Christina Hammock Koch is a Grand Rapids native, an astronaut, flight engineer for the ISS for three expeditions, and now, a Mission Specialist for the 2024 Artemis II.

Think: in Greek mythology, Artemis is the sister of Apollo. Apollo was the first moon mission. Artemis is just the smarter, more equipped, fiercer sibling. And I have full confidence that what we’ll see through Koch and her Artemis team is just that.

Koch is an integral part of the Artemis II (of four) mission set to launch NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, improve the Orion spacecraft’s capabilities for deep space exploration, and help build on to the existing techniques needed to support human life while in orbit.

She will fly around the moon and back again—further than humans have ever been in space.

And all the while, she and her team of three other astronauts will be working on the possibilities of establishing a long-term presence at the moon.

The director of NASA Johnson called on her to “represent the best of humanity.”

Do you know how much pressure that is?

To be the first woman to fly in the vicinity of the moon?

It’s not as though she isn’t prepared for the burden of being “first.” As an electrical engineer and physics major in the ‘90s at North Carolina State University, she found herself as one of the few women in the program—then one of the firsts to teach those same classes a few years later.

Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman—a total of 328 days in space—and participated in the first all-female spacewalks. She’s done year-long research in the South Pole and Palmer Station as a firefighter and search and rescue member, developed space science instruments at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and helped build the Juno and Allen Probes that collected views of Jupiter, its satellites, and its electromagnetic fields—all while being one of the only women in technical meetings. She’s done field work in Antarctica, Greenland, and Alaska, worked with the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and was a top student in the NASA Academy program at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Serving as a Flight Engineer on the International Space Station for Expeditions 59, 60 and 61, she and her crewmates contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, Earth science, human research, physical science, and technology development—including improvements to the device that has revolutionized studying dark matter. Koch conducted six spacewalks, including the first three all-women spacewalks, totaling forty-two hours and fifteen minutes.

Of the total workforce at NASA, only 35.52 percent are women—and as late as 1962, one of the directors of NASA had declared “no present plans to include women in space flights.”

As of March 2023, seventy-two women have flown in space.

But no woman has gone on a moon mission before.

So Christina Koch is going to be part of the realization of sending a woman to the moon—and the long-term goals she’s helping achieve are even more ambitious. The technology and research developed by Koch and her team during the Artemis flights, NASA intends to launch a future crewed mission to Mars. This “Moon to Mars” plan involves building a new space station in lunar orbit and, eventually, a habitable Moon base.

Then from there? Mars.

Mars—the 142.33 million mile away planet that was considered unreachable and unknowable until about 1965 when the first probe sent the first photos back to earth—could have human footprints on its surface in our lifetimes in no small part because of Koch and the Artemis crews.

Koch says if you asked her kindergarten teacher all the way up to her undergrad professors, they would say Christina Koch wants to be an astronaut.

Do you know how much pressure that is?

To be a woman pursuing her dream?

I do.

Grand Rapids made Christina Koch the person she is today–the person Artemis II needs. She worked on a farm in Grand Rapids throughout her childhood, went to the same schools as us, probably shopped at Meijer down the street. She’ll also work 238,900 miles above Grand Rapids, will learn things we didn’t even know we didn’t know about space, and will eat pre-packaged dehydrated food in zero-gravity.

Grand Rapids—we’re home to the first woman to launch on a moon mission.

And I for one will be cheering Koch on as she keeps breaking records, stereotypes, and expectations all the way to the moon and back.

Gabrielle Eisma

Gabrielle Eisma graduated Calvin with a BFA in studio art and writing in 2022. She’s from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she now works as a writer and illustrator for books for (mostly) children and middle grade readers.