A group of former NASA astronauts are banding together with a new organization called “Astronauts for America.”
“Our country is the mission,” their tagline reads. And in speaking with co-founder NASA astronaut Ron Garan, it is clear how serious they are about this mission. “We need to come together as a crew and nudge the trajectory of our nation back onto a course that’s leading to a better future,” Garan told Space.com. “As astronauts, we’re trained that when we see something that’s wrong, we speak up and we fix it.”
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So where did this all come from?
“There’s been a steady erosion of adherence to constitutional norms,” Garan said. “And there’s been an erosion of rule and law following.”
These concerns are shared by other organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which has stated growing concerns of violations of the U.S. Constitution by lawmakers.
Garan’s concerns also extend to an observed trend in recent years of distrust in science.
“There’s been a steady erosion of people with political power either ignoring or suppressing scientific evidence […] we need to make sure that people are using facts and evidence,” Garan added.
This trend has seen political decisions which do not align with scientific evidence, such as legislation concerning vaccines and climate change. Even long-debunked myths in science such as the conspiracy that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked (hint: it wasn’t) as well as UFO conspiracies have seen a resurgence in popularity. Across the board, this divide between science and public or political opinion has continued to grow.
How to protect the Constitution
To take on defending the U.S. Constitution, the group plans to first raise awareness through public platforms like social media. They further plan to meet with members of Congress, “to urge them to use their constitutional powers to ensure checks and balances,” Garan said.
“We are going to support leaders publicly that use data and science in policy making,” he added. “And what we really want to do is build community, because what the main objective of this organization is to unify the American people around this idea that we are greater than the sum of the parts […] if we work together as crewmates, as we do on space missions, we can steer the trajectory of our nation to a future where we will all thrive.”
One main facet of the group’s approach is that it is an explicitly nonpartisan organization, so astronaut members are not affiliated with any specific political party; rather they are together focused on supporting a constitutional government. As Garan described, astronauts are taught to fix incredibly challenging problems, and to do so when it comes to the U.S. government, “we have to work together despite any differences we might have.”
“When we see things from two different perspectives, we see it in stereoscopic vision,” he added. “We start to see the depth of a solution. So one of the reasons why bringing in all this diversity of perspective is so important is because it leads to better solutions.”
This isn’t the first time that NASA astronauts have tangled with politics. There have been many astronauts who became politicians or vice versa, for example. Former NASA administrator Bill Nelson was in politics before becoming an astronaut, while currently we have former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly serving as a senator for Arizona.
Because this is a private, activist organization, current employees of the U.S. government cannot participate, so you won’t see any current astronauts or astronauts-turned-politicians as members. However, even though current astronauts cannot participate directly, it is possible that the awe inspired by NASA’s recent Artemis 2 mission around the moon could play an indirect role in the group’s ultimate goal, Garan shared.
“The Artemis 2 mission filled the world, not only the nation, with awe and wonder,” Garan said. “And when we build things on wonder, it naturally opens the mind. It brings down the defenses, it puts fear on the back burner and it allows us to have rational conversations about how to really solve our problems.”
