New Delhi: NASA is planning to put the first woman, it announced on the occasion of International Women's Day, and the first person of colour on the Moon by 2026. The first woman head of NASA's human spaceflight programme Kathryn Lueders told NDTV the same while discussing the US space agency's historic Artemis 3 programme, NDTV reported.
"I'll set us up to be able to put boots on the Moon, the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon...When we land on the Moon, it's going to be a female," NDTV quoted Lueders.
The Artemis 3 programme is planning to send a human crew to the lunar surface after 53 years.
Lueders said that Artemis 3 would take the crewed crafts and attaches to the SpaceX man landing system before it lands the whole crew on the Moon. NASA is aiming for 2025-26 as the timeline for Artemis 3.
The former president of the US, Donald Trump, had aimed the probe for 2024. However, Lueders is optimistic that the space agency is progressing forward with the mission.
Lueders then said about the challenges of being at the top position of the programme. She said that getting ready for the launch of the Artemis 1 vehicle was very tough. The various hurdles that arose before the launch made her colleagues disappointed, and it was only the third time they were able to launch it, she said.
She said that once NASA was called a boys club, and it is not like that anymore. There were many women deputy administrators, and she added that when they get a woman administrator, it would also be great.
Lueders has been the head of the exhaustive testing programme at NASA.