{"text":[[{"start":9.35,"text":"Commander Reid Wiseman’s personal zenith on the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon in more than half a century came when his colleagues asked to name a lunar crater after his late wife, Carroll."}],[{"start":22.18,"text":"Fellow astronaut Jeremy Hansen made the request to Nasa mission control in Houston, describing how the “close-knit astronaut family” on the Artemis II voyage had “lost a loved one” in Carroll, a paediatric nurse who died of cancer in 2020. "}],[{"start":39.86,"text":"“I think when Jeremy spelled Carroll’s name . . . for me, that is when I was overwhelmed with emotion and I looked over and Christina [Koch] was crying,” Wiseman reflected this week as all four crew members hurtled homeward, ahead of splashing down as scheduled off the coast of San Diego on Friday evening. “That was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me.”"}],[{"start":65.25,"text":"It captured the spirit of humanity raised by the hazardous extraterrestrial expedition Wiseman has headed. The 10-day journey has provided Earth-bound followers with both a distraction from and a counterpoint to world events, as war raged in the Middle East."}],[{"start":83.53999999999999,"text":"The crew became the first humans to get a panoramic view of the far side of the Moon, which is never visible from Earth. They travelled further from the planet than any previous astronauts, just breaking the record of about 400,000km set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970."}],[{"start":104.77999999999999,"text":"Wiseman’s life almost exactly bridges the era between the last lunar landing in late 1972 and the intensifying efforts led by the US and China to put people back on the Moon by 2030. Born in 1975 in Baltimore, Maryland, he graduated in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in 1997."}],[{"start":130.11999999999998,"text":"He trained and served as a US Navy pilot and deployed twice in the Middle East including during the Iraq war. A year after completing a certificate in space systems in 2008, he was selected by Nasa as an astronaut. "}],[{"start":146.54999999999998,"text":"Wiseman’s first space experience was as flight engineer on a 165-day International Space Station mission in 2014. He counts his fellow space station crew members, Russia’s Maxim Suraev and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, as two of his best friends."}],[{"start":166.29999999999998,"text":"Wiseman had shown “a lot of humour but at the same time really good decision-making and operational strengths”, Gerst told the FT. “You put your life in the hands of others in these missions.”"}],[{"start":178.45,"text":"Gerst was wearing a necklace made from a piece of meteorite cut in the shape of an astronaut. It was one of three he’d had made for himself and his International Space Station crewmates — he had been sporting it in Wiseman’s honour since the Artemis launch."}],[{"start":194.28,"text":"“I am not a necklace kind of guy usually,” he said. “[But] I am wearing it until he’s back home safe.”"}],[{"start":201.88,"text":"The idea of cosmic comradeship that transcends earthly political divisions highlights how space exploration needs heart as well as hardware to truly captivate."}],[{"start":213.87,"text":"The warmth between Wiseman and his fellow astronauts in the cold of space became a signature of the bulletins beamed back to Earth from their Orion spacecraft, which the crew named Integrity. They had come to know each other well as members of Nasa’s astronaut corps for more than 10 years, bonding tighter still during three years of intensive training for this mission."}],[{"start":240.85,"text":"Wiseman’s close relationships and personal story are deeply woven into his official Nasa biography. “Despite a long list of professional accolades, Reid considers his time as an only parent as his greatest challenge and the most rewarding phase of his life,” it reads."}],[{"start":259.29,"text":"Before boarding Orion at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, Wiseman posted a selfie on X with his daughters Katie and Ellie in front of the giant Space Launch System rocket. “I love these two ladies, and I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father,” he wrote."}],[{"start":277.73,"text":"Once Orion emerged from behind the far side of the Moon, Wiseman and his crew took a call from US President Donald Trump. Wiseman told him: “We saw sights . . . that no human has ever seen before, not even in Apollo.”"}],[{"start":294.16,"text":"Wiseman enthused about witnessing a solar eclipse, with the Moon blotting out the Sun’s glowing face. “There’s no adjective. I’m going to need to invent some new ones to describe what we’re looking at out this window,” he said."}],[{"start":310.46000000000004,"text":"He told Trump that the experience convinced him that humanity would become a “two-planet species”, inhabiting Earth and Mars — an echo of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Martian ambitions. The president promised that Nasa would make good on them, although many see Mars as unrealistic given its distance from Earth and hostile environment."}],[{"start":334.6,"text":"On Thursday evening, Wiseman hailed the “limitless potential” of a “golden age of space travel”. Immediately after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean went as planned on Friday, he exclaimed simply: “What a journey.”"}],[{"start":350.35,"text":"The lunar crater now unofficially named Carroll lies close to the boundary between the near and far sides of the celestial body, meaning it is visible from Earth at times. As crew member Hansen has put it, this faraway memorial that so moved mission leader Wiseman will forever be a “bright spot on the Moon”."}],[{"start":381.72,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1775892027_3676.mp3"}