On Wednesday evening, NASA launched four astronauts into space aboard the Artemis II mission, beginning the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. Among the crew was Baltimore native and lifelong Ravens fan Reid Wiseman, who serves as the mission’s commander.
Wiseman, a 27-year Navy veteran and test pilot, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida alongside fellow NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
As the launch captured attention worldwide, the Baltimore Ravens shared a clip from 2014, when Wiseman sent a message to the team from space ahead of a regular season game. The Ravens posted the resurfaced video on X on Thursday.
Wiseman’s 2014 Ravens message resurfaces as he heads toward the moon
Back in 2014, Wiseman visited with the Ravens organization and offered a message of encouragement to the team before their Week 16 game against the Houston Texans.
USATSI 11013079 168422142 lowres
Aug 2, 2018; Canton, OH, USA; A view of the Ravens logo on a game helmet prior to the game of the Chicago Bears against the Baltimore Ravens at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
He had been stationed aboard the International Space Station at the time.
Wiseman is a product of Baltimore who watched the Ravens’ 2000 Super Bowl victory while deployed on an aircraft carrier in the Middle East. He watched their 2012 championship in an apartment in Russia, where he was training for that ISS mission.
The connection between Wiseman and the Ravens predates anything formal. It is simply a fan who went on to do something nobody from Baltimore had ever done.
Ravens fan and @NASA astronaut @astro_reid and his three crew members lifted off on NASA’s Artemis II moon mission at Kennedy Space Center in Florida!
He shared a message with the team back in 2014: pic.twitter.com/9nTyrVzvgT
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) April 2, 2026
Artemis II crew now en route on historic 10-day voyage around the moon
NASA confirmed the launch occurred at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, with the SLS rocket lifting off from Launch Pad 39B.
The crew named their Orion spacecraft “Integrity,” following the Apollo tradition of naming their vehicles.
If the mission goes as planned, the crew will travel around 252,000 miles from Earth, farther than any human has ventured since the Apollo era.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen are spending the first portion of the mission in Earth orbit testing life support, communication, and navigation systems on the Orion capsule.
The crew is also scheduled to travel to the far side of the moon, an area that will give them views no human has seen directly from a spacecraft in more than 50 years.
Per NASA, the mission’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya noted after launch:
“Over the next 10 days, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy will put Orion through its paces so the crews who follow them can go to the Moon’s surface with confidence.”