Artemis Accords rapidly expand as NASA returns to the moon

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]All right, now we're heading to space.

[00:00:01]We're NASA, shooting for the stars in more ways than one. After the success and excitement over last month's Artemis mission, NASA is revving up to include more countries in its missions to return humans to the moon for the first time in a half a century. Already, uh Morocco has signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the third country to do so in the last 2 weeks.

[00:00:24]Joining us now, uh by Zoom, is Keith Cowing, the editor of nasawatch.com.

[00:00:30]Hello and thank you for being here.

[00:00:32]We're color-coordinated. We are. We sure are. Look at this. So, uh we all watched, at least myself, the the you know, the mission. It was really quite quite awe-inspiring uh for us to see and to get people excited once again about uh going to the moon. What what does this mean?

[00:00:49]Uh you know, it's a it's a huge leap, obviously, for for humanity, mankind, etc. But, what is this telling us that more and more countries want to be a part of it instead of it being a political thing and who's going to get there first? Well, I'll bring you my own special facts here. This is the current tally, and there's like 60 on there, and Ireland is joining on Monday. So, it's kind of interesting. It's like a mini United Nations, and they call it the Artemis Accords. My friend Mike Gold got [laughter] that from Star Trek. But, there's also the Abraham Accords, and if you look at it's like a lot of overlaps between these two. So, if you stand back a bit, not just this mission, but space, maybe there's something that we all get along with, you know, like we're not necessarily friends up with Russia right now, but in space, we get along just fine. So, maybe the whole thing about going out there is to you know, to take the words from the Apollo astronauts, to learn more about how we should be living back here.

[00:01:46]>> Yeah.

[00:01:46]>> Just a thought. So, I mean, with all these countries signing on, I mean, we see how small a capsule is. How are they all going to go?

[00:01:53]Yeah. Um I'm I'm kind of a short guy, too. I've been inside these things and uh let's just just put it this way. Uh if you're not friends with these folks, you will be very quickly. And you if you want to come back to Earth, you need to stay friends the whole time.

[00:02:07]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, with all the countries signing in, I mean, how are they going to decide who's going to go on which mission? I mean, I'm assuming this is they're going to have to do multiple missions to the moon for the entire UN to uh set foot on on the moon again.

[00:02:21]>> that be cool? All right. Yeah, I mean, that maybe that's the downfall that we've been set we go try and kill each other. We go to the moon and have fun, you know?

[00:02:28]>> Yeah.

[00:02:29]But now, seriously, it it's if you look at the the way that space is done, it's a mishmash of international agreements of who puts money into something, who puts technology into something, you know, and it's it's it ends up being that every mission is is the same but different, as they say in Hollywood. But the idea here is if you look at the partners on this, and this is sort of an agreement. It's not a treaty. It's a like uh a a dinner party where we're all going to go and behave on the moon. And Israel was one of the first ones to sign up. It was like they were the 15th back few years back. So, you know, look at the UAE. The UAE is a small country, but they've had an outsized uh participation in missions to the moon and to Mars. And you know, so again, it's just like which country really wants to go? And and I got to say, I'm on Israeli TV. I I was on the board of uh directors of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. And uh I remember very clearly back uh the Ilan Ramon was on uh a shuttle mission. And I was at the memorial a year after his uh his death. And his wife said, "Well, he's the first Israeli, but that doesn't mean he's going to be the last." Well, we also have Eytan Stibbe who uh who went uh on SpaceX, who's Israeli as well.

[00:03:43]This is all about, you know, you priorities and things. And you know, although NASA's charter doesn't say anywhere that we're going to inspire a bunch of kids.

[00:03:51]Look, you're talking to two people right now. You're talking to somebody who's 70 and a 15-year-old boy who watched people walk on the moon. Mhm. That I'm still, you know, grooving off of that thing that happened back then.

[00:04:03]>> then, yeah.

[00:04:04]Duh. And you know, and so this does have an impact on people and and whether it's a big country or small country, but the cool thing now is when I was a kid it was us versus Russia.

[00:04:14]>> Exactly. Who's first, yeah.

[00:04:17]Yeah. Now you've got all these countries that can send things in the space because this technology is ubiquitous.

[00:04:23]You have companies that have so much money that they can go do this without governments. So, they talk about this race between us and China and yeah, okay, I guess you have to agree to be in the race. Uh but it's multipolar, multinational, multi-corporate and at the end of the day it's sort of like the song that I remember when I was a kid it was like everyone's gone to the moon. Yeah.

[00:04:44]The million reasons more to go today than and than there was before. And you know, there's a lot of adventurism and exploration that I think a lot of us don't have right now because we're preoccupied with other stupid stuff. And then maybe this would be a a cool outlet again for, you know, putting your energies into something as productive and if nothing >> kid dream of something. I mean, when I was growing up, you know, you ask and I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a firefighter. I mean, I hope we have more of those young people, uh you know, saying that when they're in their third grade class having to do a paper on what they want to be when they grow up. Exactly.

[00:05:20]>> [laughter] >> Thank you so much.

[00:05:23]My pleasure.