Artemis II astronauts receive nation’s highest space honor for their successful moonshot

President Donald Trump awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four Artemis II astronauts on Friday during a ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen received the honor for their April lunar flyby mission, which set a new human distance record of 252,756 miles from Earth. Trump also signed an executive order establishing a presidential commission to design a U.S. Space Academy, a proposed federal institution modeled on West Point to train personnel for the Space Force, NASA, and the commercial space industry. “Space is the hot thing,” Trump told the crowd. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised the crew’s “extraordinary skill and courage.” The four are the first medal recipients since 2023 and join 30 prior astronauts honored since the award’s 1969 authorization. Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, 91, attended the ceremony.