NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says the U.S. must meet its 2028 target for landing astronauts on the moon to beat China, which he says plans to land its crew in 2029. He warned the race is a matter of months, not years.
Isaacman said a U.S. landing before China would be a major symbolic victory and noted that both countries intend to build bases at the lunar south pole. He cited the 1969 moon landing as an event that prompted adversaries to consider what else America might be capable of, adding that the reverse could also be true.
Isaacman said he thinks unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) shown in government videos are more likely natural phenomena or covert technology than extraterrestrial visitors, though he is open-minded. NASA is among agencies reviewing declassified material as part of a Trump administration transparency effort. He said the economics of low-orbit data centers will depend partly on replacement costs when they eventually return to Earth; he thinks the equation may work over time, though perhaps not in the first few years.
