Celestial themed anime plushie is in the room monitoring the real-world mission to the moon.

For the first time in over 50 years, NASA has a manned mission to the moon again with Artemis II. The Artemis name is appropriate for a number of reasons, the most obvious is that its manned-mission predecessor series was also named after a Greek god, Apollo. You could also say that Artemis being the goddess of hunting, and by association having dominion over archery, has similarities with the way the Artemis II craft, after its final rocket firing, will complete the rest of its voyage based solely on trajectory and gravitational pulls.

But we’re here to talk about the third reason “Artemis” is a fine choice for the endeavor’s name, which is because Sailor Moon’s Artemis is part of its mission control crew.

Yes, the white mentor cat, who joins the cast of the anime/manga when Sailor Venus gets added to the Sailor Senshi squad, has been positioned prominently on a desk in the CAPCOM (capsule communicator) section of NASA’s mission control room since the Artemis II launch. Considering how frequently this exact angle is shown in the live feed of the mission showing on NASA’s official YouTube channel, there’s no way the choice of plushie or its placement is a coincidence, implying that someone at NASA purposely put a little anime Easter egg there for fans to find.

▼ It’s especially adorable when a human staff member comes by the desk, since it looks like they’re coming to consult Artemis for expert advice or to submit documents for his approval.

NASA isn’t exactly the kind of organization that anyone ends up working at just by chance, so it’s a pretty safe bet that those on the staff, especially at the higher levels, have a lifelong interest in astronomy, and likely also the cultural traditions and mythology of mankind’s relation with the cosmos. And with the Sailor Moon anime reaching the U.S. in the mid-1990s, there are plenty of fans who’re now old enough to have grown-up science-type jobs. There’s one more reason, though, why Artemis might be so welcome at the control center for Artemis II.

At various points in the stream, a NASA staff member has been spotted wearing a Sailor Moon lanyard. This proud fan appears to be Stanley G. Love, a former NASA astronaut who’s now the organization’s Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office’s Rapid Prototyping Laboratory, developing cockpit displays and controls for NASA’s spacecraft. California-born and Oregon-raised, Love’s official profile on the NASA website lists “appreciation of new music, cult films and anime” among his interests, so it wouldn’t be a shock if he was the one who brought Artemis into the room.

Of course, the actual logistics of going to the moon and back involve much more hard science and mathematics than the power of friendship and literal magic that the Sailor Senshi use to meet their biggest challenges. Still, Sailor Moon, at its core, is about how if you believe and try hard enough, you can make the seemingly impossible possible, and as a symbol of that message, Artemis is a good guy to have on the team.

Source, images: YouTube/NASA
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