The USS San Diego is a military vessel created for transporting soldiers and supplies to battle areas. The crew regularly practices for this task at their homeport in San Diego, California, situated on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

However, upon further examination of the patches and colors adorning the uniforms of those on board, one can gather that their current objectives are vastly different from those of a typical war scenario.

Lieutenant Jackson Cotney, a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy assigned to the USS San Diego, states that while it is a special chance, it is still in line with our regular duties as we carry out search and rescue training operations to assist NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon.

In the Pacific Ocean exercises, Cotney and many sailors collaborated with NASA’s Artemis II crew of four to get ready for a crucial step in the operation – safely retrieving the Orion capsule and crew after it reenters Earth’s atmosphere.

Captain David Walton, the commanding officer of the USS San Diego, states that the 11th underway recovery test is the first to involve astronauts in training. The crew’s safety and well-being is of utmost importance and the goal is to quickly remove them from the capsule and provide medical treatment. The equipment will also be recovered for future missions to the moon or beyond.

Cotney is already an Artemis veteran. He piloted one of the helicopters monitoring the uncrewed Orion capsule that touched down in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the 25-day Artemis 1 mission in 2022, which orbited the moon and traveled the farthest into space of any craft designed to carry humans.

During a recent interview on board the San Diego, he shared that we were the initial platform to witness the capsule, still intact, as it appeared over the horizon at 10,000 feet. He expressed his excitement at seeing the capsule descend from the sky. While this mission is new to him, it is a familiar one in naval aviation, as they have been rescuing astronauts and retrieving them from the ocean since the early Apollo era.

NASA has postponed the planned launch of a manned trip to orbit the moon for at least five years, but they have already chosen four astronauts for the historic mission, which will be the first of its kind in over half a century.

“This Artemis mission campaign is not just about going back to the moon and going back responsibly and sustainably, it’s about building on what we learned there and exploring even deeper and answering some of those fundamental questions that we all have about ourselves,” says Christina Koch, who could make history as the first woman to orbit the moon. “What does it mean to be human, are we alone in the universe, how did we all get here?”

During a press conference on the San Diego, Koch stated that the training they received is not only aimed towards following the footsteps of astronauts from fifty years ago. Rather, it is equipping them to compete in the current “space race,” a time where the United States is not the only nation aspiring to go beyond Earth’s orbit.

“The question really isn’t why we go; it’s are we going to lead or are we going to follow. To see this team work together and innovate to come up with a unique solution for getting four people out of the Pacific Ocean, the answer was very clear to me that we are going to be leading,” he says.

Lieutenant Derek Pelletier, on board the San Diego, acknowledges that there has been a resurgence in the excitement surrounding space exploration. For him and the rest of the crew, born after the moon landing, their involvement in this training is a crucial part of NASA’s ambitious Artemis program, which aims to go beyond the moon.

“The upcoming progression towards Mars and beyond is incredibly significant to us. We are excited to have played a role in bringing humanity back to the moon and further into the depths of space. As a crew, we feel a great sense of importance in this endeavor.”

Koch, Wiseman, Glover, and Hansen, all of whom are astronauts from NASA and Canada, may have the opportunity to orbit the moon as early as September 2025. The return of astronauts to the moon will occur during the Artemis III mission, planned by NASA to launch in 2026.

Source: voanews.com