Chance of alien life ‘goes to heart’ of s pace missions, Nasa chief says

from
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/05/alien-life-nasa-jared-isaacman-artemis-ii

Chance of alien life ‘goes to heart’ of space missions, Nasa chief says
Jared Isaacman says odds of evidence we are not alone are ‘pretty high’ 
four days after Artemis II rocket lifted off

  Nasa’s Orion spaceship four days into Artemis II mission: in pictures
Edward Helmore
Sun 5 Apr 2026 13.26 EDT
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The top official at Nasa says that the chance of alien existence is a 
factor in how the US space agency plans its missions.

Speaking on Sunday, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman told CNN’s Meet 
the Press that investigating the existence of alien life “goes to the 
heart of many things that we do at Nasa”, adding: “Our job here is to go 
out and try and unlock the secrets of the universe.”

The moon as seen from the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II mission 
on Friday.
Artemis II astronauts expected to reach far side of moon on Monday
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One of the questions, he said, is “are we alone? The question would say 
that is inherent in every one of our scientific endeavors, our 
exploration endeavors.”

Issacman pointed to a potential moon base on the south pole of the moon 
that would incorporate telescopes “that will help us continue this great 
search”.

But the official qualified his comments, offering that he had been to 
space twice and “didn’t encounter any aliens up there. I have not seen 
anything to suggest that we have been visited by any intelligent life 
forms out there.”


But, he added, “when you think about it, we got 2tn galaxies out there. 
Who knows how many star systems within each of it? I would say the odds 
that we will find something at some point to suggest that we are not 
alone are pretty high.”

Isaacman’s comments come four days into Nasa’s Artemis mission to 
circumnavigate the moon, the first lunar mission since 1972. The four 
crew members of the Orion spacecraft crew were closer to the moon, at 
110,700 miles (178,000km), than to Earth, at 169,000 miles, when they 
woke up on Saturday.

woman looks out window at planet Earth
View image in fullscreen
In an image provided by Nasa, astronaut and Artemis II mission 
specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s 
main cabin windows as the crew travels towards the moon on Thursday. 
Photograph: AP

The capsule will loop around the moon’s far side, a milestone that will 
occur on Monday evening, and slingshot back toward Earth where it is 
expected to arrive on Friday.

Nasa has said it was able to fix the spacecraft’s $30m, titanium 
vacuum-based Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) toilet to normal 
operations. The crew had reported a blinking fault light on the system, 
which requires headphones to use, and uses suction to separate waste, 
venting urine into space and storing fecal matter in canisters for 
return to Earth.

Isaacman addressed the issue on Sunday, saying: “Throughout the history 
of human spaceflight, so going from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo program, 
to shuttle, to Mir and International Space Station to Dragon, which I 
flew on, and, of course, Orion, the toilet working is almost a bonus 
capability.”

He added that of all the “extraordinary things in space right now”, a 
working bathroom remains elusive. “Nailing this capability is one that 
we need to certainly work on I will say we build in a lot of backups,” 
Isaacman said, pointing to different vent lines to jettison urine.

“Even when we have an issue with some freezing on the primary, the 
secondary has been working. So, believe me, the astronauts, they’re OK 
right now, and they were well prepared for the situation,” he said.

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