When the Artemis II launches, Wiseman will leave two teenage daughters on earth. While he says he has some hobbies—golf, racing go-carts—his main passion outside of space is being a dad. Wiseman’s wife, Carol, died of cancer in 2020, and he acknowledges that him going to space is “a selfish ask” of his kids.
“There’s a very real reason that we still live in Houston,” he says. “When my wife started getting sick, I wanted to move towards family. But she said, ‘No, this is where you work and you love your job. And we should not give that up for this.’ Also, I want my kids to know that you can still achieve and go on and pick yourself up. I think when I said, “This is something that I want to go do, it’s important to me, and I think I can do a good job at this,’ they were aligned very quickly.”
Still, he says one of the hardest things about being away from his hometown is the distance from his support network, including his brother and dad (who still lives in that idyllic Cockeysville home), his friends, and his wife’s extended family.
He gets back frequently for Ravens games, high school reunions, and occasionally speaks to students at Dulaney. Mostly, he hangs out with his dad and enjoys being in nature, walking the same woods and paths he did as a kid, which he will soon be viewing from thousands of miles of away.
It’s not a trip he takes lightly.
“I’m most scared about what I call ‘the arrogance of humanity,’ to think that we could throw some hydrogen and oxygen in a giant tank, light it on fire, and send us to the moon,” he explains. “We’re trying to contain a tremendous amount of energy right there. And when we come back and hit first atmosphere on the way home, we hit the atmosphere at about Mach 39—39 times the speed of sound. And dissipating all of that energy to come back under parachutes alone in the water. There’s not tons of room for error there.”