HIGHLIGHT
– Macron to Kamala Harris: Take my man to the moon
– The French president wants to make sure his astronaut gets a ride on the Artemis mission.
– Kamala Harris’ communications director stepping down after one year on the job
Veteran Democratic aide Jamal Simmons joined Harris’ staff in January to help rebuild her public image
BY – SR EDITOR BANIBRATA DATTA (FTFMI/VANDE MATARAM)
France’s President Emmanuel Macron poses with U.S Vice President Kamala Harris before a conference with several world leaders in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron lobbied Vice President Harris to select a French astronaut to be the first European to land on the moon.
Macron pitched European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet as a candidate during a Wednesday gathering with Harris and other officials at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to Politico.
Macron, who is on an official visit to the U.S., playfully requested Pesquet be the first European to land on the moon.
“I have a candidate for you for flying to the moon,” Macron said in a video posted on Twitter. “He wants to go to Artemis three.”
Artemis III is an intercontinental efforts that aims to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972. NASA says the earliest possible date to land astronauts on the lunar surface is 2025.
NASA this month completed the first critical test in the Artemis program, launching the Orion spacecraft from the Space Launch System megarocket to soar more than 40,000 miles past the moon.
The ESA is an official partner in NASA’s Artemis program and plans to send three astronauts on the Orion spacecraft, along with U.S. astronauts, to a space outpost orbiting the moon called The Gateway.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in June that one of those three ESA astronauts could go a step further and land on the Moon.
“We look forward to having an ESA astronaut join us on the surface of the Moon and continuing to build on our longstanding, critical partnership,” Nelson said at the time.
The ESA will ultimately decide which astronauts will accompany NASA, and has not made any official announcements.
Musk’s ‘free speech’ Twitter vision put to test by Ye Rogue wave hits cruise ship sailing to Argentina, killing one passenger
Pesquet, 44, is from Rouen, France, and joined ESA in 2009. He has traveled to the International Space Station twice, including on a mission last year. Pesquet said it would be “fun” to travel to the moon and praised NASA’s Artemis I launch earlier this month at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
As America plots a way for mankind to take its first steps back on the moon since 1972, Emmanuel Macron just wants to make sure the first European to go is French.
“I have a candidate for you for flying to the moon,” the French president told U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as the two met at NASA headquarters Wednesday, according to a video posted on social media.
The contender standing next to him was Thomas Pesquet, a 44-year-old Frenchman first selected as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2009, who has since been to the International Space Station twice.
The U.S. government is aiming to return humans to the surface of the moon around 2025 under the third stage of its Artemis program. The first mission, the unmanned Artemis 1, is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11, with Artemis 2 set to make the same journey around the moon but with humans onboard.
The third Artemis mission, which won’t happen until 2025 at the earliest, will then aim to transport humans back to the lunar surface.
“He wants to go to Artemis 3,” Macron said of Pesquet in the video posted to his personal Twitter account, putting his compatriot forward as a willing candidate.
The ESA already provides propulsion modules for the Artemis missions, which allow NASA’s Orion rocket to maneuver in orbit. Under a barter deal, those technology deliveries then secure the Paris-based ESA seats on manned space missions.
However, the standing deal was not expected to include a spot on Artemis 3 and, regardless, the ESA’s management, not national leaders, usually decides which of the serving astronauts are put forward for international missions.
The agency has so far not publicly selected who from its recently enlarged astronaut core would be selected for any future moon mission. However, Pesquet is keen to fly and previously told POLITICO he’d like to see Europe embark on its own human spaceflight program.
In the video, the French space explorer was full of praise for the “magical” launch of Artemis 1 this month from the Kennedy Space Center.
“That’d be fun,” Pesquet told Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, of the chance to ride Artemis 3.
