US President Donald Trump has praised Indian-origin NASA astronaut Anil Menon and fellow astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway as “great Americans, great patriots, brave people” during a call with the International Space Station (ISS), and invited the crew to the Oval Office after their return to Earth.
Trump spoke to the astronauts on Friday from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he lauded their courage and said he would not undertake a space mission himself.
“I just want to thank Jessica, Anil, Jack, great Americans, great patriots, brave people,” Trump said during the call.
Menon, a colonel in the US Space Force, told Trump that he was proud to serve in space and described a spacewalk he completed the previous week.
“Last week, I got the great honor of doing a spacewalk and got to look at the space station from the robotic arm and saw the incredible ingenuity that we are capable of,” Menon said.
He also expressed enthusiasm about the US preparing for missions beyond low-Earth orbit, including future journeys to the Moon, a potential Moon base and Mars.
“We are going to pave the way to our next journey to the Moon, Moon Base and Mars,” Menon said.
The conversation came after Trump announced plans for a US Space Academy, which he said would be established at a level comparable to the country’s leading service academies, including West Point and the US Air Force Academy.
Menon’s wife, Anna Menon, also joined Trump at the space centre and briefly spoke to the astronauts.
Trump highlighted the importance of the US Space Force, saying space-based intelligence had become increasingly important to military operations and would gain further significance with technological advances.
Hathaway, a US Naval Academy graduate, said the institution would be ready to support the proposed Space Academy. Meir said the crew was carrying out several spacewalks and preparing for another.
Trump ended the call by inviting the astronauts to the Oval Office after their return and asking them to remain safe.
Menon was born and raised in Minneapolis to Indian and Ukrainian immigrant parents. NASA selected him for its 2021 astronaut candidate class after he worked as SpaceX’s first flight surgeon and as a NASA crew flight surgeon supporting ISS missions.
He launched aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft on July 14 alongside cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. NASA has said the crew is expected to spend about eight months aboard the orbital laboratory, conducting research and technology demonstrations before returning to Earth in April 2027.
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