Carlos García-Galán, manager of NASA's Moon Base program, holds a FIFA World Cup 2026 soccer ball during a press event on June 30, 2026. He and NASA chief Jared Isaacman say they'll put such a ball on the moon if the U.S. men's soccer team wins the 2026 World Cup.
(Image credit: NASA)
Jared Isaacman is doing his best to spur his country on to sporting glory.The NASA chief announced on Tuesday (June 30) that the agency will send a FIFA World Cup 2026 soccer ball to the moon if the U.S. men's national team manages to win the tournament, which is going on right now."So, a little bit of motivation for the United States here on this one," Isaacman said during a livestreamed press event on Tuesday. "We're going to one-up Alan Shepard in the golf game on the lunar surface, and we're going to get the soccer ball there."Shepard famously smuggled two golf balls and an improvised club onto the Apollo 14 mission, which he commanded. On Feb. 6, 1971, the NASA astronaut hit those balls on the moon, becoming the first person ever to play a sport on another world.The soccer-ball plan, by contrast, would be a sanctioned affair; Isaacman and Carlos García-Galán, manager of NASA's Moon Base program, are both behind it."I don't know which lander it'll wind up going in," Isaacman said during Tuesday's event, the second of the agency's monthly updates about its plans to build a crewed outpost near the lunar south pole via its Artemis program.Turning to García-Galán, he added, "I'll leave that to you guys, to handle the payload.""We will take on that challenge," García-Galán replied. "It will be super exciting to do that if they win. Good luck."
