A Sky News correspondent used the Artemis II launch to take a shot at the Apollo program, suggesting the original moon missions fell short of representing humanity because the astronauts were all white men.
During live coverage of the April 1 launch, science correspondent Thomas Moore responded to Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s declaration that the crew was going “for all humanity” by adding a racial caveat, according to a Sky News broadcast. The mission successfully launched in the minutes after his comments.
“Yeah, and they are going for all humanity this time, you know. Apollo was all white men and this time it’s not,” Moore said. “And I think that really speaks volumes for the journey that NASA has been on. This is a much more representative crew, and you can feel emotional about that.”
GB News chief U.S. correspondent Ben Leo fired back on X. “They are courageous heroes of humanity. No one, not even them, cares about skin colour or gender. Just put a sock in it,” Leo wrote in a post responding to Moore’s remarks. (RELATED: NASA’s Artemis II Launches On Mission Aiming To Go Farther Than Man Has Gone Before)
The backlash extended beyond Leo. Comedian John Cleese offered a sardonic jab on X, writing, “That’s what [sic] I really dislike about the battle of Agincourt. The total lack of diversity, especially among the archers.”
Moore’s framing ignored a well-known piece of Apollo history. The Apollo 11 crew left a plaque on the lunar surface in 1969 that read, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, the first black crew member assigned to a lunar mission, argued that it seeing non-white and female astronauts could inspire others but also pushed back on reducing the mission to a story about identity, according to the Union-Bulletin. “I also hope we are pushing the other direction. That one day we don’t have to talk about these firsts, that one day this is just … human history,” Glover said.
In 2025, NASA spent millions on DEI contracts and diversity training under former President Joe Biden’s administration, OpenTheBooks reported