You don't have to leave Spain to work in space anymore
García-Galán directs construction of NASA's first permanent lunar base, a phased project running through 2032 involving robotic missions, infrastructure development, and eventual human habitation modules. The project leverages international collaboration with ESA and other agencies, with European companies already contributing components; Spain's aerospace sector, particularly in Málaga, is experiencing significant growth.
- Carlos García-Galán, 51, from Vélez-Málaga, Spain, appointed to lead NASA's Moon Base program
- $20 billion investment over seven years to build permanent lunar base
- Three-phase construction: robotic missions (2026-2028), infrastructure (2029-2032), habitable modules (2032+)
- Artemis II test flight launching April 1, 2026, with four astronauts on 10-day lunar orbit mission
- Spanish and European companies already manufacturing components for Orion spacecraft
Carlos García-Galán, a 51-year-old engineer from Málaga, has been appointed to lead NASA's Moon Base program, a $20 billion initiative to establish permanent lunar habitation within seven years, with expected technological spinoffs benefiting Earth.
Carlos García-Galán was fifty-one years old and sitting in Florida when the news came through that he would lead NASA's Moon Base program—a seven-year, twenty-billion-dollar undertaking to plant humanity's first permanent settlement on another world. The engineer from Vélez-Málaga, a coastal town in southern Spain, was at Kennedy Space Center preparing for the launch of Artemis II, scheduled for April 1st, a test flight that would send four astronauts on a ten-day journey covering more than 1.1 million kilometers in a loop around the lunar surface.
The Artemis program itself represents a deliberate return to the Moon, but with a different purpose than the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s. This time, the goal is not to visit and leave, but to stay. García-Galán explained that the program aims to establish sustained, permanent exploration of the lunar surface—to learn what humanity needs to know before attempting the journey to Mars. That learning encompasses new technologies, operational and logistical knowledge, and scientific experiments that might unlock secrets of the solar system. The Moon Base is the capstone of this vision.
Artemis II itself serves as the final test of the Orion spacecraft. An earlier uncrewed test in 2022 had circled the Moon without astronauts aboard. This mission would put humans in the vehicle and test everything that keeps them alive: oxygen systems, carbon dioxide scrubbing, the ability to use the bathroom, to eat, to exercise, to manually control the spacecraft if needed. These seem like small things, but they are the difference between a spacecraft that works in theory and one that works when lives depend on it.
The construction of the lunar base will unfold in three phases. From now until 2028, robotic missions will establish reliable access to the Moon and test the technologies needed for permanent habitation. Between 2029 and 2032, the infrastructure will go up: solar panels, nuclear reactors, communication and navigation satellites, robots to prepare the terrain. By 2032 or so, the habitable modules will be installed and actual work on the base will begin. The location is the lunar south pole, where sunlight is scarce and horizontal. This scarcity creates a problem that will drive innovation. Solar panels alone will not suffice. Nuclear reactors will be necessary, and the technologies developed to power a lunar base in that harsh environment could eventually bring electricity to remote and inhospitable places on Earth.
What struck García-Galán most about his appointment was not just the engineering challenge, but the collaborative nature of it. The base will be built with the European Space Agency and other nations. Spanish companies, particularly in Málaga and the Basque Country, are already manufacturing components for the Orion spacecraft now sitting on the launch pad. The aerospace sector in Málaga has grown substantially. García-Galán himself keeps track of what is happening there—he knows people at DHV Technology, has attended their satellite forums, and tries to interact with students and companies when he returns home, even briefly.
He remembered what it was like to grow up in Vélez-Málaga, in the beach clubs of Torre del Mar and Nerja, when the idea of a Spanish engineer working at NASA seemed impossible, a fantasy. Now the landscape has shifted. Young people in Spain no longer need to leave the country to work on the space program. The work is happening in Europe, in Málaga, in Madrid, in the Basque Country. García-Galán wanted that understood. He wanted young people to know that if he could do it, they could too. The next twenty or thirty years will be filled with work—lunar bases, and perhaps, when today's schoolchildren are leading the projects, a base on Mars. The only requirement is interest. The moment to get involved, he said, has never been better.
Citas Notables
It's what NASA does: turn things that seem like science fiction into reality. The importance of this base is that it will give us the capacity, as humanity, to live and work on another planet.— Carlos García-Galán
You don't have to leave the US to work in the space program anymore. There's already a strong industry in Málaga. All it takes is interest.— Carlos García-Galán
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
You grew up in a small coastal town in Spain dreaming of being an astronaut. How did you end up leading NASA's lunar program instead?
I didn't become an astronaut, but I became something else—someone who gets to shape what astronauts will do when they arrive. That's its own kind of dream. The path wasn't linear. It was about staying curious, getting good at engineering, and being in the right place when the work needed doing.
The lunar base is going to cost twenty billion dollars over seven years. What makes you confident this is actually buildable?
We've done harder things. We went to the Moon in the 1960s with computers less powerful than a phone. The difference now is we're not doing it alone. The Europeans are in, other countries are in. And we're not trying to prove we can get there—we're trying to prove we can stay. That's a different problem, but it's solvable.
You mention nuclear reactors on the Moon. That sounds dangerous.
It sounds that way until you realize the alternative is no permanent base at all. The south pole gets almost no sunlight. Solar panels won't cut it. So yes, we develop reactors that work in that environment. And then those same reactors come back to Earth and solve problems we have here—powering remote places, places we can't easily reach. That's how space exploration works. You solve a hard problem up there, and it changes what's possible down here.
Do you ever regret not going to space yourself?
I'd love to go supervise the base when it's built. Who knows what happens in a few years? But I'm not waiting around for that. I'm building the thing. That's enough.