Going to the moon ‘for all’: NASA astronaut Christina Koch comes home to NC State

In her dorm room at NC State University, Christina Koch hung a print of “Earthrise,” the iconic photo of Earth taken from the moon during NASA’s Apollo 8 mission.

More than 20 years later, Koch returned to her alma mater Monday — now a NASA astronaut herself, and poised to become the first woman to fly to the moon next year.

Koch joined NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson for his annual fall address, part of the university’s Red and White Week, celebrated in the week leading up to the homecoming football game. Woodson, addressing the crowd in Talley Student Union’s Stewart Theater, shared highlights and accomplishments of the university over the past year, including receiving a record-breaking number of admissions applications for students entering the university this fall and rising considerably in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings, released last month.

But even Woodson — who said his fall address typically lasts 30 to 40 minutes — knew the event’s true draw.

“This year, for something entirely different, I’ll do it in 10 minutes,” Woodson said. “Because ... like me, you can’t wait to hear from our special guest.”

Woodson introduced Koch to the crowd as the theater transformed into a makeshift version of a scene Koch knows very well, having spent 328 days in space, aboard the International Space Station, from 2019 to 2020.

In front of a glowing moon backdrop with twinkling lights that resembled stars, Koch described her time growing up in North Carolina and attending NC State, her path to becoming an astronaut and what her role will be in next year’s Artemis II mission to the moon.

Attending NC State

Koch said she chose to attend NC State because of its engineering and physics programs, which combined her love of “the theoretical” and “pondering the universe” with the hands-on experience of figuring out how pieces and parts of larger machines, such as the lawnmowers she and her father worked on growing up, functioned.

NC State was also close to home for Koch, having grown up in Jacksonville, in Onslow County, and later attending the North Carolina School of Science and Math, a residential, public high school that is part of the UNC System.

“I could, you know, be at a public university, which is meant to support the people that are local, that are North Carolinians and that have so much pride in this state,” she said.

Koch described her time as a student at NC State — which resulted in her receiving two bachelor’s degrees in 2001 and a master’s degree in 2002 — as transformational, citing both academic and extracurricular experiences, such as the guidance she received from counselors and professors and the hobbies, like rock-climbing, that she picked up along the way.

“I wouldn’t have stayed for that long if everything that I found here wasn’t so helpful for allowing me to keep doors open and pursue the things that I saw as leading to a fulfilled life,” she said.

Koch’s studies at NC State will certainly be valuable aboard the Orion capsule, the spacecraft vehicle that will carry her and three other astronauts to the moon next year: she is the only professional engineer on the crew.

“As the only professional engineer in the crew, I know who Mission Control will be calling on when it’s time to fix something on-board,” NASA director of flight operations directorate Norm Knight said of Koch at the Artemis II crew announcement in April.

Becoming the first woman to go to the moon

Koch will be one of two mission specialists on the Artemis II mission, a role for astronauts in which they are “basically contributing to the all of the goals of the mission in any way that’s called for,” Koch said.

It’s a role she’s seen herself fulfilling on NASA missions since she first dreamed of becoming an astronaut, she said, especially knowing she would be doing so as a “civilian” astronaut, or those without military experience.

Aboard Orion on a mission that is expected to last about 10 days, Koch will assist with testing the spacecraft’s “life support systems” that NASA says will be necessary to “generate breathable air and remove the carbon dioxide and water vapor produced when the astronauts breathe, talk, or exercise.” The crew will also test whether Orion can be turned into a “radiation shelter for long duration spaceflight” and missions into deep space, Koch said.

Those objectives of the mission, Koch said, will contribute to the larger goal of the Artemis program: NASA going to the moon “to stay.”

“We’re going back responsibly and sustainably and we’re going to take the lessons we learn there and carry them forward to human mission to Mars,” Koch said.

The crew will fly to the moon and around it, but will not land on the lunar surface. Their discoveries will set the stage for a future mission, Artemis III, to land on the moon for the first time in decades.

Though just four people will be aboard Orion during the Artemis II mission, Koch said their discoveries and exploration represent the goals of many more.

“We see our mission as humans to bring every one of y’all’s aspirations and dreams about exploring with us,” Koch said, “and to bring back the perspectives that we hope to gain, looking back at Earth, as it will be one small planet in the space of our window.”

Breaking records and being a role model

Between her time aboard the International Space Station that made her the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, and completing the first all-female spacewalk, in her almost 10 years as an astronaut, Koch has become a role model, inspiring the next generation of astronauts and engineers and scholars to follow in her footsteps — and blaze their own trails.

Kierra Shook, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student at NC State, told The News & Observer prior to Monday’s event that she has looked up to Koch since high school, when she watched as Koch and fellow astronaut Jessica Meir completed the first all-female spacewalk. Shook completed an internship with NASA at Johnson Space Center in Houston, she said, and got to meet and speak with Koch personally — but she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see the astronaut again, this time at their shared alma mater.

“I couldn’t be more thankful to look up to someone such as herself,” Shook said.

Koch said the barriers she’s broken throughout her career, including her spacewalk with Meir, her 328 days aboard the International Space Station and her upcoming mission to the moon, represent more than her own, individual accomplishments.

“These records and milestones aren’t about any one person, they’re actually about the fact that we collectively realize that when we do this, we have to go for all and by all,” Koch said. “That means representing every single person that is willing to work hard to achieve exploration of any kind, but especially human spaceflight. So, to be the person that got to actually fulfill those missions out there was just a dream come true.”

Koch said she looks forward to her records being broken and her milestones becoming “normal.” Next week could bring an opportunity for just that, as the first all-female spacewalk since Koch and Meir’s is set to take place — and NASA says it won’t be the last.

For herself, though, none of it may have ever been possible without those in her life — including professors and counselors at NC State — “that really believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself,” she said.

“I think one of the most amazing things when I look back is, when I was telling people this dream I had to be an astronaut, ever since I was very, very young, no one, that I can recall, ever discouraged me,” Koch said.

“I don’t know that that was sound advice, but they encouraged me every single step along the way, and I honestly think it never occurred to me that I shouldn’t go for this dream.”