Artemis Astronaut Reid Wiseman's Wife Lives Among the Stars — Here's What Happened to Her

There are a few people who are considered as universally heroic as astronauts. Not only are they intrepid explorers who go where most humans will only ever imagine, but they're the carriers of our hopes and dreams as a species.

Being an astronaut means seeing the extraordinary, overcoming the unimaginable, and being courageous enough to venture into the unknown.

But they are also real people. Real people who live real lives, pay bills, walk their dogs, hang out with friends, and cook dinners like everyone else. And that means that they also occasionally experience extraordinary loss.

For Artemis II astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman, that loss was his wife, Carroll Wiseman. Here's what we know about what happened to her and how the Artemis crew honored her in 2026.

Given everything the world knows about him, Reid Wiseman seems like a practical, intelligent, courageous scientist whose life took him on an unimaginable path to the stars.

But he's also a family man who raised children with his late wife, Carroll.

And throughout his journey to the stars, Reid has kept Carroll in his heart. So much so that when Artemis II approached the moon in April 2026 and surveyed her features, Carroll was foremost in the mind of not only Reid but also his Artemis family as they considered names for some of the features they had observed.

On approach to Luna, the crew radioed back that they had decided on names for two specific craters on the moon: Integrity and Carroll.

But what happened to the late Mrs. Wiseman? Carroll died of cancer in 2020, after a five-year battle with the disease. According to Men's Journal, she was just 46 years old. Her obituary lists her as a Nurse Practitioner who worked in the neonatal ICU.

In his NASA "get to know" video, Reid called the loss of his wife his greatest challenge.

Perhaps not least of which because he and his wife share two daughters, who are both grown now. Before leaving on the Artemis mission, Reid shared a photo of himself with his daughters, Ellie and Katherine, and captioned it, "I love these two ladies, and I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.”

And while his daughters live significantly more private lives than their father, we do know that at least one of them wants to make sure her dad's sweet tooth gets cared for in space.

Per Men's Journal, he shared, "When you are packing for the Moon and discover your daughter snuck some cookies she made into your luggage. My heart can’t take it! "

When his kids were younger, Reid prepared them for the risk of their father being an astronaut and what that might mean. During a NASA news conference, he explained, "I went on a walk with my kids, and I told them, ‘Here’s where the will is, here’s where the trust documents are, and if anything happens to me, here’s what’s going to happen to you. That’s just a part of this life.”

Based on the photo he shared prior to take off on Artemis, those walks are still a part of their ritual.