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Opinion | Let’s recognize historic moon flight by Grand Rapids native Christina Koch
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We find ourselves at a historic moment in 2026, one made even more significant by its ties to west Michigan. This week Artemis II is scheduled to take a crew of humans to fly by the Moon, the first mission with people traveling to our natural satellite since 1972. Even though one of that mission’s astronauts is from our region, there has been little media attention highlighting that fact.
While the state with the most spacefarers is Ohio, west Michigan (particularly the Grand Rapids area) is rightly proud of its own small group of astronauts. The most famous locally is Roger B. Chaffee, who was born and raised in Grand Rapids, attended the school building now shared by Innovation Central High and Grand Rapids Montessori.
Chaffee died in the tragic Apollo 1 fire in 1967, but he is remembered. The Grand Rapids Public Museum features the Chaffee Planetarium, the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum showcases his statue, the Chaffee Scholarship Fund distributes awards, and Grand Valley State University and the GRPM have put on the yearly “Roger That!” event, named for Chaffee, since 2017.
As a GVSU professor and one of the co-organizers of Roger That!, I am proud to celebrate Chaffee’s influence here. Our event has brought eight astronauts to Grand Rapids to tell stories of adventure and explain how studying STEM (and STEAM) helped launch their careers. The Design That! design challenge encourages problem-solving in local students and hundreds of kids now look forward to Roger That! activities at the GRPM, an annual bright spot in the middle of each cold February.
Roger B. Chaffee, the region’s first astronaut, is widely known. Other astronauts have Grand Rapids or west Michigan ties, including Grand Rapid’s own Jack Lousma and Muskegonite David Leestma. Apollo 15’s Al Worden, originally from Jackson, called Grand Rapids home in later life. A new astronaut has entered the conversation, however, and deserves as much attention as the explorers already mentioned.
Christina Koch (Koch rhymes with oak), was born Christina Hammock in Grand Rapids in 1979. Her maternal ancestors first arrived as 19th century German immigrants who settled in Grand Rapids. Although Koch and her parents moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina when she was very young, she continued to visit her grandparents in Comstock Park. She spent summers helping out at their family farm’s fruit stand, Under the Pines, which was on Alpine Avenue for many years. In a 2013 article in the Grand Rapids Press, back when she was still Christina Hammock (and a newly selected astronaut), she is quoted as saying, “I am proud that my family is from the Grand Rapids area, and I love having it as my second home.”
Roger B. Chaffee sought the Moon, but a terrible accident ended his quest. More than 50 years later, fellow Grand Rapidian Christina Koch will become the first woman to travel to the Moon. Koch and the other members of the Artemis II crew will not walk on the Moon (that adventure is now planned for upcoming mission Artemis IV), but they will execute a lunar fly-by, using a technique called a “free-return trajectory,” allowing their Orion spacecraft to circle the Moon then use lunar gravity to propel the crewed capsule back to Earth. Koch’s crewmate Victor Glover will be the first Black person to travel to the Moon and Jeremy Hansen will be the first Canadian. Reid Wiseman commands the mission.
Even without a Moon mission, Christina Koch’s career at NASA is impressive. Along with Jessica Meir she participated in the first all-woman spacewalk, and in 2019 she broke the woman’s record for continuous time in outer space, hitting 328 days. On the Artemis II mission she is serving as a Mission Specialist and will manage the Orion spacecraft systems and flight operations. She is considered one of the most important astronauts of her generation.
While our local astronauts of the 1960s-1990s are revered and respected, let’s also recognize Christina Koch. Follow her mission, share her awe at seeing the Moon so close up and the Earth so far away, and celebrate the amazing fact that the very first woman to fly somewhere beyond the orbit of our home planet was born right here.
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