Biden Brings Identity Politics to the Moon

J oe Biden’s NASA found a way to inject woke identity politics into the space agency’s plans to return to the moon by explicitly pledging to select only astronauts of certain genders and races.

The U.S. space agency revealed the Space Launch System rocket in March, which is intended to return humans to the moon by 2025. The rocket will undergo its first test launch in early April, with the explicit goal of “land[ing] the first woman and person of color on the moon,” according to Joe Biden’s spending plan. Notably, in Biden’s plan, diversity is listed as a goal before the plan’s other priorities to “deepen the Nation’s scientific understanding of the Moon, and test technologies that would allow humans to safely and sustainably explore Mars.”

Under Biden, $150 million of the NASA budget goes to targeting “engagement of underserved populations, including underserved students and people of color.” And $7.5 billion is devoted to a mission to “land the first woman and person of color on the moon,” in a budget that mentions “equity” and its derivatives more than 100 times.

Instead of focusing on the immense space-based implications of Russia’s being severed from the international order, effectively ending most international cooperation in scientific endeavors, Biden’s team is focused more on race than on the space race.

Instead of asking why the rocket that will carry said astronauts was five years late and eight times more expensive than its original cost estimate, Biden’s team is distracting from such concerns by talking about gender and skin color.

The desire for diverse astronauts isn’t new: Back in 1961, during the space race against the Soviet Union, former broadcast journalist and U.S. Information Agency director Edward Murrow suggested to NASA administrator James Webb, “Why don’t we put the first non-white man in space?”

But the idea of prioritizing diversity above all else when selecting astronauts and making it the mission’s reason for being is so ridiculous that it was parodied a decade ago by the comedic movie Iron Sky. In that film, a black male model is sent to the moon with absolutely no background befitting an actual astronaut, but solely for his looks and ability to garner votes for the incumbent president of the United States in an upcoming election. The identity politics–focused campaign is called “Black to the Moon” and culminates in electoral banners being unfurled on the lunar surface.

In a similar vein, in the first season of Netflix’s workplace comedy show Space Force, a qualified astronaut suffers embarrassment when she accidentally deflects focus from her career and onto her racial background by making the gaffe, “It’s good to be black on the Moon,” when she meant to say, “It’s good to be back on the Moon.” And in the 2019 Apple+ TV show For All Mankind, an alternative history in which the Soviets won the space race, one NASA astronaut character complains of “going to PR events as the token black girl,” and worries that she was chosen for a moon mission because of her race.

When even liberal Hollywood is parodying progressives’ obsession with astronauts’ skin color, Poe’s Law is dead.

Instead of trying to win over progressives with an identity politics-centered moon mission, NASA should revert to focusing on its core goal: furthering our understanding of space. But in a repeat of the controversy that Biden created when he announced that he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court and remove any otherwise qualified candidates from consideration, Biden’s NASA seems intent on placing undue emphasis on astronauts’ precise demographic characteristics.

The identity politics takeover of space exploration is not limited to countering alleged sexism and racism, but also what activists see as ableism and transphobia in the space community. In Europe, space programs encourage individuals with serious physical disabilities to apply to be astronauts in the name of inclusivity. Initiatives like the Out Astronaut Project sponsored by the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences and NASA’s LGBTQ Special Emphasis Program focus on promoting astronauts who identify as sexual minorities.

One wonders if progressives will also one day seek to fight purported fatphobia within space agencies and demand the relaxation of fitness requirements to support morbidly obese astronauts.

Turning the moon into the latest stage for identity politics not only subverts critical meritocracy, but also harms the reputation of science in the public eye and distracts from the central mission of space exploration.

NASA isn’t limiting its identity-politics obsession to the moon, either. The space agency’s “Mission Equity” agenda will refocus agency resources toward “Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities . . .”

This identity-politics myopia directly contrasts with the more effective space policy of the prior administration, which refocused NASA on space exploration, increasing the budget from $19.65 billion in 2017 to $23.3 billion in 2021 to prepare the space agency for a mission to return astronauts to the moon by 2024 and to send humans to Mars.

NASA now promotes “gender inclusive language,” moving away from terms like “manned” and “unmanned,” which some activists claim are rife with bigotry. Former vice president Mike Pence took a less symbolic and more practical approach to supporting female astronauts, noting that when landing a woman on the moon, it is “imperative that NASA and our private-sector partners lean in clear-eyed and account for the unique differences and challenges that men and women face in space exploration.” (For example, research suggests that male astronauts experience more severe symptoms of spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, and female astronauts are more vulnerable to radiation-induced cancer, lowering their permissible radiation exposure limits). In his outgoing message, Trump’s former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine urged his successors to eschew ideological distractions and focus on meritocratic mission accomplishment.

Astronauts themselves often resent the attention placed on their sex or minority status. In 2019, Marsha Ivins, who flew five space-shuttle missions, penned an essay for Time titled, “I’m a Retired Female Astronaut and I Can’t Understand the Obsession With ‘Gender Diverse’ Space Crews.” The essay concludes with an implied appeal for the country’s next moon mission not to plant any other flag besides the American flag — such as the “Intersectional Pride Flag” — on the lunar surface. Astronaut Judith Resnik, who made the ultimate sacrifice for space exploration in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, famously stated, “I am an astronaut. Not a woman astronaut. Not a Jewish astronaut. An astronaut.”

The next American to walk on the moon should inspire pride in all of us. And it shouldn’t matter what that hero’s demographic profile might be.