Yeah,

other than that.

But it's not going to go to us.

It's not going to the people.

There will be a few businessmen who make money.

Look, Venezuela is a total train wreck.

I worked in the oil and gas industry.

We got a couple minutes.

I may go in September, but I'm, I'm trying to figure out if I can make that schedule work.

Yeah.

I, you know, I love Ukraine.

I'm not Ukrainian.

I, I don't have a Ukrainian wife.

Like, I...

The only connection I have there is these people are fighting for freedom, and that's, that's my passion, and I love it.

Yeah.

Um, but NASA targeting a Moon landing in early 2028, do you think that's a realistic timeline?

Uh, that's gonna be a tough timeline.

They have to, you know, launch.

There's two different lunar lander contractors, basically Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, SpaceX and Blue Origin.

And so they have to build their, uh, landers.

They have to test them.

Uh, Elon's, uh, SpaceX's lander requires refueling, so they have to verify that technology.

What do we need to learn about the Moon before s- the conversation about a, a lunar base on its surface can really take place for real?

How, how would you rate this mission? What are you looking at, forward to hearing about from the astronauts?

Well, this, this mission was an A plus.

I mean, this was so exciting.

There's been a lot of bad news recently, and this is definitely a huge bright spot.

Uh, they said that Apollo 8 saved 1968 and maybe some ways Artemis II will, will save 2026.

I can't wait to hear what it was like to ride that capsule back.

Very, very quickly if, if we can, Colonel, Colonel Virts, what's, for you, what, what's the high point of this?

Well, so I think the human inspiration that everybody's been talking about.

Despite that, do you, do you have concerns about the unknown risks here related to the heat shield?

You know, uh, there's always the concern when you're landing, but I feel confident in this.

I have a friend who, a fellow astronaut, who was part of that investigation team, he dove into the details.

He's a highly trained engineer, and he looked at it and he was comfortable with it.

So on the first unmanned test a few years ago, the capsule came back at a very low angle and it kind of skipped off the atmosphere, and it spent a long time in that high speed, high heat, uh, period.

And what they're doing now is they're coming back steeper.

So it'll be a quicker descent into the Earth's atmosphere.

Try and explain that to people.

And how are you going to know when it's successful? Is there a certain point after launch where you think it's a go, where it's going to happen?

Yeah, we call it main engine cutoff, MECO.

So there's a couple big milestones.

When the two big white solid rocket motors come off, that's a good sign.

That's a good milestone.

And then... uh when the there's an escape hatch um or not hatch like a rocket that's going to separate when that thing separates that's another good milestone okay and then when you finally get into orbit and all the rockets shut down that's kind of a that's another big milestone they also have things they call black zones or abort zones where if the engines you know if you lose an engine you you can come back to earth safely, but that'll be no, you're not really going to know what's going on with that.

Cause those are complicated, uh, kind of backroom calls.

thing about the moon

What sorts of experiments or advancements were in the works while you were on board?

board?When I was there, my crew, it was Expedition 42 and 43, uh, we did 250 different experiments.

So, basically anything you can study in university here on Earth, we had experiments in space.

Um, some of them were just, like a small box you plug in and you never saw it again.

The, the data went down to the scientists and you didn't know what was going on.

One of them was something called rodent research.

We had mice up there, uh, and NASA did this for years.

Uh, what do you think this change in strategy means for the US's space-fearing future?

my kids want to be youtubers how do we build a society in a world where our kids want to do that kind

of stuff again part of the problem is you know video games and ai and stuff you can actually see everything you know that you can experience things online it's like you don't have to do them in real life i'd rather do things in real life than online a friend of mine raise two teenagers without devices or anything.

And you can do that for eight year olds, but man, by the time you're in high school.

Yeah, it's hard.

And they made it a deal like, you'll get a car, you'll get this and that, but they literally, and these kids, I sat down for lunch and they like, they looked at me And they had a conversation about meaningful adult things while looking at me for an entire lunch.

And it was like, oh, my God, you you raise these kids.

Great.

And so Texas has decided to respond to this existential threat by

Right.

Um, but if you're here illegally, look, if you're committing crimes, you need to be gone or put in jail here.

[laughs] Um, but if you're not committing crimes and you're working, like, we...

There's so many stories here in Houston, and you hear them in LA too.

There was just a mom who was taking her 18-year-old son who got a scholarship.

He, they were dropping him off at college- And ICE picked her up and he's, she's gone on, in a, one of these gulags.

And th- like, the people who are building our houses are getting rounded up from Home Depot parking lot, and the problem is we don't have enough houses in Texas.

Wow.

And so I'm curious, if you were to win this primary, and if you were to get elected to the Senate in 2026, would you vote for Schumer to be the leader of the Democrats?

Well, uh, first of all, one of my favorite parts about that launch video was that I was in a World War II, one of the very first World War II Jeeps, which was (laughs) a lot of fun to film, and in the space shuttle cockpit, to film a video there.

Uh, but the, the, the direct answer to your question is no. Um, the Democratic Party is in really bad shape right now, and this moment demands that we get in better shape.

We've got Donald Trump, and I say this very deliberately, he is a fascist, and he's taking this country down the path of fascism, and the only way to fight back against him is with a healthy Democratic Party.

And the party is anything but healthy.

And right now, you look at all of the numbers, every poll that comes out, Trump is unpopular.

He's historically unpopular on every issue, and the Democrats are worse on every issue.

Um, but I'm curious, like, what else do you think the party needs to do? Is it like having an open and honest conversation about how Joe Biden was allowed to, sort of run for re-election in the first place? Is it having m- you know, more frank assessments about where the party went wrong on working class voters? Like, d- what does that, uh, look like to you, um, more specifically?