NASA is determined to land astronauts on the moon again. The agency wants to do it very soon, in mid-2027, an extremely ambitious timeline.
But in his inaugural address, President Donald Trump said “we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
He didn’t mention the moon.
The world’s premier space agency finds itself at a fork in the road. Which planetary body — the moon or Mars — will be central to its near-term spaceflight strategy?
Some clarity may come Wednesday when Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur picked by Trump to lead the space agency, is scheduled to testify at a much-awaited nomination hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Isaacman met with Cruz last week and, according to Cruz, committed to putting American astronauts on the moon. But it is unclear to what extent Isaacman supports the current NASA architecture that includes many lunar landings and a sustained presence there.
“Mr. Isaacman committed to having American astronauts return to the lunar surface ASAP so we can develop the technologies needed to go on to Mars. The moon mission MUST happen in President Trump’s term or else China will beat us there and build the first moon base,” Cruz wrote on X.
In prepared written testimony released Tuesday in advance of the hearing, Isaacman said: “As the President stated we will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars. Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic, and national security benefits of maintaining a presence on the lunar surface.”
An X factor for the agency is Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, one of NASA’s largest contractors, including $4 billion in agreements tied to the lunar program. Musk is also Trump’s freelancing force for shrinking and reshaping the federal government through the U.S. DOGE Service he oversees.
Musk said recently on X that he wants to send astronauts to Mars as soon as 2029. He has long dreamed of establishing a self-sustaining civilization on that nearly airless and seemingly lifeless desert world.
But Congress pays the bills, and Congress has invested heavily in Artemis, NASA’s lunar program. By statute, NASA is charged with creating a sustained human presence on the moon. The agency sees its lunar program as part of a stepping-stone approach that tests the technologies and practices that will enable an eventual Mars mission.
Isaacman has not been giving interviews in advance of his appearance at the hearing. Cruz’s office declined to respond to requests for comment.
Cruz has strong views about what NASA should be doing and is not shy about using his political leverage. Although NASA is an executive branch agency that answers to the White House, it traditionally has been tightly gripped by powerful senators with significant interests in aerospace.
Cruz’s state is home to a major NASA operation (Johnson Space Center in Houston) as well as a burgeoning commercial space sector. Cruz and five other senators, including Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Maria Cantwell (Washington), recently reintroduced a bipartisan bill, the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2025, that would keep major elements of Artemis largely intact.
“Absent some exceptional justification, there is not an appetite to stray from the current path in a significant way,” said a congressional aide who works on space issues and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for lawmakers. The authorization bill, the aide said, “is an effort to stay the course and really carry out the Artemis program as intended.”
That may not be what Trump wants, especially with Musk at his side. Musk has a close relationship with Isaacman, who has twice gone to space on privately funded SpaceX flights.
Musk also has advocated de-orbiting the International Space Station within the next two years, while NASA has said it would continue station operations through 2030. The space station is getting long in the tooth — construction began in 1998 — and its destiny is to make a guided, fiery reentry to the atmosphere, the fragments raining into the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area, also known as Point Nemo.
There are other voices that expect to be heard as NASA figures out its next steps. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are among the aerospace companies with large NASA contracts and significant lobbying muscle. NASA has centers and major contractors across the country and many friends in statehouses. The Artemis program also has many international partners.
Trump himself started the lunar program during his first year in office, in 2017, and two years later it was named Artemis, goddess of the moon in Greek mythology and the twin sister of Apollo. Artemis survived the transition to the Biden administration.
Artemis is seen as a fundamental element of what is turning into Space Race 2.0. The primary goal is to put Americans near the resource-rich lunar South Pole before China gets there. China has said it intends to reach the moon by 2030, and its aspirations are one reason many NASA observers expect the lunar program to remain robust.
“So let me get this straight: We’re going to cede the moon, its resources … to China?” asked a former NASA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
NASA in 2019 aimed for a crewed landing on the moon in 2024, 52 years after the last Apollo mission. But the timetable slipped. In December, the outgoing NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, set the new target date at mid-2027, but that does not look plausible.
“The schedule is completely unrealistic for a mid-2027 launch,” said a veteran NASA supervisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the agency.
The lunar program has benefited from massive government investment — nearing $100 billion and counting, according to a NASA inspector general’s report. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket has flown once, uncrewed, on the mission dubbed Artemis I. Artemis II will be a crewed flight around the moon and back.
Artemis III is the big event, the landing. But a key element of the third Artemis mission architecture is far from complete: The human landing system, in development by SpaceX under a NASA contract.
The SLS rocket (built by Boeing) will send four astronauts in the Orion capsule (built by Lockheed Martin) to lunar orbit. Then two astronauts will transfer to another vehicle, a modified SpaceX Starship, that is supposed to take them to the surface and later back to lunar orbit. Orion will transport them back to Earth.
But no human has ever flown on Starship. The last two Starship launches ended in fiery explosions (“rapid unscheduled disassembly” in aerospace-speak) over the Caribbean.
Under its NASA contract, SpaceX is required to successfully land an uncrewed Starship on the moon first.
So: Will NASA keep Artemis intact? What will happen to the SLS rocket, a costly, throwback piece of hardware that isn’t reusable?
If confirmed, Isaacman faces multiple challenges beyond the moon-Mars debate. The president’s budget request for NASA could entail significant cuts. The scientific community is particularly worried about the agency’s roughly $7.5 billion science portfolio.
And although NASA has not been hit by layoffs and downsizing as much as many agencies, about 5 percent of the workforce chose the “fork in the road” buyout offered by the Trump administration and left the agency this winter.
Cruz has come under pressure to speed up the nomination process. On March 21, a group of 28 former astronauts sent a letter to Cruz and Cantwell urging them to hold a confirmation hearing for Isaacman “as soon as practical.” A group of Republican governors also wrote to Cruz seeking a rapid confirmation.
Because it has long enjoyed bipartisan support, NASA usually weathers changes in administrations with only modest disruptions. That has not been the case this time.
The agency rushed to respond to a long list of executive orders from Trump, including his order to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. On March 10, NASA abolished several teams at its Washington headquarters: the Office of the Chief Scientist; the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy; and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
Until earlier this month, NASA included a diversity statement on webpages describing Artemis: “NASA will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.”
“In accordance with an executive order signed by President Trump, NASA is updating its language to better reflect the core mission of the Artemis campaign: returning astronauts to the lunar surface,” Bethany Stevens, NASA’s press secretary, said in an email.
NASA has not yet selected the crew for the first lunar landing or subsequent missions.
Amid the turmoil, NASA employees say they remain committed to their missions. And on March 21, Janet Petro, the agency’s acting administrator, offered a pep talk to her workforce via email:
“We may not control every decision, but we do control how we show up, adapt, and bring our best to the work ahead. I’ve seen this team do just that — facing uncertainty with resilience, supporting one another, and delivering on NASA’s mission. In moments like these, in the face of uncertainty, we don’t just endure — we rise.”
