The following continues a conversation held on February 3, 2026—three days before the originally scheduled launch of Artemis II.
Daniel: I think what ultimately happens with the moon will be far more complex than we can imagine. There are certain things you can predict—you can see where this trail leads, you can see where that trail leads—but the immense potential of what lies between those trails, you can never predict.
You and I both grew up on “Star Trek,” a show famous for its positive futuristic outlook. The parallel of you comparing the staking of territory on the moon to the Oklahoma Sooners is that when Gene Roddenberry first pitched his idea to studios, he described it as “It’s ‘Wagon Train’ to the stars.” Space expansion has all the same human drama and challenges and conflicts and victories that were part of that westward expansion. It’s not a stretch to again say “pioneer” and “explorer,” because those same motivations that drove us then are still driving us now.
Star Trek and Wagon Train. (Courtesy of Desilu Productions and Revue Studios)
I also think we’re going to find many of the same conflicts and challenges. What do we want to be as a humanity? Can we set some of the old things aside? Can we work together? Maybe it wasn’t so easy in the ’60s, but can we do it now? Let’s find out. Let’s at least give ourselves the chance to find out.
In the ’80s when everything was about the Mir and the ISS, was there even talk about going back to the moon, or had the focus entirely shifted? If we weren’t talking about going back to the moon anytime soon, was the technology part of the reason we weren’t? And now that we are talking about it, is it the improvements that have made it an easier conversation to have?
John: That’s a tough question.
We talked about the Apollo flights. Apollo 17 was the last one to land on the moon. An additional Saturn V was used to launch Skylab. NASA still had two more Saturn Vs built and ready for launch to the moon that would have become Apollo 18 and 19, but they were canceled and never flew. Pieces of each of those two flight-ready rockets are at NASA Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center, by the way.
Apollo 17’s Saturn V launch vehicle at pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, 1972. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Apollo was canceled because the costs were too high. The technology was there because we did it successfully six times and successfully landed 12 people on the moon. Then in 1972, Apollo was canceled, and the Space Shuttle was born. They thought it would be cheaper and create a robust space operations capability closer to Earth to enable space stations as the “next logical step.”
The bad part about canceling Apollo is we lost all of the technology to get manned missions to the moon and back.
As soon as you stop making Saturn Vs and lunar landers and Apollo capsules, you have to start from scratch again. That’s where this thing has fallen apart. Nearly 60 years later, no human has set foot on the moon or traveled there—at least not yet. The U.S. and China are both close.
The author, Daniel Sanchez, standing at the base of an unused Saturn V first-stage Rocketdyne F-1 engines on display at Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. (Photo: Daniel Sanchez)
When I got on at NASA in 1987, we were still pushing for Mars. George Bush was the president in 1988 when he made a recommendation to go to Mars. His initiative was you’d start with some lunar flights, and Mars would be the ultimate goal. Exactly what Elon Musk is trying to do today. But the bill came back at $500 billion because somebody gave an honest answer. And when somebody said $500 billion in 1988 dollars (roughly $1.37 trillion today), it got canceled. It didn’t go anywhere. So that’s been the stigma.
The problem with Apollo, like I said, and you sort of mentioned with the “Wagon Train” thing, is it’s more like putting in the railroad in the 1860s. The gold rush is what drove that.
Initially, all of those people were on stagecoaches trying to get to California. This was risky business. There were Indian attacks, mountains in the way, and it took months to get there. There were things like Donner Pass, where people died. But eventually the railroad was completed from the East Coast to the West Coast. Once that was in place, the “rush” truly happened, because now there was a way to get to California that was safe, reliable, and much faster.
Wagon train braving harsh conditions in Seger Colony, Oklahoma Territory, ca. 1886. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons), Workers digging the Union Pacific’s Deep Cut no.1 through Weber Canyon, Utah, 1868. (Courtesy of Utah Historical Society), Railroad workers lay ties and rails by hand. (Courtesy of Nebraska State Historical Society), Comfortable railroad passenger car, ca. 1875. (Courtesy of McCord Museum), Map of railroads in use by 1890. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
That’s what we’re trying to accomplish this time around on the moon. Put in the infrastructure with the rocket, the spacecraft, the lander…and ensure a sound supply chain to get supplies up and down like a railroad.
NASA Gateway will provide an outpost from the Earth to the moon and back, where you can exchange supplies and bring critical minerals and hardware built on the moon back to use on Earth. It will also become a critical stopping point for preparation for lunar surface missions, and to keep the landers parked when humans are not going down to the surface.
Gateway Lunar Space Station capabilities (Courtesy of NASA), Artist concepts of future moon bases. Top right: “Lunar Habitation,” 2012. (Courtesy of ESA / Foster + Partners). Bottom right: Project Olympus, a proposed lunar city designed to build critical infrastructure on the Moon using 3D-printing technologies. (Courtesy of SEArch+)
We could put heavy industry (like oil/gas production) on the moon, where it doesn’t do damage on Earth to the environment that we all depend upon for survival.
But we must have that integrated supply chain capability to get people and products to and from the Earth and the moon, and eventually to Mars as well. NASA and other government agencies must make that happen, with commercialization following, to build a cislunar economy along the way. We have to put in a moon version of the railroad to enable a permanent presence on the moon and Mars.
Once the space version of the railroad is built, then people can stay permanently and colonize the new Jamestown.
Right now, all eyes are on the moon’s South Pole. The reason is water. Since its large South Pole craters never see sunlight, the ice doesn’t melt. It’s there just waiting for humans to mine and drink. So if you want to prevent having to drag lots and lots of water from the Earth to the moon, use the water that’s already on the moon to keep the people alive.
Distribution of surface ice at the moon’s south pole (L) and north pole (R). Blue represents the ice locations. The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. (Courtesy of NASA)
That’s why we’re trying to go to the moon. All these reasons. It’s different this time. We even say “this time to stay.”
There’s the Golden Dome effort, where we’re trying to protect the United States homeland with something like what Israel has. The goal is to put nuclear reactor capability on the moon so you can have power. Right now, power is only with solar panels, and like I mentioned earlier, the moon is only facing the sun for twelve and a half days. About half the time of a 30-day period it’s all dark. Solar panels don’t do you any good if they’re not seeing the sun. But if you can implement a power capability with nuclear, it doesn’t matter where the sun is.
There are military reasons too, but I always like the civil reason.
The main part of this is to give us the ability to get off planet Earth so that if anything ever goes bad, we still have a way to save the species and regrow. Not to be a downer, but those kinds of things have to be considered.
Then learn and use that knowledge for Mars, so we can make that work. As you know, Mars has an atmosphere. You can terraform it. You can turn it into a planet like Earth a lot easier than the moon, since the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere.
But that’s what’s different about why now and not then—all these things that came down to cost, to answer your question.
During Apollo we were getting 4% of the gross national product. Then it went down to zero. Right now we’re at 0.48%, which is a lot less money than we used to get. So you have to make your money go longer. That’s where commercialization comes in with guys like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Daniel: That makes total historical sense. For any revolution—the industrial revolution, computerization—the driver is commercialization. The advances that come from those wouldn’t happen if not for the potential reward that was reliable enough for those investors to invest their money, their equipment, and their years of R&D. Just like in pharmaceuticals, you don’t go into that unless you feel you’ll get out more than you put in.
John: Right.
Daniel: Let’s help people understand what Artemis II is, what Artemis III is, and what Gateway is.
For people who may be very new to this, Artemis II is the first time that we are sending human astronauts back to the moon since 1972. They will not land. They will perform a figure-eight free-return trajectory, like what Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 did to return safely. Artemis II will go further from Earth than any Apollo flight.
These four astronauts will have the incredible distinction of going the farthest humans have ever gone away from the Earth and returned.
Artemis II flight path, the crew of Artemis II. (Courtesy of NASA)
For Artemis III, we’ll send some support/test missions first, plus equipment that will be there for the crew when they land that they can use to make their life easier, then send the first human crew since Apollo to land on the moon.
Future moon missions, Artemis IV and beyond, will include the NASA Gateway, lunar landers, and supply missions.
Mission goals through Artemis V. (Courtesy of NASA)
For those Artemis IV and beyond missions, John, you are the NASA Gateway Vehicle Integrated Systems Integration Lead.
John: Yes, that’s my main job.
Daniel: So I would love to hear—and I realize this is my inner child just being really excited to think that I get to experience now what I wanted to experience then, which is to talk to someone who is living and breathing “the new” of space exploration, the guy in the room at the head of the table…
Tell us about Gateway.
And how it could change the course of all our existence.
On April 6, 2026, at 1:56 EST, Artemis II surpassed the record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet. They were congratulated by Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, who recorded a message for the crew before he passed away in August, 2025.
NEXT: In the conclusion of this exclusive interview, John reveals the goals for Artemis III and IV, what we can all do to help, and how Gateway is the door to a new reality for humanity.
“Imagine a stable platform that provides a place for people to move back and forth from Earth to Gateway to the moon and back again…like an outpost in the days of the stagecoach. That’s all going to happen. It’ll literally be a whole new world.”
