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Newsweek
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
China Could Beat US Back to the Moon, Former Astronaut Warns
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Colonel Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station (ISS), has told Newsweek he think's China could "absolutely" win the "second space race" by landing another human on the moon before the United States does. Newsweek contacted NASA for comment via email on Friday outside of regular office hours. Why It Matters In 1969 the U.S. became the first country in history to land astronauts on the moon in a major boost for American prestige worldwide. This took place against the backdrop of the "space race" against the Soviet Union, America's main geopolitical rival at the time, which had successfully put the first astronaut into orbit during in 1961. China has emerged as America's new chief rival, with the duelling superpowers currently clashing over trade, human rights and the sovereignty of both Taiwan and the South China Sea. Beating the U.S. back to the moon would give Beijing a big status boost across the globe. What To Know Asked by Newsweek whether there is "a serious chance China might win the second space race," meaning getting an astronaut to the moon before the U.S. does, Virts replied: "Absolutely. Have you seen America's political system recently? They absolutely might." He later added: "If China wins that race to the moon, if they send the next astronauts to the moon, the whole world is going to say, wow, America had a great century. The 20th century was a great American century. The 21st century is the Chinese century." China has said it plans to land three astronauts on the Moon by 2030. In January, Virts will attempt to secure the Democratic nomination for the Texas Senate seat currently occupied by Republican John Cornyn, with the final contest in November 2026. Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts has warned China could beat the U.S. back to the moon. Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts has warned China could beat the U.S. back to the moon. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty The former astronaut, who served as commander of the ISS in 2015, also hit out at NASA funding cuts, with a proposed 2026 White House budget slashing the agency's funding by 25 percent and reducing its workforce to the lowest level since the early 1960s. He said: "They're cancelling important undergraduate and graduate research at universities, tens of thousands. I just saw we had 90,000 research positions, which is getting cut down to 20,000. "That destroys the American science institution for medicine, for space, for weather, for all kinds of science. This administration and the Republican Party hate science. They hate knowledge. They hate education. They're doing all they can to destroy it. That needs to stop." What People Are Saying During the interview Virts said: "The moon program is a real problem. Do we want to go there and build a big village that just stays in one place and we have a moon base? Or do we want to go there with a small crew, small vehicles, that we can land on the moon and use that as a testing ground to go onto Mars? I don't know. We don't have that as our national vision." Speaking in December 2024 then NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: "Space is demanding. And we, and our industry and international partners, need this time to make sure that the Orion capsule is ready to safely deliver our astronauts to deep space and back to Earth." During his inauguration speech on January 20 President Donald Trump said: "We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars." What Happens Next NASA hopes to return American astronauts to the moon in the next few years, though the deadline has already slipped significantly. In December 2024 NASA said its planned date for Artemis 2 moon mission, which would take astronauts around the moon, had been delayed from September 2025 to April 2026, while a planned landing with Artemis 3 went from late 2026 to mid-2027.
Newsweek
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
Exclusive: Former Astronaut Terry Virts Reveals Plan to Turn Texas Blue
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Colonel Terry Virts has been an Air Force pilot, a NASA astronaut, and even a International Space Station commander. But now he's embarking on what could be considered his most challenging mission to date—becoming the first Democrat in decades to break the Republican stranglehold over Texan politics. It's been more than 30 years since Bob Bullock was re-elected as Texas Lieutenant General in 1994, the last time a Texan Democrat won a statewide election. Since then a succession of Democrats have sought to revive their party's fortunes in the Lone Star State, the second most populous in the Union, but thus far all have been vanquished. In January, Virts became the latest Democrat to challenge the Republican hegemony when he announced he is running for the Senate in 2026, targeting the seat currently occupied by the GOP's John Cornyn. With the Texas Republican Party rocked by infighting, Democrats hope now is their time to achieve the decades-long dream of turning Texas purple and eroding the GOP's wafer-thin Senate majority. NASA Career Virts was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1967. After leaving high school he joined the U.S. Air Force, graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1989 to begin a career as an F-16 pilot. In 2000, Virts was selected to join NASA as part of Astronaut Group 18, going on to pilot the STS-130 mission to the International Space Station in 2010, before returning to the ISS in December 2014 and serving as its commander for part of 2015. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/AP/Canva Virts told Newsweek it was through NASA that his association with Texas began, moving to the state 25 years ago to be near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He said: "I've lived in Asia, Europe, Middle East. I've lived around the planet. I've lived off the planet. I've lived in Texas longer than anywhere on or off Earth. So this is my home." Texas Floods Virts said that the devastating Texas floods, which killed at least 120 people, including children at a summer camp, and has left another 170 reported missing, were one of the reasons he had decided to run for the Senate. "When I was a kid, I went to church camp," he told Newsweek. "My kids growing up went going to summer church camp when they were Country of Texas is a beautiful place, so I mean, as a parent, I just can't imagine these poor girls... swept away." The Democratic hopeful criticized President Donald Trump's administration for cutting what he called "life-saving science," including weather monitoring and forecasting. "On the day that this tragedy happened, Trump stood there in the White House and signed this bill that cut 40 percent from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including zeroing out research," Virts said. "Trump literally wants to destroy our weather at the same time we have Texas kids being killed by floods and understaffed National Weather Service offices," he added later in the interview. "This administration and the Republican Party is actively cutting life-saving science, and it's horrific. This is one of the reasons why I'm running for Senate right now." Texas Republicans Divided Virts' Senate bid takes place against the backdrop of deep divisions within the Republican Party of Texas. In April, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is widely seen as being on the Republican right, announced a primary challenge against incumbent Republican Senator Cornyn, saying, "It's hard to think of the things that he's done good for Texas or the country." Cornyn's team almost immediately hit back with a statement that said: "Ken Paxton is a fraud." Paxton was impeached by the Republican control Texas House in 2023 on bribery charges, although he was subsequently narrowly acquitted by the state Senate. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Referring to Texas Republican infighting Virts said: "Well as Napoleon said, never interrupt your opponent when he's doing something stupid and certainly the Republicans are doing plenty of that these days." Terry Virts pictured at the Creative Coalition's Tenth Annual Television Humanitarian Awards Gala Luncheon at LadyHawk Restaurant on September 14, 2024 in West Hollywood, California. Terry Virts pictured at the Creative Coalition's Tenth Annual Television Humanitarian Awards Gala Luncheon at LadyHawk Restaurant on September 14, 2024 in West Hollywood, California. Olivia Wong/GETTY During the interview Virts branded Cornyn a "eunuch" and "just the most pathetic person in the Senate." He added: "He just posted a picture of himself reading [Trump's] Art of the Deal. He's trying to grovel and beg Trump for his approval... They hate him. They despise John Cornyn because he doesn't stand for anything. He knows what's right, and he doesn't do it." Turning to Paxton, Virts said: "And then on the other hand, you have Ken he wins the Senate race, he'll instantly become the worst human being in the Senate." He added: "He's suing the federal government to get women's health records. I think most Texans don't want Ken Paxton in their bedroom or in the doctor's office with their wife or with their daughter or with their sister or whatever. So it's quite a race." Cornyn campaign senior adviser, Matt Mackowiak, told Newsweek on Friday that the senator nearly always voted with Trump, who has significant support in the state. "President Trump strongly won Texas by 13 percent in 2024, which shows how deep his support is here," he said. "Senator Cornyn has voted with President Trump 99.2 percent of the time as President and he is proud to have helped advance that agenda which Texans clearly align with." Newsweek contacted Attorney General Paxton for comment on Friday via online inquiry form respectively. Immigration The one issue where Virts sharply criticized his own party's record was illegal immigration, an issue he attributed to Trump's 2024 presidential election victory. Figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded an estimated 7.2 million suspected illegal migrant encounters with law enforcement during the Biden administration to January 2024. Referring to voters Virts said: "They voted very clearly they don't like it. Democrats for the last several years have told the country, hey, illegal immigration is not a problem. The country told them, yes, it is." Virtz said some Mexican-American communities he knows near the Mexican border had "voted for Donald Trump en masse." "You would think Trump is calling them rapists and murderers. Trump is saying the most racist, heinous stuff about them, and yet they don't want illegal immigration," he said. However Virtz defended legal immigration, commenting: "If you live in Texas, you're an immigrant. It doesn't matter where you're from." NASA Cuts Virts was sharply critical of Trump's most recent spending package, which cut funding for NASA and various scientific research projects, calling it a "disaster." "The last I read, there's 19 probes that NASA has in the solar system operating functional on Mars, at Jupiter, beyond the solar system. They're costing pennies on the dollar to operate. The expense of these things is the rocket to launch it, to build the satellite. Once you spend all that money, you just pay some scientists and engineers to run the satellite," Virts said. "They're going to cancel all of that stuff, which is insane. They're cancelling important undergraduate and graduate research at universities, tens of thousands. I just saw we had 90,000 research positions is getting cut down to 20,000. That destroys the American science institution for medicine, for space, for weather, for all kinds of science. This administration and the Republican Party hate science. They hate knowledge." Turning to Trump's much publicized falling out with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, his former close ally, Virtz described it as, "It's like going back to King George." Could U.S. Lose Second Space Race? The U.S. is currently locked in a second space race with China, which has vowed to land three astronauts on the Moon by 2030. NASA's Artimus program is currently aiming to land American astronauts in 2027, though the date has already been pushed back. Asked whether China could beat America back to the Moon, Verts warned, "Absolutely. Have you seen America's political system recently? They absolutely might." "If China wins that race to the moon, if they send the next astronauts to the moon, the whole world is going to say, wow, America had a great century," he added. "The 20th century was a great American century. The 21st century is the Chinese century."
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's term a ‘rough time for science in America': Ex-NASA astronaut
(NewsNation) — The United States has grown 'completely reliant' on SpaceX, said Col. Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander. 'It's not only NASA, also the Defense Department and the intelligence community are very dependent on SpaceX,' Virts told NewsNation. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut SpaceX contracts amid a public feud with onetime adviser Elon Musk, who briefly countered with a threat to decommission his Dragon space capsule. Pulled NASA nomination blindsides space community: 'Major blunder' Musk's threat has since been walked back, but Virts said it indicates a greater problem: national needs left to Musk's whims. 'I think it's very concerning, especially when the CEO is so unstable and has been so, you know, unpredictable and some might say, dangerous in recent years,' Virts said. Trump's proposed NASA budget would cut $6 billion — the largest single-year cut in the agency's history, according to the nonprofit Planetary Society. Under the budget, human space programs would get a boost, with more than $7 billion allocated for lunar missions and $1 billion allocated for new investments in efforts to get people to Mars. The budget includes significant cuts to staffing, maintenance, environmental compliance, and the space and Earth science programs. 'It has been a chaotic and stressful time. Unfortunately, it affects the nation's space exploration and science community, not only at NASA, but also in the medical research and other fields,' Virts said. Milky Way has 50-50 chance of colliding with neighbor galaxy Musk's company is set to launch Falcon 9 for Axiom Space's Axiom Mission 4 on Tuesday, seemingly signaling a secure partnership between SpaceX and NASA. But Virts warned of overarching damage to the American science community that has been building since Inauguration Day. 'You can't just turn on a space program, and in a matter of months. You can certainly turn it off, and that's what's happened with this administration's chaos,' Virts said. 'But getting it back is going to be a problem.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
American Military News
08-06-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
ISS missions with Russia are like working with Nazis, says former US astronaut
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission. A retired US astronaut has told RFE/RL that joint missions with Russia on the International Space Station (ISS) should be scaled back, comparing them to collaboration with Nazi Germany at the height of World War II. 'Cooperating with the Russians on the ISS is like going on an Antarctic expedition with Nazis in 1943,' said Terry Virts, a former commander on the station. 'It's just morally reprehensible,' he added. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the ISS is one of the rare areas where cooperation between Russia and the West has continued. Astronauts from both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) serve alongside cosmonauts from Russian space agency Roscosmos. Canada and Japan are also involved in what NASA describes 'as one of the most complex international collaborations ever attempted.' 'The station was designed to be interdependent and relies on contributions from across the partnership to function,' NASA says. 'No one partner currently has the capability to function without the other.' Virts does not dispute this but calls for cooperation with Russia to be curtailed. Specifically, he said there are two areas where this would be possible and desirable. Soyuz Versus SpaceX 'We need to stop launching Americans on the Russian Soyuz,' he said, and 'we shouldn't be launching Russian cosmonauts on our rocket while they're actively destroying our friend and ally, Ukraine.' At present, the business of getting people to and from the ISS is shared. Crews and cargo have been ferried back and forth by Soyuz, SpaceX, and recently also Boeing's new Starliner capsule. 'You still need to operate the space station and you can do that…. It's only going to be in service for another few years,' Virts said. 'But I think we should pull back, to say the least.' In a statement provided to RFE/RL, NASA said it flew 'integrated crews' with Roscosmos 'aboard U.S. crew spacecraft and the Soyuz spacecraft to ensure continued safe operations' of the ISS and its crew. For Virts, this is a deeply personal issue. His career has been intimately bound up with the ISS. His maiden voyage as a Space Shuttle pilot in 2010 carried the ISS's final permanent modules, including the largest set of windows ever flown in space. On board the ISS four years later, he witnessed rocket fire in eastern Ukraine as Russian-backed separatists launched an insurgency there. This followed Russian troops seizing Crimea from Ukraine, and Virts says he was shocked by a cosmonaut's response. 'The commander of my Soyuz, Anton Shkaplerov, is from Sevastopol in Crimea. His wife is Ukrainian. And he was like, 'Krym nash, Krym nash,' which means 'Crimea is ours.' He was just so proud that they had taken back Crimea,' Virts said. But later, Virts was more concerned by three other cosmonauts he had flown with — Aleksander Samokutyaev, Maksim Surayev, and Yelena Surova — who all went on to serve as lawmakers in President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. 'I Felt Betrayed' 'You know, I loved the Russian language and the people and the food. I thought the space station can be this great cooperation instead of conflict. And here they are supporting the most evil, blatantly morally abhorrent war. And that was very painful. I felt betrayed,' he said. Samokutyaev is still serving in Russia's State Duma (parliament) and has been sanctioned by Britain, the European Union, and the United States. The EU sanctions were announced the day after the full-scale invasion, as Samokutyaev had voted to recognize Russian-backed separatist entities in Ukraine as independent states. This was a key move that created the Kremlin's legal pretext for the invasion. The US Treasury said he and other Duma members were sanctioned 'for complicity in Putin's war' due to the vote. Surayev and Surova are no longer in the Duma but have continued to agitate on behalf of Putin and his aggression in Ukraine. For instance, Surayev was a surrogate for Putin in his 2024 election campaign. He can be seen in this video in 2024 in Russian-occupied Donetsk. He was reported by Russian media to have spoken during his visit of the role played by cosmonauts in the 'special military operation,' the Kremlin's preferred term for the full-scale invasion. Surova is now an adviser to the Moscow regional governor. On March 8, Russian media reported she was ceremonially sending off 'aid' to frontline troops in Ukraine, including drones. 'Many committed citizens are helping our defenders by sending vital supplies to the front. Together, we are the only team, a mighty fist, that nobody can defeat,' she reportedly said. A Myth 'Dispelled' None of these former cosmonauts immediately responded to questions from RFE/RL, including how support for Putin and the war in Ukraine aligns with the humanitarian principles of international cooperation in space. Virts said they're not speaking to him, either. 'My Ukrainian friends love me. My Russian friends have stopped talking to me,' he said. There is also controversy surrounding a cosmonaut on the current ISS crew. Alexey Zubritsky was born in Ukraine in 1992 and last month RFE/RL's Current Time reported that he was wanted in the land of his birth for treason. In 2014, Zubritsky was a Ukrainian Air Force pilot stationed in Crimea. When Russian troops arrived, he disobeyed orders to report to a Ukrainian base outside the peninsula, opting instead to stay there and switch sides. The ISS is due to remain in operation until 2030. Shortly after Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border in 2022, Moscow threatened to withdraw from cooperation on the ISS but later said it would remain involved until 2028. 'We have cooperated very well on the space station. We've made a lot of relationships,' said Virts. 'I was on the side of, well, cooperation in space can help things be better on Earth. And man, that myth has been dispelled.'
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
NASA astronaut on Russian colleagues backing war against Ukraine
The Kyiv Independent's Kollen Post sits down with retired U.S. astronaut Col. Terry W. Virts to discuss his time aboard the International Space Station alongside Russian colleagues in 2014–2015, during Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine's eastern regions. Virts shares personal recollections of how his crewmates fell under the sway of Russian propaganda — and why he believes space missions should remain above politics. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
