Name: Achieving American superiority in space
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T18:02:06.459Z
Duration: 4 min 29 s
Description: Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao joins to discuss President Trump wanting astronauts back on the moon by 2028.

Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao joins to discuss President Trump wanting astronauts back on the moon by 2028.

Former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander Leroy Chiao highlighted the significance of returning American astronauts to the moon, emphasizing national prestige and inspiring future generations in science and technology. Chiao discussed the Artemis 2 mission, which will send a crew of three Americans and one Canadian on a loop around the moon, marking the first time since 1972 that humans will travel this far from Earth.

Chiao noted that while the U.S. does not yet have a lunar lander, contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin are in place to develop one, with an ambitious goal of landing by 2028. He acknowledged China's steady advancements in human spaceflight, including their own space station and plans to land astronauts on the moon in the 2030s, but stated that the U.S. remains the world leader in this field.

Achieving American superiority in space

year joining me now to discuss former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station Leroy chow good morning commander, thanks so much for being here. Good morning pleasure. You flew on 3 space shuttle missions, you spent more than 6 months in space on the ISS. Why is it so important for American astronauts to get back to the moon. Space program, especially human space flight program exists primarily for 2 reasons one is national prestige and 2 is to inspire the next generation to be interested in science and technology and so for us to have gone to the moon all these decades ago and then not have been back. Now it's it's seen as kind of another challenge to our superiority of somebody else makes it back there with humans before we do so it. I don't think it's critical that we beat any other nations back to the moon with humans. But we are the ones who were first decades ago and we will get back there and hopefully sooner rather than later. So let's talk about the Artemis 2 mission that could launch as early as next month, it won't land on the lunar surface, but it will instead circle the lunar surface. This is a crew of 4 American astronauts closer to the moon than we've ever been in decades, they say what are those astronauts commander looking at this is a recon mission reconnaissance mission. So what are they looking for and what are they reporting back. Right actually just to just to clarify quickly is 3 Americans and one Canadian will be orbiting not orbiting they will go loop around the moon so technically they're not even going to circular eyes and orbit around the moon like Apollo 8 did in 1968. But this is a new vehicle and they're going to be testing all its systems of thermal control system life control system and just a small interesting piece they're going to be going farther away from the earth than any other astronauts in history so far. That is their their loop around the moon is going to take them farther away from the earth and the moon than the Apollo missions did. So this is an exciting step exciting first step it's in a way very loose way analogous to Apollo 8 going and orbiting the moon before we go and land so we'll all be watching very closely first time since 1972 any humans have been in that vicinity. So it's a basically the same technology would be used to potentially land on the moon. So this is kind of a test flight of sorts. Right well, you know the issue about landing back on the moon is we don't have a lander yet of course spacex is working on its Starship program and we have a lander and assets contract with them to build a lander based on that Starship technology. Blue origin also has a contract to develop a lander and so that's really what we call the long pole the challenge of can we get a lander built and certified in time to to land by the very aggressive schedule of of 2028. Now the one piece that gives me confidence that we might be able to do it is Jared Isaacman the new NASA administrator the NASA hold I would say there's no way we do it 2 years 2 and a half years, but you know with a new administrator he's he's in there to shake things up and so we'll we'll see what happens. Well, I am curious because in the beginning you said you know there are 2 reasons you go back advance the technology and space dominance, the president is calling on NASA to get astronauts back to the moon because you know in his terms he's deeply concerned he his words that we are being out paced in space by the Chinese just do you agree with that. Well we're still the world's leaders in human space flight just look at the ISS we make operations look like their routine and where they are but you know all the the experience behind that speaks for itself. China has steadily risen as a powered human space flight, you know they've got their own space station a lot of people may not have been even be aware of that they routinely operated to send crews back and forth. They do spacewalks there very quickly or I should say steadily gaining in capability, their space stations much smaller than the ISS but it's actually a good size and they have made it no secret that they intend to land their own astronauts on the moon somewhere in the 2030 time frame. The race is on former NASA astronaut Leroy Chow thanks so much for your time great conversation good to have you on.

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