NASA has dropped its plan to put the first woman and person of colour on the moon to comply with US President Donald Trump’s recent directive to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices at federal agencies. The space agency has deleted the DEI promise from its 2027 Artemis mission statement, according to a report in The Guardian.
The landing page of NASA’s Artemis mission website previously included the statement: “NASA will land the first woman, first person of colour, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.”
The new version completely omits the mention of the DEI astronauts and reads: “With NASA’s Artemis campaign, we are exploring the Moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars.”
NASA’s long-standing promise was central to its Artemis programme which hopes to send humanity back to the Moon’s surface in 2027 for the first time since the Apollo mission in 1972.
NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel confirmed the development, stating that the agency was keeping in line “with the president’s executive order”.
“We’re updating our language regarding plans to send crew to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign,” said
“We look forward to learning more from [and] about the Trump administration’s plans for our agency and expanding exploration at the moon and Mars for the benefit of all.”
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Ever since it became evident that Donald Trump was returning to the White House, several US companies have rolled back their DEI policies amid criticism from conservatives. The likes of Google, Meta, Amazon and McDonalds have either entirely scrapped or dramatically scaled back their DEI programmes.
Last week, the US Department of Defense removed thousands of articles about the Holocaust, 9/11 terrorist attacks, cancer awareness and sexual assault among others from Pentagon websites as the department adhered to the president’s order to scrub “diversity” content from all its platforms.
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