Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
NASA has dropped its commitment to land the first woman, the first person of color, and the first non-American astronaut on the Moon through the Artemis program. This move is in response to the Trump administration’s executive directives to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government.
Abandoning a commitment to diversity will likely affect who is selected to crew the Artemis III mission, currently planned to land astronauts on the moon in 2027.
Journalists at the Orlando Sentinel reported that NASA’s webpage for the Artemis mission removed a sentence that was once a cornerstone of the Artemis program: “NASA will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.”
As of 21 March, that sentence no longer appears on NASA’s Artemis website.
In a statement to The Guardian, NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel said, “In keeping with the president’s executive order, we’re updating our language regarding plans to send crew to the lunar surface as part of [NASA’s] Artemis campaign. We look forward to learning more from [and] about the Trump administration’s plans for our agency and expanding exploration at the moon and Mars for the benefit of all.”
The Artemis program and its goal to land non-white, non-male, and non-American astronauts was formalized and approved in 2019 under the first Trump administration, partly in recognition that all 12 people who have walked on the Moon have been white men. To date, 20 Black astronauts and 70 women astronauts (out of more than 600 total) have flown in space.
The Artemis I mission, which flew around the Moon in 2022, was uncrewed. The primary and backup crews on the Artemis II mission, set to fly around the Moon in 2026, include two women (Christina Koch and Jenni Gibbons, who is also Canadian), two Black men (Victor Glover and Andre Douglas), and two Canadian astronauts (Jeremy Hansen and Gibbons). It is not immediately clear whether anti-diversity executive actions, as well as the escalating trade war and diplomatic tensions with Canada, will affect the Artemis II crew.
—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer
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