily snuck into an interview round and then I knew it was all up to me and the dream was going to be set by me right there.

So, are you enjoying your training?

Oh, it's awesome so far, absolutely fantastic, way better than I had imagined.

Getting to accomplish a dream, getting to go out and seize that, you have to sometimes look back and just congratulate yourself, just take a minute and say, "Man, you actually, you did the thing that you set out to do."

What would I tell eight or nine year old Reed, "Hey, stay the course.

You're doing great.

Have some confidence."

Because I definitely didn't have a lot of confidence as a kid.

So go out and have fun and try to do good every day.

While we're looking at everybody, if you'll find the lens, just go and look at the lens, everybody.

I want to thank God for this amazing opportunity, because Artemis 2 is more than a mission to the moon and back.

It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars.

Victor Glover, he's a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy.

He has more than 2,000 hours of flight time.

He has his bachelor's degree in engineering, his master's in flight test engineering.

He was a United States test pilot where he flew F-18s.

He came to us from Washington, DC, where he was serving as United States Navy Legislative Fellow in the United States Senate.

My name is Victor Glover.

I'm a NASA astronaut, naval aviator, and a former test pilot.

The back of my baseball card, the most important things would be right at the top.

It'd be a husband and father to four beautiful daughters.

And then, you know, being able to dabble in the aerospace industry, fly jets off of a carrier, help design and to operate spacecraft, those would be down there in the small print somewhere.

Victor, he is the philosopher, I would say.

He is the one that I've had the most conversations about what makes effective training.

When I think of Victor, I think of a supercomputer.

And I mean that very sincerely.

He is so intelligent.

And he is thinking about the mission.

He's thinking about solutions.

And in working with the teams, it's just fun to watch.

Victor Glover, he is my classmate.

We were both chosen in 2013 to become astronauts.

He is my Astro brother.

He is incredibly talented and I am basically in awe of him at all times.

Victor Glover, he has become a mentor of mine.

I love working with him.

It is not a relationship that peaks and then drops off.

This relationship is always increasing.

I'm learning more about him every single day and we are working better together every single day.

I grew up in Southern California being from a socio-economically disadvantaged background, you know, not having a lot of money.

It definitely created a challenge, but in all of that, my support and love from my mother and my father was always clear, that always shone through.

I played outside, you know, I would come home with rocks and wood chips, but also like bugs in my pocket.

Just this idea to kind of go beyond and know what's next and see what's beyond is, it's just kind of always been there.

Sometimes it wound up with me getting bumps and bruises, you know, I took the rain fly of tent, tied it to my belt loops and jumped off my grandparents' roof to see if I c a parachute, you know.

As a child, seeing a shuttle launch on television really captivated me.

There are points through my childhood and young adulthood that just, that feeling was always there.

When I was in college, I was 20 years old, I decided I wanted to join the Navy.

And when I told my dad I wanted to join the Navy, I told him I wanted to be a Navy SEAL.

And he said, "Okay, you might enjoy that."

But with an engineering degree from Cal Poly, and being a pilot, you might be able to go on and become an astronaut.

My dad made a suggestion that changed the arc of my life.

Literally changed the trajectory of my life.

When NASA announced the astronaut piloting its Artemis 2 mission, Victor Glover Sr.

was watching.

Obviously I had tears in my eyes, I was wiping the tears away.

Deep down inside you knew, you know, he's gonna be a part of something special.

Being able to go to space is just, I think, a sign of the willingness, the work ethic, and the adventure, and the opportunity, the timing coming together.

So many people have poured into my life that if anything, I'm actually reflecting from so many sources, and again, I am blessed.

I've been blessed.

Look at this picture.

You were in space camp.

I was.

How old were you?

Do you remember?

Probably middle school.

And look at you now.

She has a bachelor's science degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University, a bachelor's in physics, and a master's in electrical engineering.

She's also done some interesting expeditionary work, so please welcome Christina.

(audience applauding) Christina Koch, one of our mission specialists, a great person, just a great personality, easy going, very detailed, and task oriented.

She is the person that makes sure that everyone walks away from some training with the right understanding.

She speaks up and asks a question, and then usually the whole room is like, "Yeah, I had that question too."

Christina, she brings a science mind to these activities.

I'm so excited that she has the chance to go to the moon and help lead the science as a whole.

First, she's just a great person And then second, she is really outgoing, outdoorsy human being.

So she is always off doing something that I wish I was off doing.

Her background as an explorer and someone that just, I mean, lives to explore and loves life and adventure, space, she's a natural.

Well, I was born in Michigan, family of farmers, and I ended up growing up in North Carolina.

My particular family moved there, and both places were just incredibly important in terms of forming my values and who I am.

I would describe that little girl as someone that loved to be a part of everything.

My dad and I were always working in the shed.

We called it shed heaven.

He was always teaching me how to fix things, how to make things.

For me, the moments of exploration as a child were ubiquitous.

I was always exploring, whether it was on the farm, going around on the trails, under the trees, climbing the trees, or in my own backyard.

The idea of celestial bodies, the moon, the stars, what all that meant, seeing the Milky Way, these were things that really drew me in.

I myself was inspired by the Earthrise photo taken on Apollo 8.

I had it on my bedroom wall as a kid.

And the idea that we can take a picture of all of humanity at once.

That will be a big moment.

Christina Koch, you're a record holder.

She is out, thumbs up and a huge smile.

She returns to Earth as a record holder, the single longest stay in space by a woman.

What advice would you give to a girl my age who wanted to become an astronaut when they grew up?

You know, I did have those conversations where small kids were surprised that I was an astronaut because, quote, "I wasn't a guy.

I wasn't a man."

And for me, that sort of set the bit that it was important to demonstrate by representation that anything is possible for anyone who has a passion and who's willing to work hard to achieve that dream.

To see that tide changing and to recognize that we can affect that change by the decisions we make to go by all and for all is really inspiring for me.

A Canadian is going to the moon.

That makes me smile when I say that.

I know Canadians could not be more proud.

Proud to have for the first time eight Canadian astronauts who will travel to deep space as part of the Artemis 2 mission.

(audience cheers) I'm Colonel Jeremy Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency.

Jeremy Hanson, a Canadian F-18 pilot.

He hasn't had an opportunity to fly in space yet.

I really look forward to him being able to see his home planet from space for the first time after his 15 years of training.

It's interesting because when I think of Jeremy, while he's a rookie, I don't think of him as a rookie.

And that says a lot about Jeremy.

He's very prepared.

He's a quiet, confident leader.

He is maybe the thinker or the observer of the crew, thinking about the technical aspects of whatever we're learning.

So he'll have some really insightful comment or just some really great piece of humor to add at the end.

He's one of the funniest human beings that you will ever met.

He is dry humor and his timing is absolutely impeccable.

You know how many times I show up to an interview and then I watch them make the tripod taller?

Just about everyone.

But the other neat thing about Jeremy that a lot of people don't get to see is he is incredibly creative.

His creativity in making this spaceship like a playground and actually knowing it for its fundamental capabilities could potentially save our lives on this mission.

I've definitely spent some time contemplating my first launch to space.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is what I'm going to feel like the day before.

I imagine I'm going to be very pensive the day before.

I'll be leaving the planet.

I'll be leaving my wife and three children behind on the planet.

I know what's going to happen the next day is risky, but I also know from my operational experiences and flying and challenges I face that when the day comes and it's go time, I'll be fired up and I'll be just firing on all cylinders, riding that rocket to space.

I grew up on a farm outside of London, Ontario, and I just had a great childhood.

I really credit my experiences on the farm with giving me some of the tools I needed to succeed in life.

I went on to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.

I had this passion for wanting to fly fighter jets.

And ultimately that prepared me to join the Canadian Space Agency and take on this challenge of being an astronaut.

It is kind of full circle for me flying out to the moon on this mission because when I was a young Canadian, I did see an image in Encyclopedia A under Neil Armstrong of humans standing on the moon.

I looked at that image so many times through my childhood.

It was on the bookshelf at home, and I started just thinking about being a space explorer.

I turned my treehouse into a spaceship.

I created all these intricate dials made out of cardboard and popsicle sticks.

I found some switches, circuit breakers in the barn that I mounted to have switches in my spacecraft.

I had a control column I made out of wood and a hinge.

And I was exploring space in my imagination.

As a child growing up, I watched Mark Arno fly in space, the first Canadian in space.

And seeing that, that's what made me understand that it was possible for me to actually achieve that dream.

I'm driven by the spirit of exploration.

I don't even know that I can tell you why, but there's just something about going to a new place and pushing the limits that really captures my passion.

Super proud that Canada is joining the the U.S.

led mission back to the moon, the Artemis mission, just gratitude for for what they brought to the challenge.

The moon is like a Rosetta Stone for understanding the entire solar system.

and where we came from as a result.

I used to stare up at the moon.

I was just fascinated by that image, that consistent image, and try to imagine what it might be like up there.

just thinking kind of on a mental journey, like I'm just taking this spiritual flight through the cosmos, but there was just this interesting and significant connection with the moon.

Everybody around the world has looked up at that exact same moon.

The same side of the moon is always facing Earth, and we are always looking at that same picture.

Some people are dreaming of it.

For some it's a religious symbol, a spiritual symbol.

For some it's a calendar, but we are always all looking at that same moon.

It's one thing that every human has in common.

That thing that looks so far away is going to be right up close for us.

There's this human aspect of flying out and seeing the moon up close.

That's gonna be truly extraordinary.

But then think about seeing the Earth from the perspective of the moon.

To have the moon in the foreground and the Earth rising around the side of the moon is just an extraordinary thing to imagine.

This is the stuff we dreamed of when we were kids, and now it's becoming reality.

Its not becoming reality, it is reality.

[♪] My name is Lakisha Hawkins.

I currently serve as Acting Deputy Associate Administrator here at NASA.

We lead the agency's efforts for human exploration to the moon and to destinations further beyond the moon.

I'm one of those kids who went to elementary school and we had enrichment programs where we did some rocketry and some landing experiments.

I remember them rolling the TV cart into the classroom, allowing all of us to watch shuttle launches and landings.

We were also sitting in front of the TV during the Challenger incident.

That was impactful to me.

I was one who wanted to explore, but I also knew that there was risk and I wanted to be able to help others do so safely.

And so that's always been in the back of my mind.

That flight means extra risk even more when you're flying to the moon.

How much more dangerous do you personally feel going into this mission compared with your previous space flights or other high-risk endeavors?

And how are you and your family dealing with it?

I have a family.

You know, I'm a husband and a father.

And so my family, we're preparing the same way.

We talk about everything.

We talk about how we're feeling and work with them to prepare as much as I train.

It's very exciting to fly crew, but it's also daunting, right, because these are people who have families, moms, dads, kids, you know, dreams, aspirations, and they're putting their lives in our hands.

You know, I look at this one as failure is not an option.

That's kind of cliche, you know, but I was part of the Columbia accident investigation.

And I've always remembered that.

I think one of the biggest things that my leadership team and me have to overcome is the arrogance and the complacency that comes with the success that we have had and to make sure that we leave no stone unturned.

We all understand there's heightened risk with, that's the biggest thing.

To put it simply, there's increased risk with a test mission because you never done that before.

I already knew going to the moon was hard.

Administrator, you talked about it.

Kennedy talked about it.

That's why we're doing it.

I already knew it was hard, but boy, it's harder than I thought.

Space flight's not safe.

Space flight's not safe.

It's risky.

You anticipate issues in cases of test flights that you work through.

You've done everything you can, but again, it's a test flight.

You're doing it for a reason.

And so the challenge of that, and what sparks me about that, is this gives us a chance to really show what we've got and really show our ability to challenge ourselves.

It has been a long, long time since we have sent humans all the way out to the moon.

This is new for myself to experience spaceflight like this and I think new to a lot of the world.

So it's really exciting.

My name is Jackie Mahaffey and I am the Chief Training Officer for the Artemis 2 mission.

[90% of the space flight--] My grandfather went to work for North American and Honeywell on Apollo control systems.

So flying to the moon is a little bit in my blood and after an aerospace engineering degree, I made it down here to Johnson Space Center.

I started off as a flight controller and mission control.

Everything I did was new things.

It was inventing and developing.

And so in the training world that I'm in now, it's the same thing for me.

This is indeed a unique training flow.

What's unique about this are the aspects of going deeper into space.

In addition, the way that we have to communicate, obviously the spacecraft is new and different, but what is the same is the teams that we are utilizing in order to be able to develop this training flow.

Most of the team here at Johnson Space Center have had some experience with the space shuttle and training crews for space shuttle missions.

A lot of experience in the last 25 years training for the space station, but this whole idea of the small spacecraft, small capsule, and sending it as far as we do and making sure that the crew is equipped to handle things on their own if needed is something new for us.

Artemis 2 is the first time we're flying this spacecraft, so the training materials have been developed while we've been taking the training.

The way we're preparing for Artemis 2 at this moment is we're going through our initial simulations.

So we're simulating our ground controllers here, our crew over in the mock-ups, talking back and forth, and really going through those draft procedures and flight rules with a fine-tooth comb.

We do simulations in segments, but then we also do what we call a long simulation, which is let's actually practice what it actually looks like through the entire mission, which means through tanking, through countdown, through ascent, the return, as well as recovery, all of the sleeping and awake time.

We do all of that in one block.

For the Artemis 2 mission.

We have nine days to do everything that we need to do to test the vehicle and to prove out all of the mission objectives.

We're much more focused on the crew understanding exactly the activities that they're going to see throughout the mission, where they might find things on board, and an understanding, hey, if something does go wrong and it's important that both the astronauts and the team that supports them on the ground in Houston are ready to solve the problem quickly.

Working with the teams to figure out the right answer for everything is literally a day-to-day activity, and it has been awesome.

It's challenging, but it also means that this is a completely different animal.

I kind of look at the whole journey of like, you know, young Jeremy flying space missions in the treehouse to today in the simulator, going through failure scenarios with an incredible team and mission control.

You know, it has changed a lot.

It was a lot simpler when I was young and I was doing it in my imagination.

A lot of people ask me how I feel leading up to this mission inside of two months to go.

It's not a simple question to answer.

You know, there are moments of like, wow, I can't believe like we're so close to going and it is super exciting, but then in the next moment you're like, okay, I also have a lot I want to do.

I totally feel like we're going to be ready.

Things are going to come together, but I also have that feeling of like, almost like cramming for an exam where it's like, hey, I could use every single moment between now and flight to make just double check, triple check.

And you never really know when that work is truly done.

We are 41,500-- We can sit in a simulator all day long and fail different components and we can write procedures perfectly to flesh out all of these issues.

But in the end, something is going to fail in an unexpected way and it's the process.

How do the four crew members think about this?

How does mission control think about this?

How does the engineering support team think about this?

And then how do we all communicate together to get through this failure?

The Artemis 2 crew and the ground teams are cohesive.

It takes a lot of training for the ground team to understand the nuances of the crew and vice versa.

At the end of the day, they're mission focused.

The Artemis 2 crew in advance of the mission have gotten to help trail blaze a couple of the training pieces that future crews that are going to be landing on the moon will get to do.

We took the whole crew to Iceland to look at the geology there and just some of the parallels to the moon.

We are here in Iceland training astronauts and training other Artemis personnel in field geology.

So we're going to be exploring t volcanic deposits, teaching them explore a station when they're doing EVAs on Artemis, and also how to make good observations when they're passing by the moon on Artemis 2.

Iceland is a great analog for the moon in a bunch of different ways.

It's got the planetary processes, in this case volcanism.

It has the landscape.

There's no vegetation here.

It looks like the moon.

The geologists are really hoping that there's some areas of interest that we can look at with our human eyes, be able to scan across the moon with different lighting angles as we fly around and collect some data that the satellites orbiting the moon aren't able to get for them.

For Artemis 2, our goal is to really advance our understanding of what's going to happen to the human in the deep space environment.

We have been working for many years to advance this organ chip technology.

And so with that, we're able to really understand what the deep space radiation impact has so we can compare directly that personalized level of what's happening to them.

So this is game changing.

The research we'll conduct in Artemis 2 will lay the groundwork for us being able to spend more time at the moon and start thinking about our astronauts, humankind, being able to survive longer trips to places, for instance, like Mars.

We got to look inside the simulator and building nine yesterday and some of us were thinking, "Okay, this isn't Jiminy 7 where spent 14 days in a vehicle the size of a Volkswagen, but it's four people inside a vehicle the size of maybe a minivan for nine days.

Can you just talk about the human element of living in close proximity with all this riding on the mission, but just the physical closeness inside that cabin and how you guys are going to manage that?

As you guys know, we've been training together for over two and a half years now and with that comes a closeness that I think is built in for a reason.

The importance of bonding as a crew is so that we can communicate with each other.

There are going to be tough days, there are going to be tough moments, and there's going to be great moments.

That to me is where that bonding is so important.

Crew camaraderie is really important.

I would say it's especially important for this type of mission.

The Orion capsule, I liken it to, you're going camping in a tent, but you don't get to get out of your tent.

Your bathroom is there, your kitchen is there, your gym is there.

Coexisting in that space, much less pulling off a successful mission, requires a really cohesive team.

We are bringing together the world.

We are bringing together an amazing workforce and they are bringing together an amazing vehicle.

So we're going to fly around the moon in the spacecraft Integrity.

After a lot of conversations, we named our vehicle Integrity.

It's a value that's shared by NASA, by the Canadian Space Agency, by the astronaut office, that of course means to be your best self in the most general terms.

The root of the word Integrity is about being a whole.

And if you think about it, this spacecraft has over 350 different pieces that had to be integrated and make up this one system.

In nautical terms, we talk about whole integrity or a ship being watertight.

When it goes out in the ocean, and so in space, I think of that as our ship's ability to hold in pressure and also to keep the hot gases out.

It comes from this root of integrated.

And that's really how we see our mission.

It's gonna be an incredibly integrated team.

And we hope that that shares the idea that it's not just our vehicle, it's everyone's vehicle Honestly, I just hope Artemis 2 is just a part of the celebration of this nation over the next 365 days.

I know these milestones are big for the public.

They're going to be huge for the nation.

I'll just be proud to be a part of the 250th anniversary of America.

NASA is incredibly excited to support the Freedom 250 celebrations, part of America's 250th birthday.

But I can't think of anything grander than America's return to the lunar environment.

This mission means everything to me.

I'm so encouraged by it because I see it opening the door for why I'm at NASA and I think everyone else is as well.

What I want to say to the men and women that built this Artemis 2 vehicle, simple.

Thank you.

We've been around the world.

We've been across our nation.

We have seen the attention to detail.

We have seen the workmanship, the craftsmanship, and it is a beautiful thing to behold.

From Europe, ESA and Airbus building the service module to the team in the Netherlands that integrated the solar arrays to the folks at Michoud and Kennedy and Armstrong that have worked together to build this system.

Integrated, again, integrity.

That have worked to give us integrity.

We want to do our part because we know you've stepped up and done your part and continue to do your part.

What I would want to say to anyone that has contributed to the Artemis missions in any way is just so much admiration and respect for you.

You nailed it.

You crushed it.

We are doing this together because of your hard work, because you thought outside of the box, because you didn't give up.

So I will just say congratulations on Artemis 2.

Reed, Christina, Jeremy, Victor.

First, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you to you and your commitment, your sacrifices, all of the training, all of the planning, all of the time that you have spent preparing.

Thank you to your families for allowing you to participate and to be the inspiration of an entirely new generation.

We are with you.

You represent us.

When you get to the other side of the moon, and you look back, I don't want you to feel alone.

I want you to know that there are thousands of us that are crowded inside that Orion spacecraft right with you.

I want to express immense appreciation for the workforce.

I also want to express my appreciation to the NASA pioneers that have given us the knowledge and the tools and the foundation to be able to embark on a mission like Artemis 2 for a return to the moon and beyond.

So the four of us sitting here, the measure of success for Artemis 2 is seeing our colleagues on the lunar surface and then seeing people that are following in our footsteps walking on Mars and coming back to planet Earth.

We are here to push forward with human exploration, open doors that have never been seen before, being able to take dreams and visions and turn them into reality.

We are going to carry your excitement, your aspirations, your dreams with us on this mission.

Artemis 2, your mission.

[♪] (air whooshing)