The son of a Pomona police officer, Glover will pilot NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon this week.
NASA astronaut Capt. Victor Glover, who will pilot the upcoming Artemis II space shuttle mission, speaks to students at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. . “It’s part of being a human.
We want to know what’s out there, just beyond the horizon.”, which is scheduled to launch on Wednesday, April 1. The four-person crew will be the first to return to the moon in almost 54 years, after the departure of Apollo 17 in December 1972.“When I was a kid, you know, I saw the space shuttle go up, and I wanted to fly the space shuttle,” he said in aafter he was named an astronaut candidate. “But I also wanted to be a stuntman, a policeman like my father, president.” By the time he attended Ontario High School, Glover was already aiming high, according to Pamela Larde. She was friends with Glover at Ontario High and later at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. They remain friends today.NASA astronaut Capt. Victor Glover, set to pilot the upcoming Artemis II space shuttle mission, answers questions from students after speaking at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. “We were so unconcerned about what people thought, if we talked a little nerdy, or had our very silly dreams,” Larde said. “We were very unbothered by that.” And the idea that becoming astronaut — or president — was too hard, wasn’t the way Glover and his friends thought. “I don’t think it ever crossed our minds that it was too big to be done,” Larde said. “I never heard him flinch or hesitate.” Gregg Givens talks about coaching astronaut Victor Glover in the mid-1990s, in his class at Ontario High in Ontario on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Gregg Givens both taught and coached Glover in the early 1990s. Although Glover also played varsity football, Givens remembers him best as an “outstanding” wrestler who finished sixth in the state in 1994 in his weight class. But more than that, Givens remembers him as a young man who knew where he was going. “He followed his own drummer,” Givens said. “He didn’t follow the crowd. He did what he wanted to do, hung out with who he wanted to hang out with.” Similarly, English teacher Judy Jackson remembers Glover as “a bright, outgoing student with a friendly smile.” Oscar Balderrama was a year older than Glover. The two were workout partners on Ontario High’s wrestling team. “He was a really hard worker, good attitude, didn’t complain, friendly,” Balderrama said. “People listened to him; he was a born leader.” And while he found Glover impressive at the time, he couldn’t have predicted how far his former teammate would go. “You never know who’s going to do what, going forward,” Balderrama said. “It really does blow your mind to see.”The Artemis II crew will only orbit the moon — landing on the surface is planned for later. But their mission will help NASA gain data they need to plan for future moon landings — and beyond. NASA’S Artemis II SLS moon rocket with the Orion spacecraft slowly rolls back towards the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Artemis 2 crew members, from left, Mission Spc. Jeremy Hansen, of Canada, Mission Spc. Christina Koch, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose for a photo after the crew’s arrival at the Kennedy Space Center Friday, March 27, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Pomona native Victor Glover shared this image from when he looked back at Earth for the first time after the Resilience SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon safely reached orbit in November. “It wasn’t about the view,” he said during a media briefing Monday, April 26, “but how the view made me feel. Every time I look out the window in the cupola , I feel the same way. Earth is amazing. It’s beautiful. It protest us, so we should work hard to protect it.” In this NASA handout, NASA astronaut Victor Glover is seen during a NASA event where it was announced that he, and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins are assigned to the first mission to the International Space Station onboard SpaceXs Crew Dragon, Friday, Aug. 3, 2018 at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Astronauts assigned to crew the first flight tests and missions of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon were announced during the event. NASA astronaut Victor Glover is helped out of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft onboard the SpaceX GO Navigator recovery ship after he, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, Sunday, May 2, 2021. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission was the first crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA astronaut Capt. Victor Glover, set to pilot the upcoming Artemis II space shuttle mission, answers questions from students after speaking at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. The March 29, 2023 official crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. NASA astronaut Victor Glover poses for a portrait to promote the National Geographic documentary film “The Space Race” during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024, at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. In this image provided by NASA shows NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Saturday, March 13, 2021. The astronauts are rearranging space station plumbing and tackling other odd jobs. The work should have been completed a week ago, but power upgrades took longer than expected. NASA astronaut Capt. Victor Glover, who will pilot the upcoming Artemis II space shuttle mission, speaks to students at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Hammock Koch stand onstage after being selected for the Artemis II mission who will venture around the Moon during a news conference held by NASA and CSA at Ellington airport in Houston, Texas, on April 3, 2023. – Traveling aboard NASAs Orion spacecraft during Artemis II, the mission is the first crewed flight test on the agencys path to establishing a long-term scientific and human presence on the lunar surface. NASA astronaut Capt. Victor Glover, who will pilot the upcoming Artemis II space shuttle mission, speaks to students at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. Left to Right, Artemis II Astronauts: Pilot Victor Glover; and Mission Specialist Christina Hammock Koch in front of the Artemis II Crew Module during Orion Media Day at Kennedy Space Center, on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. Victor Glover gives remarks after he was announced at the mission pilot for the Artemis II during a NASA ceremony naming the four astronauts who will fly around the moon by the end of next year on the Artemis II mission, at a ceremony held in the NASA hangar at Ellington airport Monday, April 3, 2023, in Houston. Left to Right, Artemis II Astronauts: Pilot Victor Glover; Commander Reid Wiseman; and Mission Specialists Christina Hammock Koch; and Jeremy Hansen; in front of the Artemis II Crew Module during Orion Media Day at Kennedy Space Center, on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. A yearbook photo of Victor Glover, soon to be pilot of Artemis II, is seen at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Monday, March 16, 2026. Glover appears in the far left of the middle row. An action photo of Victor Glover wrestling is seen in a mid-1990s yearbook at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Monday, March 16, 2026. Glover appears at left. A yearbook football team photo of Victor Glover, soon-to-be pilot of Artemis II, is seen at his alma mater, Ontario High School, on Monday, March 16, 2026. Glover appears in the second row wearing a No. 82 jersey. Gregg Givens, talks about coaching astronaut Victor Glover in the mid-1990s, in his English class at Ontario High in Ontario on Thursday, March 26, 2026. NASA’S Artemis II SLS moon rocket with the Orion spacecraft slowly rolls back towards the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. “The most exciting aspect of this mission for me is the exploration we’re doing is the first few steps on the path to getting humans to Mars,” Glover said in 2023. “And I don’t think that can be overstated.“These are folks who have a ton of experience in space but also on the ground and I know them all very well and I’m looking forward to this journey with them,” Glover said in 2023. A father of four, Glover is well aware of the danger of what he’s doing. Seventeen NASA astronauts have died during training or while on missions. NASA astronaut Victor Glover is helped out of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft onboard the SpaceX GO Navigator recovery ship after he, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, Sunday, May 2, 2021. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission was the first crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. “His mission in going there is coming back home,” Larde said, quoting Glover. “There is a concern and an acknowledgement that it’s very, very dangerous, but he doesn’t focus on that.”“There are two things I distinctly remember were more dangerous than flying on the space station for six months,”. “One of them was being on the ground in Iraq, for soldiers and Marines, and also flying off of an aircraft carrier, which is what I do.” Twenty-four people have been to the moon before Artemis II’s upcoming orbit, with half of them setting foot on the moon. More than a fifth of them have been Californians:, who orbited the moon 10 times in the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, graduated from Grossmont High School in El Cajon. Anders is perhaps best known for taking theThe first person on the moon, Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, got a masters degree in Aerospace Engineering at USC.The ninth person to walk on the moon, Apollo 16’s John Watts Young, was born in San Francisco in 1930. His crewmate, Apollo 12’s Richard F. Gordon, orbited the moon 45 times as the pilot of the mission’s command module, died in San Marcos in 2017. Artemis II will be a mission of firsts. Glover will be the first person of color to go to the moon. His Artemis II crewmate, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, will be the first woman to go to the moon. Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian, will be the first non-American to go to the moon. Glover is aware of the significance of being the first Black person to go to the moon, said Larde — a Black woman herself — but doesn’t want that to overshadow the rest of the Artemis II mission. “He absolutely recognizes it, honors it, has deep pride and respect that he’s the one doing that, but he also doesn’t want people to get lost in the it,” she said.Once the Artemis II crew orbits the moon and returns to Earth, there are still more worlds for Glover to conquer.Glover has said he hopes to one day work on the lunar surface. But even if that never happens, he’s already achieved one of his two big childhood dreams.Old NASA science satellite plunges back to EarthNASA’s Mike Fincke identifies himself as the ailing astronaut who prompted space station evacuation “So we’re waiting for president because, you know, it hasn’t been checked off yet,” Larde laughed. She’s been invited to watch the Artemis II launch in person at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday. There is an established space-to-Capitol Hill pipeline. Mercury astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth and the third in space, later served four terms in the U.S. Senate for 25 years. He also sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1984, losing out to Walter Mondale. And when Glover got the call in 2013 that he had been selected as an astronaut candidate, he was working as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the office of Senator — and former Republican presidential candidate — John McCain on Capitol Hill.Larde agrees, and thinks he’s the kind of person many Americans would love to have as their leader.“To the people in his immediate life, we get to know someone who’s completely loyal. Loyal to family, loyal to friends and just a good person to be around. We don’t get to see a lot of that in the spotlight,” Larde continued. “What we see behind closed doors is a true man of integrity. And I’m grateful to get to know someone like that.” Balderrama intends to watch the launch back home in Southern California, which is currently scheduled for April 1 at 3:24 p.m. Pacific time. “When you tell your kids that they can do anything you want, Victor’s that example,” he said. “He was a smart kid, but he took it to the next level.”History-making Ingenuity cheered by outer-space ‘neighbor,’ astronaut Victor GloverSpaceX/NASA astronauts, including Pomona’s Victor Glover, splash down safely off FloridaNASA Capt. Victor Glover returns to Ontario High to share his journey‘No Kings’ protesters in Southern California among 8 million demonstrators across the U.S.Inside Paul McCartney’s Friday night performance at LA’s Fonda TheatreNo more Cesar Chavez day, but some offices, services will still be closed in LA CountyVoices from ‘No Kings’ protests around Southern CaliforniaDodger Stadium debuts new food items and selfie spots this season
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