Four astronauts will be heading back to the moon on Wednesday after a 54-year hiatus. NASA has planned a couple of practice missions before adding fresh boot prints in the grey lunar dust and a countdown is presently underway at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The four-member Artemis II mission will travel several thousand miles beyond the moon before taking a sharp U-turn back to Earth over the next 10 days. The team includes a woman, a person of color and a Canadian — with Navy veteran Reid Wiseman as mission commander.

According to his NASA profile, Wiseman is a 27-year Navy veteran, a pilot, a father and an engineer hailing from Baltimore. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2009 and served as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station for Expedition 41 in 2014.

Wiseman holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He attended the US Naval Postgraduate School in California and later completed astronaut training in May 2011. He was serving as NASA’s chief astronaut when asked three years ago to lead humanity’s first lunar trip since 1972.

The 50-year-old is also a widower who considers solo parenting — not rocketing to the moon — his biggest and most rewarding challenge. His late Carroll (who passed away while battling cancer in 2020) had dedicated her life to helping others as a newborn intensive care unit registered nurse.

According to an AP report, Wiseman had been hesitant about the expedition and his teenage daughters had “zero interest” in seeing their father return to space.

“We talked about it and I said, ‘Look, of all the people on planet Earth right now, there are four people that are in a position to go fly around the moon. I cannot say no to that opportunity,” AP quoted him as saying.

The next day, homemade moon cupcakes awaited him, along with his daughters’ support. The toughest part isn’t leaving them — “it’s the stress that I’m putting on them,” he said.

Open with his daughters about everything, he recently told them where he keeps his will.