The Race To The Moon And Mars Is Back And This Time Freedom Is On The Line

A renewed commitment to the Moon, Mars, and American leadership can define the next great era of national achievement.

With President Trump and Jared Isaacman pointing the way, the United States has a chance to lead humanity beyond Earth once again.

After decades of drift, America is finally preparing to reclaim its place at the forefront of space exploration.

For the first time in 50 years, Americans are traveling to the Moon and beyond.

No one should understate the importance of this decision to venture into the solar system beyond near-Earth orbit.

The recent announcements about the Moon, Mars, and beyond by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and the statements and executive orders of President Donald J. Trump are clear signals that America is back on track to carry freedom into space.

This is an important, indeed vital shift from the policies of the last half-century.

America met President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to go to the Moon by the end of the ‘60s — with landings beginning in 1969 and continuing through 1972. Then, the country sadly turned its back on the Moon and settled into a focus on low Earth orbit for a variety of commercial, national security, and scientific activities. During that half-century, we learned an amazing amount about how to operate close to the Earth, and our lives are impacted every minute of every day by these activities. For example, you would not have a cell phone in your pocket were it not for our innovations in low Earth orbit.

However, after the last American left the Moon in 1972, we neglected to invest in the kind of program that would have maintained the momentum of the Apollo program.

In President Trump’s first term, he indicated clearly how strongly he was committed to having America lead in space. He resurrected the National Space Council and then-Vice President Mike Pence did a great job bringing together every element of the Space community. President Trump created a Space Force dedicated to developing American military superiority in space and across the planet.

After a four-year period of neglect under President Joe Biden, the second Trump administration focused once again on pioneering in space and growing commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit.

By picking Isaacman to be the head of NASA, President Trump reached out to a unique and remarkable person. Isaacman had been a successful entrepreneur and was worth well over a billion dollars. He was also passionate about space and had spent a considerable amount to fly into space twice as a customer of SpaceX. He is the only civilian who has completed a space walk outside the International Space Station.

Because Isaacman is a visionary and an entrepreneurial manager, he has already begun to create a new, dramatically more powerful set of goals for NASA. The recent briefing outlined a permanent return to the Moon, the first voyages to preposition equipment on Mars for human development, and the high priority of building a nuclear-powered rocket (which will radically reduce travel time beyond the Moon). These are big, decisive investments in moving freedom into the solar system.

Artemis II will take four astronauts further into space than anyone has ever gone before. Soon, its larger successor, SpaceX’s Starship will revolutionize travel beyond the Earth.

As big as Artemis II is (a little more powerful than the huge Saturn rockets which carried our first manned space flights) it will be dwarfed by Starship.

As a SpaceX customer, Isaacman understands the power of Elon Musk’s determination to get things to work. The SpaceX development of reusable rockets collapsed the price of putting satellites in orbit by 90 percent. This was possibly the biggest affordability breakthrough of the last generation. Today about half of all launches in the world are SpaceX. Starship will be an even greater revolution.

Starship will launch 100 passengers or 100 tons of cargo — and will be usable repeatedly.

The Artemis II launch was the wake-up call that America is back.

This time we are not just going to visit the Moon. This time we are going to develop the Moon as usable property. We will learn how to get hydrogen out of the Moon’s ice caps, which have turned out to be surprisingly abundant. This hydrogen will help refuel and power other Starships to Mars.

This time we are not just going to send clever robotic vehicles to the surface of Mars. We are going to land and begin to learn how to terraform and evolve Mars into a more hospitable, productive, and survivable environment.

There was one seeming mishap on the opening days of Artemis II, which — if looked at properly — is a sign of how far we have come.

The toilet suddenly stopped working.

Since it was a $30 million toilet, the first reaction was bad jokes and great skepticism.

Then, as the story came out, it was clear how far we had come in putting humans in space. Artemis II is the first vehicle going beyond low Earth orbit to have a toilet. It is the first time astronauts have a private room. The challenges of relieving oneself in space are enormous (think zero gravity and your imagination will do the rest). The original true pioneers in the Apollo program had astonishingly primitive systems and at times found it embarrassing.

Nevertheless, the toilet is now fixed, the mission continues, and it’s amazing how far we have come — and will go.

As Isaacman warned us, the Chinese are aggressive and serious competitors. They would like to make totalitarianism the standard across the solar system.

We are now on track to carry freedom everywhere, and Congress and the American people must rise to the occasion.

The future is now — if we are prepared to grab it.

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Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999 and a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He is chairman of Gingrich 360.