President Trump’s campaign to excise Diversity Equity and Inclusion from the federal government has had some controversial effects on NASA messaging. According to Ars Technica, language referring to the “first woman and the first person of color” to walk on the moon has been removed from the Artemis program website.
The idea that the first moonwalker since Apollo 17 would not necessarily be a white male began during the first Trump administration, when then NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine referred to the next moonwalkers as “the first woman and the next man” to accomplish this feat. The Biden administration quietly changed the phrase to “the first woman and the first person of color” to the mission statement.
The statement in advance that the next American moonwalkers would include others besides white men was rooted in the perceived necessity to impose diversity among NASA’s space explorers. America’s space agency is a political organization. The old adage is that rockets fly as much on funding as they do on rocket fuel. Funding is generated by political support.
The announcement that one of the next moonwalkers would be a woman paid dividends during an August 2019 conference that took place at NASA Ames. Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addressed Bridenstine when she said, “As far as having a woman step foot on the moon, our hopes are riding on you.”
Pelosi is as left wing a politician as exists in the U.S. She would ordinarily not be expected to support any program proposed by Trump, a man she loathes and despises on a personal level. But that a woman was slated to be one of the next moonwalkers won her over.
The Biden administration’s addition of “a person of color” to the anticipated next moonwalkers was, no doubt, motivated by DEI ideology. But the decision would also address a problem that bedeviled the Apollo program, the last time Americans landed on the moon.
The Apollo 11 mission was one of the most significant technological and inspirational feats in history. Mostly forgotten, though, the launch of the first human expedition to the moon was the setting of a protest march led by a civil rights leader named Rev. Ralph Abernathy, asserting that the Apollo program was being conducted at the expense of the African American community.
Around the same time, the Black poet Gil Scott-Heron composed an anti-Apollo protest spoken word song entitled “Whitey on the Moon.”
“A rat done bit my sister Nell
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey’s on the moon)”
The inclusion of a “person of color” among the next moonwalkers is intended to shut down such complaints. Representation can work wonders for garnering political support for the return to the moon.
So, why is the Trump administration scrubbing DEI from the federal government, which has resulted in removing “the first woman and first person of color” from the Artemis mission statement? According to the White House, “The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government.”
Therefore, the Trump administration will implement the “termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the federal government.”
The new policy does not mean that the next moonwalkers are now going to be all white males. NASA has balanced both diversity and merit in its astronaut corps since the late 1970s, when it chose an astronaut class that included women such as Sally Ride and Judith Resnick and African Americans such as Guion Buford and Ron McNair.
More recently, NASA chose a group of 18 astronauts called the Artemis Group slated for future moon missions. The group includes Christina Koch and Victor Glover, an African American, who have been chosen for the Artemis II circumlunar mission to take place in 2026. All of the Artemis Group are well trained, many with spaceflight experience.
Just by the law of averages, the next moonwalkers of Artemis III will be a diverse crew. And, according to Space.com, a NASA spokesperson stated, enigmatically, “it is important to note that the change in language does not indicate a change in crew assignments.”
Thus, the crew of Artemis III will probably not only reflect the diversity of America but also be as qualified to walk on the moon as were Armstrong and Aldrin, all those decades ago.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
