00:00You've been to space quite a few times. What does this Artemis launch mean to you?
00:04Well, it's the next step in getting U.S. astronauts back to the surface of the moon.
00:10When Neil Armstrong, you know, took that first step, I was in kindergarten, right?
00:15I was five years old in New Jersey. I fell asleep. My brother remembers seeing it, but I missed it.
00:22But I did see those later missions to the surface of the moon,
00:26and it really inspired me as a young kid to want to do this.
00:30And I wanted to go to Mars. Didn't make it to Mars. I made it into space four times.
00:34I launched from that pad that Artemis is launching from on my first two missions,
00:39and then the other one on the second two.
00:42But this is inspiring, and it's exciting, and it's something that we can only really do in this country.
00:48Yeah, the Russians, they go up to the space station. They've never landed, you know, somebody on the moon.
00:54I hope we get there before the Chinese. You know, that's the goal right now.
00:58But also do it in a different way where we're going to have, like, a permanent presence on the surface
01:04of the moon,
01:04like we do in low-Earth orbit right now.
01:08Great. So do you believe that there's bipartisan support for us getting to the moon?
01:14Yes, there is. You know how I know that? Being in the United States Senate, we funded this mission,
01:22and we're going to fund the next two, and then hopefully we will fund the return to the surface of
01:29the moon by U.S. astronauts.
01:32Great.
01:33And I think the American people are behind it, too, because it's like a uniquely American thing that we can
01:39do.
01:39You know, other countries can't do this, and we get a lot out of it.
01:42Our aerospace industry creates hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs.
01:48You know, these are jobs that you can, where you can afford to pay your rent and afford groceries
01:53and maybe go on a vacation once a year.
01:56There are a lot of people in our country right now that are struggling, that don't have that kind of
02:00opportunity.
02:02We need to get this administration focused more on that, solving those problems.
02:07But today, here on April 1st, 2026, I think this is a great day for our country.
02:13Great. And why is deep in lunar space exploration important?
02:17Well, I mean, for a number of reasons.
02:19One is we move technology forward, innovation.
02:22We create not only new things, but new industries.
02:27And we have successfully created an economy in low-Earth orbit that is billions of dollars every year,
02:37like many billions of dollars.
02:38We can do that on the surface of the moon as well.
02:41That money, by the way, people often say, why would you spend this money in space?
02:46The money isn't spent in space.
02:47The money is spent here.
02:49We could do the same thing on the lunar surface, create industries and an economy that benefits our country
02:58and allows us to grow our GDP, so grow the size of our economy, when we focus on this kind
03:07of science.
03:08Great. And then, finally, what do you make of Jared Isaacsman's early tenure as the NASA administrator?
03:14I think he's done a good job.
03:16You know, he's making some changes.
03:19You know, change is often challenging.
03:22I also think if you're not changing things in any kind of government agency or organization,
03:28they can atrophy, they can get worse.
03:30So I've seen a lot of positive things out of his, what is it, just like four or five months
03:37as the administrator.
03:39He's going to be here today.
03:41And I look forward to having a chat with him about this and future missions.
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