Five Things You Didn't Know About NASA Astronaut Christina Koch Pre-Artemis II

Five Things You Didn't Know About NASA Astronaut Christina Koch Pre-Artemis II

Engineering and physics degrees? Check. 

Previous work for NASA? Another check. Experience working at the South Pole and America Samoa? Of course. However, the “usual credentials” do not fully reflect the background of astronaut Christina Koch. Check out her favorite extreme adventures, her dabbling with lightning, and a foreign trip that changed her perspectives on life before her historic journey to the Moon on the Artemis II Mission this year.

NASA astronaut candidate Christina Koch (maiden name Hammock) in 2013: "I really strongly believe in both the practical aspects of the research being conducted as well as the larger picture of the human spaceflight program bringing us forward as a human race and uniting us in exploring the universe." 

In 2012, Christina joined the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), first as a field engineer at the Global Monitoring Division Baseline Observatory in Barrow, Alaska (now Utqiaġvik), and then as station chief of the American Samoa Observatory. 

Christina Hammock Koch [pronounced “Cook”] was later selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in 2013. Prior to her historic Artemis II Moon Mission, she served as flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) for Expeditions 59, 60 and 61. Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalk.

Christina Koch Biographies:
https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/christina-h-koch
https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/christina-hammock-koch/biography

Artemis II mission specialist and NASA astronaut Christina Koch joined NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a nearly 10-day lunar flyby mission, surpassing the Apollo 13 record for farthest crewed spaceflight and observing the lunar surface like never before, capturing iconic views.

Learn more about NASA's Artemis II Mission:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

How to Become a NASA Astronaut:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/become-an-astronaut/

Video Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center
Duration: 2 minutes, 18 seconds
Release Date: March 13, 2019

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