We've got a brand name that naturally invites a few moon jokes.
We'll keep those (mostly) under control.
Because joking aside, this moon mission hits closer to home for us than you might think.
For most people, Artemis II is something you hear about in the news.
For us, it feels like part of who we are.
How NASA Shaped Wazoo
Before Wazoo, Nick spent time at NASA during the Space Shuttle era, working as an astronaut instructor and engineer, helping run vacuum chambers used for spacesuit training.
It's the kind of environment where everything is tested, checked, and absolutely has to work when it counts.
That kind of work changes how you think.
You start to pay attention to the small things, even the ones people may never see. You learn the ins and outs. How they mesh into larger systems, and how nothing is ever "just a detail" without purpose.
And that mindset didn't just stay behind at NASA when Nick left. It became Wazoo. Limited space. Fixed resources. Nothing that doesn't earn its place. The constraints differ, but the philosophy remains the same. Build it right. Make it reliable. Leave as little as possible to chance.
Rocket Science
Although Nick eventually left the space industry, it never really left him. His wife, Kristin, continued work at Boeing on the program that would take us back to the moon and beyond. She spent the last 15 years working in true rocket science, specializing in ascent performance (the part where humans ride a controlled explosion into orbit, and everything either goes exactly right or goes devastatingly wrong).
Aim for the Moon
On April 1st, 2026, at 6:35 pm ET, Artemis II lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It wasn't just any mission. It was the first time NASA put humans on the new SLS rocket. They could have played it safe with a low Earth orbit shakedown. Instead, they aimed for the moon. Just four astronauts, a spacecraft named Integrity, and a whole lot of trust in the math.
The 10-day mission was the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. They traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, further than any human in history, passing a mark Apollo 13 had held for 55 years.
NASA visualization of the Artemis II mission trajectory. Image credit: NASA
Over 10 million people watched NASA's live streaming of the event. For most of them, it was a historic moment worth pausing for.
For the small, tight-knit Wazoo team, it was much more personal. Nick's roots. Kristin's rocket. Scattered across different time zones, watching different screens, but sharing the same moment. A mission that represents the pinnacle of preparation — over a decade of work from hundreds of people, compressed into a single moment where everything has to work.
Some moments hit different when you have skin in the game.
The Sticker
We wanted to pay homage to our NASA roots and the dawn of a new era in human space exploration. So we made a limited edition, commemorative sticker.
It's a tribute to the NASA worm logo. The iconic typemark introduced in 1975 was brought back for the Artemis era.
A small nod to a big moment, and to the people who helped make it happen.
We'll be including one free with upcoming orders while supplies last, and you can grab a few extras for $5 each, if it really speaks to you.
Most of us will never work on something on the scale of the SLS program, but the mindset behind it is available to everyone. Pay attention to the details. Build things that work. Carry things with purpose.
We embody this mentality with every product we make.
"What we really hoped in our soul is that we could, for just a moment, have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet in a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have, what we have been gifted."
— Reid Wiseman, Artemis II Commander
P.S. — You may have heard Artemis II had some toilet troubles. This isn't surprising. Space plumbing is a complicated business. Without gravity, nothing goes where it's supposed to go without a little engineered assistance. Fans and suction do the heavy lifting, but you can understand why you wouldn't want issues with that system in a confined space.
Back in the Space Shuttle era, there was a dedicated training room (think small closet). Lock the door, toilet mockup, and camera mounted inside the bowl facing up. Yep. You heard that right. Astronauts had to practice making a proper seal by staring at a real-time view of an entirely more personal wazoo.
Why do I mention this? Because we could all use a reminder that there's usually more to it than meets the eye. You rarely get to see the full picture. Even the most extraordinary human achievements can come with a troublesome toilet and a closet where nobody looks particularly heroic. That's not a flaw. That's just being human.
At the end of the day, we're all hurtling through space together — four astronauts in a tiny capsule, and the other eight billion of us on a big round ball, figuring it out as we go.
