In April 2026, NASA successfully completed its Artemis II mission that saw humans fly by the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The operation spawned numerous rumors about space, what occurred and the politics around the mission.
One such claim credited the planning of the project to former U.S. President Joe Biden's administration. For example, one Facebook user posted a meme (archived) featuring a photo of Biden standing with the four astronauts who crewed the Artemis II mission. Text beneath the picture read, "The Artemis crew with President Biden, whose administration planned the mission. In case the felon tries to take credit" — referring to President Donald Trump.
(Facebook user Erik Pedersen)
Numerous social media users posted iterations of the rumor on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. One Instagram user wrote, in part, "Let's not forget who set the Artemis II lunar trip into motion, President Biden." The official Democrats Facebook page also posted the same photo and said it depicted "how it all started."
In short, planning for the Artemis missions, including Artemis II, began before Biden took office. The astronauts for the operation were selected during his administration, but it would be incorrect to say their selection was "how it all started." Therefore, we've rated this claim false.
Snopes contacted NASA to ask what it considers to be the "start" of the Artemis missions and whether any single administration can be credited for planning the missions, in particular Artemis II. We will update this article if we receive a response.
Initial Artemis plans
In August 2019, during Trump's first administration, NASA hosted a webpage for its "Moon to Mars" project. This page dated the start of the initiative to 2017 and named the Artemis missions as its first step towards that goal.
A timeline on that NASA page set target dates for Artemis I, II and III as 2020, 2022 and 2024, respectively. Artemis I was to be an uncrewed lunar test flight, Artemis II was planned to take astronauts around the moon and Artemis III was set to land astronauts on the moon to explore its southern pole.
These same goals for the Artemis missions were also described in a NASA slideshow originally published in May 2019. While it lacked dates, the ninth slide spelled out that Artemis II would have the "First humans to orbit the Moon in the 21st century."
While the Artemis missions have missed the target dates set in the above timeline, the first two have followed through on those initial plans. Artemis I took place late in 2022 as an uncrewed lunar flight test and Artemis II occurred in April 2026, seeing the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.
Subsequent operations will not match the 2019 plan or timeline. As of this writing, Artemis III is set to be a crewed flight in low-Earth orbit to test one or two landers for astronauts to later use to get to the moon's surface, while Artemis IV plans to land humans on the moon's surface to explore its southern pole.
Selecting Artemis II crew
Two major steps in the eventual selection of the Artemis II crew took place in late 2020, while Trump was still in office and Biden was president-elect.
First, in November, the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty regarding cooperation on the construction of an orbiting lunar "gateway" that would support future moon landings. In March 2026, days before Artemis II's launch, NASA announced it had paused plans for the gateway; however, the 2020 treaty guaranteed a seat on Artemis II for at least one astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency.
Then, in December 2020, NASA announced it had selected 18 astronauts for the "Artemis Team." At the time, the agency planned to select crew members for the initial missions from this team. That same month, NASA named Reid Wiseman as the new chief of its Astronaut Office.
In April 2021, soon after Biden entered office, he referenced the 18-person Artemis Team when he expressed support for NASA's Artemis program and committed to the space agency's "mission to return to the moon and send astronauts to Mars." At the time, the Biden administration appeared to be following the Trump administration's plans, expecting Artemis I's launch for later that year and pursuing a crewed moon landing for 2024.
Selecting the Artemis II crew from the 2020 Artemis Team appeared to be NASA's plan until an Aug. 5, 2022, Artemis I mission briefing, during which Wiseman said that any one of the space agency's 42 active astronauts was eligible to be on the Artemis II crew. Wiseman stepped down from his Astronaut Office chief role in November 2022, making himself eligible for spaceflights.
NASA selected the four-person crew for the Artemis II mission in April 2023: Wiseman as commander, Victor Glover as pilot and Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen as mission specialists. Glover and Koch were among the 18 Artemis Team astronauts. Hansen was Canada's representative.
The crew met with Biden in December 2023, when the photo shared in the social media posts was taken. At that time, NASA was targeting late 2024 for the Artemis II launch.
Artemis origins
Although the Artemis program officially began during Trump's first term in office, it has roots in NASA initiatives from the two preceding administrations.
The NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which became law when George W. Bush was president, directed the agency to establish a program that would "develop a sustained human presence on the moon," manage space flight programs tasked with returning Americans to the moon by 2020 and enable humans to land on Mars.
NASA's f
The 2010 NASA Authorization Act, signed into law by then-President Barack Obama, put an end to the Bush-era program to return astronauts to the moon. However, the bill still set the agency a goal of "expand[ing] permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit."
To help NASA achieve this goal, the 2010 law also directed the space agency to develop a rocket called the "Space Launch System" and a spacecraft, based on the previous Orion project, that could travel on the launch vehicle.
Orion and Space Launch System may sound familiar; they're used in the Artemis missions. Artemis I was an uncrewed test of Orion's first launch atop the Space Launch System and Artemis II was the first crewed launch of Orion atop the system.
An April 2026 Congressional Research Service report said the spacecraft and rocket used in the Artemis program had been in development since the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.