{"id":587801,"date":"2026-04-05T21:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/587801\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T21:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:26:09","slug":"chance-of-alien-life-goes-to-heart-of-space-missions-nasa-chief-says-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/587801\/","title":{"rendered":"Chance of alien life \u2018goes to heart\u2019 of space missions, Nasa chief says | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top official at Nasa<\/a> says that the chance of alien existence is a factor in how the US space agency plans its missions.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Sunday, Nasa<\/a> administrator Jared Isaacman told CNN\u2019s Meet the Press that investigating the existence of alien life \u201cgoes to the heart of many things that we do at Nasa\u201d, adding: \u201cOur job here is to go out and try and unlock the secrets of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the questions, he said, is \u201care we alone? The question would say that is inherent in every one of our scientific endeavors, our exploration endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Issacman pointed to a potential moon base on the south pole of the moon that would incorporate telescopes \u201cthat will help us continue this great search\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the official qualified his comments, offering that he had been to space twice and \u201cdidn\u2019t encounter any aliens up there. I have not seen anything to suggest that we have been visited by any intelligent life forms out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he added, \u201cwhen you think about it, we got 2tn galaxies out there. Who knows how many star systems within each of it? I would say the odds that we will find something at some point to suggest that we are not alone are pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman\u2019s comments come four days into Nasa\u2019s Artemis mission<\/a> to circumnavigate the moon, the first lunar mission since 1972. The four crew members of the Orion spacecraft crew were closer to the moon<\/a>, at 110,700 miles (178,000km), than to Earth, at 169,000 miles, when they woke up on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The capsule will loop around the moon\u2019s far side, a milestone that will occur on Monday evening, and slingshot back toward Earth where it is expected to arrive on Friday.<\/p>\n

On CBS\u2019s Face the Nation, Isaacman said astronauts are prepared for the communication blackout that will happen when they loop the moon, saying: \u201cAstronauts are used to that going through training.\u201d<\/p>\n

He emphasized that for this phase of the mission, the first objective is to gather data from Orion\u2019s life support system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve ever had humans on board the Orion spacecraft,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to gather as much data as we possibly can for that … Learning as much as we can about Orion is critically important.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an image provided by Nasa, astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft\u2019s main cabin windows as the crew travels towards the moon on Thursday. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n

The next mission, Artemis III, is scheduled for launch in mid-2027. Isaacman said. \u201cThat\u2019s where we\u2019re going to test the same spacecraft with our lunar landers, followed up in 2028 by Artemis IV, where we\u2019re going to use this spacecraft to transfer crew to the landers and put American astronauts back on the surface of the moon\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nasa has said it was able to fix<\/a> the spacecraft\u2019s $30m, titanium vacuum-based Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) toilet to normal operations. The crew had reported a blinking fault light on the system, which requires headphones to use, and uses suction to separate waste, venting urine into space and storing fecal matter in canisters for return to Earth.<\/p>\n

Isaacman addressed the issue on Sunday with CNN, saying: \u201cThroughout the history of human spaceflight, so going from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo program, to shuttle, to Mir and International Space<\/a> Station to Dragon, which I flew on, and, of course, Orion, the toilet working is almost a bonus capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that of all the \u201cextraordinary things in space right now\u201d, a working bathroom remains elusive. \u201cNailing this capability is one that we need to certainly work on I will say we build in a lot of backups,\u201d Isaacman said, pointing to different vent lines to jettison urine.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when we have an issue with some freezing on the primary, the secondary has been working. So, believe me, the astronauts, they\u2019re OK right now, and they were well prepared for the situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top official at Nasa says that the chance of alien existence is a factor in how the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-587801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}