The space race for the Moon between two post-Cold War rivals, the United States and Russia, to achieve superior spaceflight capability has apparently restarted. Yesterday, Russian President Putin approved the development of technologies that are necessary for Russian lunar program. This was reported on April 12th. What can the U.S. Space Force do to prevent Russians from obtaining high technologies for rockets and other devices to reach the surfaces of the Moon?”
MAJOR GENERAL OLSON: Well, that’s a multi-part question, several encapsulated within. I’ll break those down a little bit. Indeed, the United States went to the Moon in 1969 and following the Apollo missions, we have not sent humans back. That’s why NASA, our civil space agency, has been so firmly focused on the Artemis missions in order to take human – humanity back through the Artemis program to the surface of the Moon and land with the first female as well as the first person of color. And we think this is very important – exciting news rolled out by NASA of the Artemis II crew further builds on the success of the Artemis I mission, and of course Artemis III will be the first that actually touches down on the surface.
