While Koch had been to Eagles games in-person before, she had never been to a home game at Lincoln Financial Field until Sunday. Not only did she join the Eagles Captains for the coin toss, Koch also led nearly 70,000 fans in an E-A-G-L-E-S chant during the two-minute warning of the first half. The woman who – quite literally – had ventured out into where no human has been before, said she was scared to start the Eagles' fight song.
"It was amazing to be at this place I've heard so much about, a place I looked at from space where I knew that all these fans came together with how dedicated they are," Koch said. "Just to be surrounded by that energy, to be right next to the players on the field, to watch their focus, watch them practice, watch their preparation rituals, it was amazing. I'm completely honored to have that opportunity."
Of course, Koch herself is no stranger to performing under pressure. During her time at the International Space Station, she participated in the first-ever all-female spacewalk, watching continents fly by below her feet as the station traveled at 17,500 miles an hour. For the Artemis II mission, Koch and the other astronauts trained for nearly three years, preparing for every single scenario – everything that could go wrong.
Koch's visit to the Eagles organization was part of NASA's Inspiration Tour, following the success of the Artemis II mission where Koch and the rest of the crew orbited farther from earth than any humans before. As it turns out, one of the many inspired by Artemis II was an Eagles Cheerleader. Before Sunday's game, Megan McKeon, a second-year cheerleader, had the opportunity to tell Koch that the mission inspired her to go back to school to study planetary sciences.
"That moment was probably one of the most memorable and amazing ones of the whole game because she took the time to share her story personally with me and I could tell how much it meant to her and it truly did make an actual difference in her life," Koch said.
"I've been hearing stories like that from a lot of different people, but to meet someone firsthand that could tell me that they took the inspiration that the mission gave them and did something with it was really amazing. That was really all we ever wanted as a crew, was for it to have a positive impact on people's lives."