{"id":255049,"date":"2026-04-18T01:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/255049\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T01:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:22:09","slug":"beyond-inspiring-texas-senator-says-moon-missions-are-also-a-race-against-china-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/255049\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Inspiring, Texas Senator says Moon Missions are also a Race Against China"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS \u2014 If you found yourself looking to the sky in awe during the Artemis II mission, you weren\u2019t alone. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was right there with you.<\/p>\n

But geopolitics here on Earth is also joining our missions into space, as Sen. Cruz made it clear, America is in a race with China.<\/p>\n

“China has stated their intention to go to the moon, to land an astronaut on the surface of the moon by 2030. And we are going to beat China back to the moon. And we\u2019re in the middle of what is, essentially, a land grab,\u201d the Republican told us on Inside Texas Politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. Cruz says the most critical territory on the moon is near the southern pole, where there would be access to water. He says they\u2019ve also mapped craters high enough to provide access to solar power that could power a lunar base.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is American policy,\u201d Cruz said proudly. \u201cWe are going to create a lunar base, a base on the surface of the moon to engage in exploration, to engage in discovery. The funding is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawmaker says there won\u2019t be a major cut to NASA\u2019s budget, so these missions are expected to move full steam ahead.<\/p>\n

Artemis II<\/a> was the first crewed flight that took humans the farthest we\u2019ve ever been from Earth. The four astronauts used the 10-day mission to successfully fly around the moon and back using the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Artemis III, expected in mid-2027, will test our ability to rendezvous and dock between Orion and a private commercial spacecraft that will be used to land astronauts on the Moon.<\/p>\n

SpaceX and Blue Origin developed the commercial landers, and one or both will be tested during this docking mission in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Artemis IV is the big one, with a target date of early 2028. This is when American astronauts will head back to the surface of the moon. The crew will transfer from Orion into the chosen lunar landers that will take them to the surface and back.<\/p>\n

Artemis V is expected to kickstart annual missions to the moon. This is also when NASA wants to begin building a Moon base. This is expected in late 2028.<\/p>\n

The Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Cruz, just passed out legislation that would ensure the Johnson Space Center near Houston would continue to be the command center for any lunar base.<\/p>\n

But the Republican also says the commercial space industry is critical to the future success of American space exploration, and it will work hand-in-hand with NASA. The Senator says it has already created 50,000 high-paying jobs. And SpaceX is based here in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of it is that both are integral. We no longer have a system that thinks it\u2019s only the federal government that can lead on space. And I\u2019m a huge champion of the commercial space industry because the investment that it\u2019s going to take is massive,\u201d Cruz explained. \u201cI\u2019ve predicted for more than a decade that the first trillionaire will be made in space. There are enormous economic opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back here on Earth, the major geopolitical news continues to be the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

Senator Cruz says the U.S. has succeeded in defanging Iran\u2019s military as well as taking out nearly all of that country\u2019s senior military leadership. And he agrees with President Donald Trump\u2019s objective of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The Republican says he doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s any possibility the conflict will bog down into a forever war.<\/p>\n

In terms of regime change, he was blunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho the next government is in Iran, that\u2019s not our problem. I\u2019m not interested in nation building. I\u2019m not interested in turning Iran into a democratic utopia. But I would like to see them have a government that is not led by Islamists who hate America, who are chanting death to America, who are funding people murdering Americans. As long as they\u2019re not killing Americans, they can run their own country and that\u2019s their own business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 If you found yourself looking to the sky in awe during the Artemis II mission, you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-255049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}